 During the Second Empire, he executed a full-length official sculpture of Napoleon III, which is still at Compiègne.In 1866 he was commissioned to provide a sculptural centrepiece for the Medici Fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg, one of the few survivals of Salomon de Brosse's gardens for Marie de Medici; the "nymphaeum" of rockwork in an architectural frame was being moved from its former location to make way for widening of a carriageway, part of Baron Haussmann's improvements.The result was his best-known work, "Polyphemus Surprising Acis and Galatea", where the bronze giant crouches above the rocky grotto in which Galatea lies in the arms of Acis, who leans on his elbow in the manner of a river god—which he is just about to become