[1]See end of volume.
[1]See end of volume.
Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras
Meanwhile, the drama ofPierre III.by the unfortunate Escousse was played at the Théâtre-Français. I did not seePierre III.; I tried to get hold of it to read it, but it seems that the drama has not been printed.
This is what Lesur said about it in hisAnnuairefor 1831—
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS(28December.)—First performance ofPierre III., a drama in five acts; in verse, by M. Escousse."The failure of this work dealt a fatal blow to its author; carried away, as he probably was, with the success ofFarruck le Maure.InPierre III., neither history, nor probability, nor reason, was respected. It was a deplorable specimen of the fanatical and uncouth style of literature (these two epithets are my own), made fashionable by men possessed of too real a talent for their example not to cause many lamentable imitations. But who could suspect that the author's life was bound up in his work? Yet one more trial, one more failure and the unhappy young man was to die!..."
"THÉÂTRE-FRANÇAIS(28December.)—First performance ofPierre III., a drama in five acts; in verse, by M. Escousse.
"The failure of this work dealt a fatal blow to its author; carried away, as he probably was, with the success ofFarruck le Maure.InPierre III., neither history, nor probability, nor reason, was respected. It was a deplorable specimen of the fanatical and uncouth style of literature (these two epithets are my own), made fashionable by men possessed of too real a talent for their example not to cause many lamentable imitations. But who could suspect that the author's life was bound up in his work? Yet one more trial, one more failure and the unhappy young man was to die!..."
And, indeed, Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras in collaboration soon put on at the Gaieté the drama ofRaymond, which also failed. Criticism must have been cruelly incensed against this drama, since we find, after the last words of the play, a postscript containing these few lines, signed by one of the authors—
"P.S.—This work roused much criticism against us, and it must be admitted, few people have made allowances for two poor young fellows, the oldest of whom is scarcely twenty, in the attempt which they made to create an interesting situation withfive characters, rejecting all the accessories of melodrama. But I have no intention of seeking to defend ourselves. I simply wish to proclaim the gratitude that I owe to Victor Escousse, who, in order to open the way for my entry into theatrical circles, admitted me to collaboration with himself; I also wish to defend him, as far as it is in my power, against the calumnious statements which are openly made against his character as a man; imputing a ridiculous vanity to him which I have never noticed in him. I say it publicly, I have nothing but praise to give him in respect of his behaviour towards me, not only as collaborator, but still more as a friend. May these few words, thus frankly written, soften the darts which hatred has been pleased to hurl against a young man whose talent, I hope, will some day stifle the words of those who attack him without knowing him!"AUGUSTE LEBRAS"
"P.S.—This work roused much criticism against us, and it must be admitted, few people have made allowances for two poor young fellows, the oldest of whom is scarcely twenty, in the attempt which they made to create an interesting situation withfive characters, rejecting all the accessories of melodrama. But I have no intention of seeking to defend ourselves. I simply wish to proclaim the gratitude that I owe to Victor Escousse, who, in order to open the way for my entry into theatrical circles, admitted me to collaboration with himself; I also wish to defend him, as far as it is in my power, against the calumnious statements which are openly made against his character as a man; imputing a ridiculous vanity to him which I have never noticed in him. I say it publicly, I have nothing but praise to give him in respect of his behaviour towards me, not only as collaborator, but still more as a friend. May these few words, thus frankly written, soften the darts which hatred has been pleased to hurl against a young man whose talent, I hope, will some day stifle the words of those who attack him without knowing him!"AUGUSTE LEBRAS"
Yet Escousse had so thoroughly understood the fact that with success would come struggle, and with the amelioration of material position would come a recrudescence in moral suffering, that, after the success inFarruck le Maure, when he left his little workman's room to take rather more comfortable quarters as an honoured author, he addressed to that room, the witness of his first emotions as poet and lover, the lines here given—
À MA CHAMBRE"De mon indépendance,Adieu, premier séjour,Où mon adolescenceA duré moins d'un jour!Bien que peu je regretteUn passé déchirant,Pourtant, pauvre chambrette,Je vous quitte en pleurant!Du sort, avec courage,J'ai subi tous les coups;Et, du moins, mon partageN'a pu faire un jaloux.La faim, dans ma retraite,M'accueillait en rentrant ...Pourtant, pauvre chambrette,Je vous quitte en pleurant!Au sein de la détresse,Quand je suçais mon lait,Une tendre maîtressePoint ne me consolait,Solitaire couchetteM'endormait soupirant ...Pourtant, pauvre chambrette,Je vous quitte en pleurant!De ma muse, si tendre,Un Dieu capricieuxNe venait point entendreLe sons ambitieux.Briller pour l'indiscrète,Est besoin dévorant ...Pourtant, pauvre chambrette,Je vous quitte en pleurant!Adieu! le sort m'appelleVers un monde nouveau;Dans couchette plus belle,J'oublîrai mon berceau.Peut-être, humble poèteLion de vous sera grand ...Pourtant, pauvre chambrette,Je vous quitte en pleurant!"
In fact, that set of apartments which Escousse had taken in place of his room, and where, it will be seen, he had not installed himself without pain, saw him enter on 18 February, with his friend Auguste Lebras, followed by the daughter of the porter, who was carrying a bushel of charcoal. He had just bought this charcoal from the neighbouring greengrocer. While the woman was measuring it out, he said to Lebras—
"Do you think a bushel is enough?"
"Oh, yes!" replied the latter.
They paid, and asked that the charcoal might be sent at once. The porter's daughter left the bushel of charcoal in the anteroom at their request, and went away, little supposing she had just shut in Death with the two poor lads. Three days before, Escousse had taken the second key of his room from the portress on purpose to prevent any hindrance to this pre-arrangedplan. The two friends separated. The same night Escousse wrote to Lebras—
"I expect you at half-past eleven; the curtain will be raised. Come, so that we may hurry on thedénoûment!"
"I expect you at half-past eleven; the curtain will be raised. Come, so that we may hurry on thedénoûment!"
Lebras came at the appointed hour; he had no thought of failing to keep the appointment: the fatal thought of suicide had been germinating for a long while in his brain. The charcoal was already lit. They stuffed up the doors and windows with newspapers. Then Escousse went to a table and wrote the following note:—
"Escousse has killed himself because he does not feel he has any place in this life; because his strength fails him at every step he takes forwards or backwards; because fame does not satisfy his soul,if soul there be!"I desire that the motto of my book may be—"'Adieu, trop inféconde terre,Fléaux humains, soleil glacé!Comme un fantôme solitaire,Inaperçu j'aurai passé.Adieu, les palmes immortelles,Vrai songe d'une âme de feu!L'air manquait: J'ai fermé mes ailes, Adieu!'"
"Escousse has killed himself because he does not feel he has any place in this life; because his strength fails him at every step he takes forwards or backwards; because fame does not satisfy his soul,if soul there be!
"I desire that the motto of my book may be—
"'Adieu, trop inféconde terre,Fléaux humains, soleil glacé!Comme un fantôme solitaire,Inaperçu j'aurai passé.Adieu, les palmes immortelles,Vrai songe d'une âme de feu!L'air manquait: J'ai fermé mes ailes, Adieu!'"
This, as we have said, took place at half-past eleven. At midnight, Madame Adolphe, who had just been acting at the Théâtre Porte-Saint-Martin, returned home; she lodged on the same floor as Escousse, and the young man's suite of rooms was only separated from her's by a partition. A strange sound seemed to her to come from those rooms. She listened: she thought she heard a twofold noise as of raucous breathing. She called, she knocked on the partition, but she did not obtain any reply. Escousse's father also lived on the same floor, on which four doors opened; these four doors belonged to the rooms of Escousse, his father, Madame Adolphe and Walter, an actor I used to know well at that time, but of whom I have since lost sight. Madame Adolphe ran to the father of Escousse, awakened him (for he was already asleep), made him get upand come with her to listen to the raucous breathing which had terrified her. It had decreased, but was still audible; audible enough for them to hear the dismal sound of two breathings. The father listened for a few seconds; then he laughingly said to Madame Adolphe, "You jealous woman!" And he went off to bed not wishing to listen to her observations any further.
Madame Adolphe remained by herself. Until two o'clock in the morning she heard this raucous sound to which she alone persisted in giving its true significance. Incredulous though Escousse's father had been, he was haunted by dismal presentiments all night long. About eight o'clock next morning he went and knocked at his son's door. No one answered. He listened; all was silent. Then the idea came to him that Escousse was at the Vauxhall baths, to which the young man sometimes went. He went to Walter's rooms, told him what had passed during the night, and of his uneasiness in the morning. Walter offered to run to Vauxhall, and the offer was accepted. At Vauxhall, Escousse had not been seen by anyone. The father's uneasiness increased; it was nearly his office hour, but he could not go until he was reassured by having his son's door opened. A locksmith was called in and the door was broken open with difficulty, for the key which had locked it from the inside was in the keyhole. The key being still in the lock frightened the poor father to such an extent that, when the door was open, he did not dare to cross the threshold. It was Walter who entered, whilst he remained leaning against the staircase bannisters. The inner door was, as we have said, stuffed up, but not closed either with bolt or key; Walter pushed it violently, broke through the obstructing paper and went in. The fumes of the charcoal were still so dense that he nearly fell back. Nevertheless, he penetrated into the room, seized the first object to hand, a water-bottle, I believe, and hurled it at the window. A pane of glass was broken by the crash, and gave ingress to the outer air. Walter could now breathe, and he went to the window and opened it.
Then the terrible spectacle revealed itself to him in all itsfearful nakedness. The two young men were lying dead: Lebras on the floor, upon a mattress which he had dragged from the bed; Escousse on the bed itself. Lebras, of weakly constitution and feeble health, had easily been overcome by death; but with his companion it had been otherwise; strong and full of health, the struggle had been long and must have been cruel; at least, this was what was indicated by his legs drawn up under his body and his clenched hands, with the nails driven into the flesh. The father nearly went out of his mind. Walter often told me that he should always see the two poor youths, one on his mattress, the other on his bed. Madame Adolphe did not dare to keep her rooms: whenever she woke in the night, she thought she could hear the death-rattle, which the poor father had taken for the sighs of lovers!
The excellent elegy which this suicide inspired Béranger to write is well-known; we could wish our readers had forgotten that we had given them part of it when we were speaking of the famous song-writer: that would have allowed us to quote the whole of it here; but how can they have forgotten that we have already fastened that rich poetic embroidery on to our rags of prose?
First performance ofRobert le Diable—Véron, manager of the Opéra—His opinion concerning Meyerbeer's music—My opinion concerning Véron's intellect—My relations with him—His articles andMemoirs—Rossini's judgment ofRobert le Diable—Nourrit, the preacher—Meyerbeer—First performance of theFuite de Law, by M. Mennechet—First performance ofRichard Darlington—Frédérick-Lemaître—Delafosse—Mademoiselle Noblet
First performance ofRobert le Diable—Véron, manager of the Opéra—His opinion concerning Meyerbeer's music—My opinion concerning Véron's intellect—My relations with him—His articles andMemoirs—Rossini's judgment ofRobert le Diable—Nourrit, the preacher—Meyerbeer—First performance of theFuite de Law, by M. Mennechet—First performance ofRichard Darlington—Frédérick-Lemaître—Delafosse—Mademoiselle Noblet
Led away into reminiscences of Escousse and of Lebras, whom we followed from the failure ofPierre III.to the day of their death, from the evening of 28 December 1831, that is, to the night of 18 February 1832, we have passed over the first performances ofRichard Darlingtonand even ofTérésa.Let us go back a step and return to the night of 21 October, at one o'clock in the morning, to Nourrit's dressing room, who had just had a fall from the first floor of the Opéra owing to an ill-fitting trap-door.
The first representation ofRobert le Diablehad just been given. It would be a curious thing to write the history of that great opera, which nearly failed at the first representation, now reckons over four hundred performances and is thedoyenof all operas now born and, probably, yet to be born. At first, Véron, who had passed from the management of theRevue de Paristo that of the Opéra, had from the first hearing of Meyerbeer's work,—in full rehearsal since its acceptance at the theatre of the rue Lepeletier,—declared that he thought the score detestable, and that he would only play it under compulsion or if provided with a sufficient indemnity. The government, which had just made, with respect to that new management, one of the most scandalous contracts whichhave ever existed; the government, which at that period gave a subsidy to the Opéra of nine hundred thousand francs, thought Véron's demand quite natural; and convinced, with him, that the music ofRobert le Diablewas execrable, gave to its well-beloved manager sixty or eighty thousand francs subsidy for playing a work which now provides at least a third of the fifty or sixty thousand francs income which Véron enjoys. Does not this little anecdote prove that the tradition of putting a man at the Opéra who knows nothing about music goes back to an epoch anterior to the nomination of Nestor Roqueplan,—who, in his letters to Jules Janin, boasts that he does not know the value of a semibreve or the signification of a natural? No, it proves that Véron is a speculator of infinite shrewdness, and that his refusal to play Meyerbeer's opera was a clever speculation. Now, does Véron prefer that we should say that he was not learned in music? Let him correct our statement. It is common knowledge with what respect we submit to correction. There is one point concerning which we will not admit correction: namely, what we have just said about Véron's intellect. What we here state we have repeated a score of timesspeaking to him in person,as a certain class of functionaries has it. Véron is a clever man, even a very clever man, and it would not be doubted if he had not the misfortune to be a millionaire. Véron and I were never on very friendly terms; he has never, I believe, had a high opinion of my talent. As editor of theRevue de Parishe never asked me for a single article; as manager of the Opéra, he has never asked me for anything but a single poem for Meyerbeer, and that on condition I wrote the poem in collaboration with Scribe; which nearly landed me in a quarrel with Meyerbeer and wholly in one with Scribe. Finally, as manager of theConstitutionnel, he only made use of me when the success which I had obtained on theJournal des Débats, theSiècleand thePressehad in some measure forced his hand. Our engagement lasted three years. During those three years we had a lawsuit which lasted three months; then, finally, we amicably broke the contract, whenI had still some twenty volumes to give him, and at the time of this rupture I owed him six thousand francs. It was agreed that I should give Véron twelve thousand lines for these six thousand francs. Some time after, Véron sold theConstitutionnel.For the first journal that Véron shall start, he can draw upon me for twelve thousand lines, at twelve days' sight: on the thirteenth day the signature shall be honoured. Our position with regard to Véron being thoroughly established, we repeat that it is Véron's millions which injure his reputation. How can it be admitted that a man can both possess money and intellect? The thing is impossible!
"But," it will be urged, "if Véron is a clever man, who writes his articles? Who composes hisMemoirs?"
Some one else will reply—"He did not; they are written by Malitourne."
I pay no regard to what may lie underneath. When the articles or theMemoirsare signed Véron, both articles andMemoirsare by Véron so far as I am concerned: what else can you do? It is Véron's weakness to imagine that he can write. Good gracious! if he did not write, his reputation as an intellectual man would be made, in spite of his millions! But it happens that, thanks to these deuced articles and those blessedMemoirs, people laugh in my face when I say that Véron has intellect. It is in vain for me to be vexed and angry, and shout out and appeal to people who have supped with him, good judges in the matter of wit, to believe me; everybody replies, even those who have not supped with him: That is all very well! You say this because you owe M. Véron twelve thousand lines! As if because one owes a man twelve thousand lines it were a sufficient excuse for saying that he has intellect! Take, for example, the case of M. Tillot, of theSiècle, who says that I owe him twenty-four thousand lines; at that rate, I ought to say that he has twice as much intellect as Véron. But I do not say so; I will content myself with saying that I do not owe him those twenty-four thousand lines, and that he, on the contrary, owes me something like three or four hundred thousand francs or more, certainly not less.
But where on earth were we? Oh! I remember! we were talking about the first night ofRobert le Diable.After the third act I met Rossini in the green-room.
"Come now, Rossini," I asked him, "what do you think of that?"
"Vat do I zink?" replied Rossini.
"Yes, what do you think of it?"
"Veil, I zink zat if my best friend vas vaiting for me at ze corner of a wood vis a pistol, and put zat pistol to my throat, zaying, 'Rossini, zu art going to make zur best opera!' I should do it."
"And suppose you had no one friendly enough towards you to render you this service?"
"Ah! in zat case all vould be at an end, and I azzure you zat I vould never write one zingle note of music again!"
Alas! the friend was not forthcoming, and Rossini kept his oath.
I meditated upon these words of the illustrious maestro during the fourth and fifth acts ofRobert, and, after the fifth act, I went to the stage to inquire of Nourrit if he was not hurt. I felt a strong friendship towards Nourrit, and he, on his side, was much attached to me. Nourrit was not only an eminent actor, he was also a delightful man; he had but one fault: when you paid him a compliment on his acting or on his voice, he would listen to you in a melancholy fashion, and reply with his hand on your shoulder—
"Ah! my friend, I was not born to be a singer or a comedian!"
"Indeed! Then why were you born?"
"I was born to mount a pulpit, not a stage."
"A pulpit!"
"Yes."
"And what the deuce would you do in a pulpit?"
"I should guide humanity in the way of progress.... Oh! you misjudge me; you do not know my real character."
Poor Nourrit! He made a great mistake in wanting to have been or to appear other than he was: he was adelightful player! a dignified and noble and kindly natured man! He had taken the Revolution of 1830 very seriously, and, for three months, he appeared every other day on the stage of the Opéra as a National Guard, singing theMarseillaise, flag in hand. Unluckily, his patriotism was sturdier than his voice, and he broke his voice in that exercise. It was because his voice had already become weaker that Meyerbeer put so little singing in the part of Robert. Nourrit was in despair, not because of his failure, but because of that of the piece. In common with everyone else, he thought the work had failed. Meyerbeer was himself quite melancholy enough! Nourrit introduced us to one another. Our acquaintance dates from that night.
Meyerbeer was a very clever man; from the first he had had the sense to place a great fortune at the service of an immense reputation. Only, he did not make his fortune with his reputation; it might almost be said that he made his reputation with his fortune. Meyerbeer was never for one instant led aside from his object,—whether he was by himself or in society, in France or in Germany, at the table of the hoteldes Princesor at the Casino at Spa,—and that object was success. Most assuredly, Meyerbeer gave himself more trouble to achieve success than in writing his scores. We say this because it seems to us that there are two courses to take. Meyerbeer should leave his scores to make their own successes; we should gain one opera out of every three. I admire the more this quality of tenacity of purpose in a man since it is entirely lacking in myself. I have always let managers look after their interests and mine on first nights; and, next day, upon my word! let people say what they like, whether good or ill! I have been working for the stage for twenty-five years now, and writing books for as long: I challenge a single newspaper editor to say he has seen me in his office to ask the favour of a single puff. Perhaps in this indifference lies my strength. In the five or six years that have just gone by, as soon as my plays have been put on the stage, with all the care andintelligence of which I am capable, it has often happened that I have not been present at my first performance, but have waited to hear any news about it that others, more curious than myself, who had been present, should bring me.
But at the time ofRichard DarlingtonI had not yet attained to this high degree of philosophy. As soon as the play was finished, it had been read to Harel, who had just left the management of the Odéon to take up that of the Porte-Saint-Martin, and, be it said, Harel had accepted it at once; he had immediately put it in rehearsal, and, after a month of rehearsals, all scrupulously attended by me, we had got to 10 December, the day fixed for the first performance. The Théâtre-Français was in competition with us, and played the same dayLa Fuite de Law, by M. Mennechet, ex-reader to King Charles X. In his capacity of ex-reader to King Charles X., Mennechet was a Royalist. I shall always recollect the sighs he heaved when he was compelled, as editor ofPlutarque français, to insert in it the biography of the Emperor Napoléon. Had he been in a position to consult his own personal feelings only, he would certainly have excluded from his publication the Conqueror of Marengo, of Austerlitz and of Jena; but he was not the complete master of it: since Napoléon had taken Cairo, Berlin, Vienna and Moscow, he had surely the right to monopolise fifty or sixty columns in thePlutarque français.I know something about those sighs; for he came to ask me for that biography of Napoléon, and it was I who drew it up. In spite of the competition of the Théâtre-Français there was a tremendous stir overRichard.It was known beforehand that the play had a political side to it of great significance, and the feverishness of men's minds at that period made a storm out of everything. People crushed at the doors to get tickets. At the rising of the curtain the house seemed full to overflowing. Frédérick was the pillar who supported the whole affair. He had supporting him, Mademoiselle Noblet, Delafosse, Doligny and Madame Zélie-Paul. But so great was the power ofthis fine dramatic genius that he electrified everybody. Everyone in some degree was inspired by him, and by contact with him increased his own strength without decreasing that of the great player. Frédérick was then in the full zenith of his talent. Unequal like Kean,—whose personality he was to copy two or three years later,—sublime like Kean, he had the same qualities he exhibits to-day, and, though in a lesser degree, the same defects. He was just the same then in the relations of ordinary life,—difficult, unsociable, capricious, as he is to-day. In other respects he was a man of sound judgment; taking as much interest in the play as in his own part in the suggestions he proposed, and as much interest in the author as in himself. He had been excellent at the rehearsals. At the performance itself he was magnificent! I do not know where he had studied that gambler on the grand scale whom we style an ambitious man; men of genius must study in their own hearts what they cannot know except in dreams. Next to Frédérick, Doligny was capital in the part of Tompson. It was to the recollection I had of him in this rôle that the poor fellow owed, later, the sad privilege of being associated with me in my misfortunes. Delafosse, who played Mawbray, had moments of genuine greatness. One instance of it was where he waits at the edge of a wood, in a fearful storm, for the passing of the post-chaise in which Tompson is carrying off Jenny. An accident which might have made a hitch and upset the play at that juncture was warded off by his presence of mind. Mawbray has to kill Tompson by shooting him; for greater security, Delafosse had taken two pistols; real stage-pistols, hired from a gunsmith,—they both missed fire! Delafosse never lost his head: he made a pretence of drawing a dagger from his pocket, and killed Tompson with a blow from his fist, as he had not been able to blow out his brains. Mademoiselle Noblet was fascinatingly tender and loving, a charming and poetic being. In the last scene she fell so completely under Frédérick's influence as to utter cries of genuine not feigned terror. The fable took on all the proportions ofreality for her. The final scene was one of the most terrible I ever saw on the stage. When Jenny asked him, "What are you going to do?" and Richard replied, "I do not know; but pray to God!" a tremendous shudder ran all over the house, and a murmur of fear, escaping from every breast, became an actual shriek of terror. At the conclusion of the second act Harel had come up to myavant-scène:[1]—I had the chiefavant-scèneby right, and from it I could view the performance as though I were a stranger. Harel, I say, came up to entreat me to have my name mentioned with that of Dinaux: the name, be it known, by which Goubaux and Beudin were known on the stage. I refused. During the third act he came up again, accompanied this time by my two collaborators, and furnished with three bank-notes of a thousand francs each. Goubaux and Beudin, good, excellent, brotherly hearted fellows, came to ask me to have my name given alone. I had done the whole thing, they said, and my right to the success was incontestable. I had done the whole thing!—except finding the subject, except providing the outlines of the development, except, finally, the execution of the chief scene between the king and Richard, the scene in which I had completely failed. I embraced them and refused. Harel offered me the three thousand francs. He had come at an opportune moment: tears were in my eyes, and I held a hand of each of my two friends in mine. I refused him, but I did not embrace him. The curtain fell in the midst of frantic applause. They called Richard before the curtain, then Jenny, Tompson, Mawbray, the whole company. I took advantage of the spectators being still glued to their places to go out and make for the door of communication. I wanted to take the actors in my arms on their return to the wings. I came across Musset in the corridor; he was very pale and very much moved.
"Well," I asked him; "what is the matter, my dear poet?"
"I am suffocating!" he replied.
It was, I think, the finest praise he could have paid the work,—the drama ofRichardis, indeed, suffocating. I reached the wings in time to shake hands with everybody. And yet I did not feel the same emotion as on the night ofAntony!The success had been as great, but the players were nothing like as dear to me. There is an abyss between my character and habits and those of Frédérick which three triumphs in common have not enabled either of us to bridge. What a difference between my friendship with Bocage! Between Mademoiselle Noblet and myself, pretty and fascinating as she was at that date, there existed none but purely artistic relations; she interested me as a young and beautiful person of promising future, and that was all. What a difference, to be sure, from the double and triple feelings with which Dorval inspired me! Although to-day the most active of these sentiments has been extinguished these twenty years; though she herself has been dead for four or five years, and forgotten by most people who should have remembered her, and who did not even see her taken to her last resting-place, her name falls constantly from my pen, just as her memory strikes ever a pang at my heart! Perhaps it will be said that my joy was not so great because my name remained unknown and my personality concealed. On that head I have not even the shadow of a regret. I can answer for it that my two collaborators were more sadly troubled at being named alone than I at not being named at all.Richardhad an immense success, and it was just that it should:Richard, without question, is an excellent drama. I beg leave to be as frank concerning myself as I am with regard to others.
Twenty-one days after the performance ofRichard Darlingtonthe year 1831 went to join its sisters in that unknown world to which Villon relegates dead moons, and where he seeks, without finding them, the snows of yester year. Troubled though the year had been by political disturbances, it had been splendid for art. I had produced three pieces,—one bad,Napoléon Bonaparte; one mediocre,Charles VII.; and one good,Richard Darlington.
Hugo had put forthMarion Delorme,and had publishedNotre-Dame de Paris—something more than aroman, a book!—and his volume theFeuilles d'Automne.
Balzac had published thePeau de chagrin, one of his most irritating productions. Once for all, my estimation of Balzac, both as a man and as an author, is not to be relied upon: as a man, I knew him but little, and what I did know did not rouse in me the least sympathy; as regards his talent, his manner of composition, of creation, of production, were so different from mine, that I am a bad judge of him, and I condemn myself on this head, quite conscious that I can justly be called in question.
But to continue. Does my reader know, omitting mention of M. Comte's theatre and of that of the Funambules, what was played in Paris from 1 January 1809 to 31 December 1831? Well, there were played 3558 theatrical pieces, to which Scribe contributed 3358; Théaulor, 94; Brazier, 93; Dartois, 92, Mélesville, 80; Dupin, 56; Antier, 53; Dumersan, 55; de Courcy, 50. The whole world compared with this could not have provided a quarter of it! Nor was painting far behind: Vernet had reached the zenith of his talent; Delacroix and Delaroche were ascending the upward path of theirs. Vernet had exhibited ... But before speaking of their works, let us say a few words of the men themselves.
[1]At the front of the stage.—TRANS.
[1]At the front of the stage.—TRANS.
Horace Vernet
Vernet was then a man of forty-two. You are acquainted with Horace Vernet, are you not? I will not say as painter—pooh! who does not know, indeed, the artist of theBataille de Montmirail, of thePrise de Constantine, of theDéroute de la Smala?No, I mean as man. You will have seen him pass a score of times, chasing the stag or the boar, in shooting costume; or crossing the place du Carrousel, or parading in the court of the Tuileries, in the brilliant uniform of a staff officer. He was a handsome cavalier, a dainty, lithe, tall figure, with sparkling eyes, high cheek-bones, a mobile face and moustachesà la royale Louis XIII.Imagine him something like d'Artagnan. For Horace looked far more like a musketeer than a painter; or, say, like a painter of the type of Velasquez, or Van Dyck, and, like the Cavalier Tempesta, with curled-up moustache, sword dangling against his heels, his horse snorting forth fire from its nostrils. The whole race of Vernets were of a similar type. Joseph Vernet, the grandfather, had himself bound to a ship's mast during a tempest. Karl Vernet, the father, would, I am certain, have given many things to have been carried off, like Mazeppa, across the Steppes of Ukraine on a furious horse, reeking with foam and blood. For, be it known, Horace Vernet brings up the rear of a quadruple series, the latest of four generations of painters,—he is the son of Karl, the grandson of Joseph Vernet, the great-grandson of Antoine. Then, as though this were not enough, his maternal ancestor was the younger Moreau, that is to say, one of the foremost draughts-menand ablest engravers of the eighteenth century. Antoine Vernet painted flowers upon sedan chairs. There are two chairs painted and signed by him at Marseilles. Joseph Vernet has adorned every museum in France with his sea pictures. He is to Havre, Brest, Lorient, Marseilles and Toulon what Canaletto is to Venice.
Karl, who began by bearing off thegrand prixof Rome with his composition of theEnfant prodigue, became, in 1786, an enthusiastic painter of everything English. The Duc d'Orléans bought at fabulous prices the finest of English horses. Karl Vernet became mad on horses, drew them, painted them, made them his speciality and so became famous. As for Horace, he was born in 1789, the year in which his grandfather Joseph died and his father Karl was made an Academician. Born a painter, so to say, his first steps were taken in a studio.
"Who is your master?" I once asked him.
"I never had one."
"But who taught you to draw and paint?"
"I do not know.... When I could only walk on all fours I used to pick up pencils and paint brushes. When I found paper I drew; when I found canvas I painted, and one fine day it was discovered that I was a painter."
When ten years old, Horace sold his first drawing to a merchant: it was a tulip commissioned by Madame de Périgord. This was the first money he had earned, twenty-four sous! And the merchant paid him these twenty-four sous in one of those white coins that were still to be seen about in 1816, but which we do not see now and shall probably not see again. This happened in 1799. From that moment Horace Vernet found a market for drawings, rough sketches and six-inch canvases. In 1811 the King of Westphalia commissioned his first two pictures: thePrise du campretranché de Galatzand thePrise de Breslau.I have seen them scores of times at King Jérome's palace; they are not your best work, my dear Horace! But they brought him in sixteen thousand francs. It was the first considerable sum of money he had received; it was the first out of which he couldput something aside. Then came 1812, 1813 and 1814, and the downfall of the whole Napoléonic edifice. The world shook to its foundations: Europe became a volcano, society seemed about to dissolve. There was no thought of painting, or literature, or art! What do you suppose became of Vernet, who could not then obtain for his pictures eight thousand francs, or four thousand, or a thousand, or five hundred, or a hundred, or even fifty? Vernet drew designs for theJournal des Modes;—three for a hundred francs: 33 francs 33 centimes each drawing! One day he showed me all these drawings, a collection of which he kept; I counted nearly fifteen hundred of them with feelings of profound emotion. The 33 francs 33 centimes brought to my mind my 166 francs 65 centimes,—the highest figure my salary had ever reached. Vernet was a child of the Revolution; but as a young man he knew only the Empire. An ardent Bonapartist in 1815, more fervent still, perhaps, in 1816, he gave many sword strokes and sweeps of the paint brush in honour of Napoléon, both exercised as secretly as possible. In 1818, the Duc d'Orléans conceived the idea of ordering Vernet to paint pictures for him. The suggestion was transmitted to the painter on the prince's behalf.
"Willingly," said the painter, "but on condition that they shall be military pictures."
The prince accepted.
"That the pictures," added the painter, "shall be of the time of the Republic and of the Empire."
Again the prince acceded.
"Finally," added the painter, "on condition that the soldiers of the Empire and of the Revolution shall wear tricolor cockades."
"Tell M. Vernet," replied the prince to this, "that he can put the first cockade in my hat."
And as a matter of fact the Duc d'Orléans decided that the first picture which Vernet should execute for him should be of himself as Colonel of Dragoons, saving a poor refractory priest: a piece of good fortune which befell the prince in 1792, andwhich has been related by us at length in ourHistoire de Louis Philippe.Horace Vernet painted the picture and had the pleasure of putting the first tricolor cockade ostentatiously on the helmet. About this time the Duc de Berry urgently desired to visit the painter's studio, whose reputation grew with the rapidity of the giant Adamastor. But Vernet did not love the Bourbons, especially those of the Older Branch. With the Duc d'Orléans it was different; he had been a Jacobin. Horace refused admission to his studio to the son of Charles X.
"Oh! Good gracious!" said the Duc de Berry, "if in order to be received by M. Vernet it is but a question of putting on a tricolor cockade, tell him that, although I do not wear M. Laffitte's colours at my heart, I will put them in my hat, if it must be so, the day I enter his house."
The suggestion did not come to anything either, because the painter did not accede to it; or because, the painter having acceded to it, the prince declined to submit to such an exacting condition.
In less than eighteen months Vernet painted for the Duc d'Orléans—the condition concerning the tricolor cockades being always respected—the fine series of pictures which constitute his best work:Montmirail, in which he puts more than tricolor cockades, namely, the Emperor himself riding away into the distance on his white horse;Hanau, JemappesandValmy.But all these tricolor cockades, which blossomed on Horace's canvases like poppies, cornflowers and marguerites in a meadow, and above all, that detestable white horse, although it was no bigger than a pin's head, frightened the government of Louis XVIII. The exhibition of 1821 declined Horace Vernet's pictures. The artist held an exhibition at his own house, and had a greater success by himself than the two thousand painters had who exhibited at the Salon. This was the time of his great popularity. No one was allowed at that period, not even his enemies, to dispute his talent. Vernet was more than a celebrated painter: he belonged to the nation, representing in the world of art the spirit of opposition which was beginning to make the reputations of Béranger and ofCasimir Delavigne in the world of poetry. He lived in the rue de la Tour-des-Dames. All that quarter had just sprung into being; it was the artists' quarter. Talma, Mademoiselle Mars, Mademoiselle Duchesnois, Arnault lived there. It was calledLa Nouvelle Athènes.They all carried on the spirit of opposition in their own particular ways: Mademoiselle Mars with her violets, M. Arnault with his stories, Talma with his Sylla wig, Horace Vernet with his tricolor cockades, Mademoiselle Duchesnois with what she could. One consecration was still lacking in the matter of Horace Vernet's popularity; he obtained it, that is to say, he was appointed director of the École Française at Rome. Perhaps this was a means of getting him sent away from Paris. But the exile, if such it was, looked so much more like an honour that Vernet accepted it with joy. Criticism grumbled a little;—it was the time of the raising of Voices!—Some complained in the hoarse notes, others in the screaming tones which are the peculiar property of the envious, exclaiming that it was rather a risk to send to Rome the propagator of tricolor cockades, and rather a bold stroke to bring into juxtapositionMontmirailandThe Transfiguration, Horace Vernet and Raphael; but these voices were drowned in the universal acclamation which hailed the honour done to our national painter. It was certainly not Vernet's enemies who should have indulged in recrimination; but rather his friends who should have felt afraid. In fact, when Horace Vernet found himself confronted with the masterpieces of the sixteenth century, even as Raphael when led into the Sistine Chapel by Bramante, he was seized with a spasm of doubt. The whole of his education as a painter was called in question. He felt he had been self-deceived for thirty years of his life;—at the age of thirty-two, Horace had already been a painter for thirty years!—he asked himself whether, instead of those worthy full-length soldiers, clad in military capot and shako, he was not destined to paint naked giants; theIliadof Homer instead of theIliadof Napoléon. The unhappy painter set himself to paint great pictures. The Roman school was in a flourishing state upon his arrival—Vernet succeeded toGuérin;—under Vernet it became splendid. The indefatigable artist, the never-ceasing creator, communicated a portion of his fecund spirit to all those young minds. Like a sun he lighted up and warmed throughout and ripened everything with his rays. One year after his arrival in Rome he must needs erect an exhibition hall in the garden of the École. Féron, from whom the institute asked an eighteen-inch sketch, gave a twenty-feet picture, thePassage des Alpes; Debay gave theMort de Lucrèce; Bouchot, aBacchanale; Rivière, aPeste apaisée par les prières du pape.Sculptors created groups of statuary, or at the least statues, instead of statuettes; Dumont sentBacchus aux bras de sa nourrice; Duret, theInvention de la Lyre.It was such an outpouring of productions that the Academy was frightened. It complained that the École de Romeproduced too much.This was the only reproach they had to bring against Vernet during his Ultramontane Vice-regency. He himself worked as hard as a student, two students, ten students. He sent hisRaphael et Michel-Ange, hisExaltation du pape, hisArrestation du prince de Condé, his ... Happily for Horace, I cannot recollect any more he sent in at that period.
I repeat once more, the sight of the old masters had upset all his old ideas;—in the slang of the studio, Horace splashed about. I say this because I am quite certain that it is his own opinion. If it is possible that Horace could turn out any bad painting—if he has ever done so—and he alone has the right to say this—is it not the fact, dear Horace, that the bad painting which many artists point out with glee and triumph was done in Rome. But this period of relative inferiority for Horace, which was only below his own average in painting in what is termed the "grand style," was not without its profit to the artist; he drank the wine of life from its main source, the eternal spring! He returned to France strengthened by a force invisible to all, unrealised by himself, and after seven years spent in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel and the Farnesina, he found himself more at ease among his barracks and battlefields, which many people said, and said wrongly, that he ought not to have quitted.
Ah! Horace led a fine life, dashing through Europe on horseback, across Africa on a dromedary, over the Mediterranean in a ship! A glorious, noble and loyal life at which criticism may scoff, but in respect of which no reproach can be uttered by France.
Now, during this year—nous revenons à nos moutons, as M. Berger puts it—Horace sent two pictures from Rome, namely, those we have mentioned already: theExaltation du pape, one of the best of his worst pictures, and theArrestation du prince de Condé, one of the best of his best pictures.
Paul Delaroche
Delaroche exhibited his three masterpieces at the Salon of 1831: theEnfants d'Édouard;Cinq-mars et de Thou remontant le Rhône à la remorque du Cardinal de Richelieu, and theJeu du Cardinal de Mazarin à son lit de mort.
It is hardly necessary to say that of these three pictures we prefer theCinq-mars et de Thou remontant le Rhône.
The biography of the eminent artist will not be long. His is not an eccentric character, nor one of those impetuous temperaments which seek adventures. He did not have his collar-bone broken when he was fifteen, three ribs staved in at thirty, and his head cut open at forty-five, as did Vernet; he does not expose his body in every political quarrel; his recreations are not those of fencing, horse-riding and shooting. He rests from work by dreaming, and not by some fresh fatiguing occupation; for although his work is masterly, it is heavy, laboured and melancholy. Instead of saying before Heaven openly, when showing his pictures to men and thanking God for having given him the power to paint them, "Behold, I am an artist! Vivent Raphaël and Michael Angelo!" he conceals them, he hides them, he withdraws them from sight, murmuring, "Ah! I was not made for brush, canvas and colours: I was made for political and diplomatic career. Vivent M. de Talleyrand and M. de Metternich!" Oh! how unhappy are those spirits, those restless souls, who do one thing and torment themselves with the everlasting anxiety that they were created to do something else.
In 1831, Paul Delaroche was thirty-four, and just about at the height of his strength and his talent. He was the second son of a pawnbroker. He early entered the studio of Gros, who was then in the zenith of his fame, and who, after his beautiful pictures ofJaffa, AboukirandEylau, was about to undertake the gigantic dome of the Panthéon. He made genuine and rapid advance in harmony with the design and taste of the master. Nevertheless, Delaroche began with landscape. His brother painted historical subjects, and the father did not wish both his two sons to apply themselves to the same kind of painting. Claude Lorraines and Ruysdaels were accordingly the studios preferred by Paul; a woman with whom he fell in love, and whose portrait he persisted in painting, changed his inclinations. This portrait finished and found to be acceptable (bien venu), as they say in studio language, Delaroche was won over to the grand school of painting. He made his first appearance in the Salon of 1822, when he was twenty-five years of age, with aJoas arraché du milieu des morts par Josabeth, and aChrist descendu de la croix.In 1824, he exhibitedJeanne d'Arc interrogée dans son cachot par le Cardinal de Winchester, Saint Vincent de Paul prêchant pour les enfants trouvés, Saint Sébastien secouru par IreneandFilippo Lippi chargé de peindre une vierge pour une convent, et devenant amoureux de la religieuse qui lui sert de modèle.
TheJeanne d'Arcmade a great impression. Instead of being talked of as a painter of great promise, Delaroche was looked upon as a master who had realised these hopes.
In 1826 he exhibited hisMort de Carrache, Le Prétendant sauvé par Miss MacDonald, theNuit de la Saint Barthélemy, theMort d'Élisabethand the full-length portrait of the Dauphin.
The whole world stood to gaze at Elizabeth, pallid, dying, dead already from the waist down. I was riveted in front of the young Scotch girl, exquisitely sympathetic and admirably romantic in feeling.Cinq-MarsandMiss MacDonaldwere alone enough to make Delaroche a great painter. What delicious handling there is in the latter picture, sweet, tender,moving! What suppleness andmorbidezzain those golden fifteen years, born on the wings of youth, scarcely touching the earth! O Delaroche! you are a great painter! But if you had only painted four pictures equal to yourMiss MacDonald, how you would have been adored!
In 1827, he first produced a political picture, thePrise du Trocadéro; then theMort du Président Duranti, a great and magnificent canvas, three figures of the first order: the president, his wife and his child; the figure of the child, in particular, who is holding up—or, rather, stretching up—its hands to heaven; and a ceiling for the Charles X. Museum, of which I will not speak, as I do not remember it. Finally, in 1831, the period we have reached, Delaroche exhibitedLes Enfants d'Édouard, Cinq-Mars et de Thou, theJeu de Mazarin, the portrait of Mlle. Sontag and aLecture.The painter's reputation, as we have said, had then reached its height. You remember those two children sitting on a bed, one sickly, the other full of health; the little barking dog; the ray of light that comes into the prison through the chink beneath the door. You remember the Richelieu—ill, coughing, attenuated, with no more strength to cause the death of others; the beautiful figure of Cinq-Mars, calm, in his exquisite costume of white satin, pink and white under his pearl-grey hat; the grave de Thou, in his dark dress, looking at the scaffold in the distance, which was to assume for him so terrible an aspect on nearer view; those guards, those rowers, the soldier eating and the other who is spluttering in the water. The whole is exquisitely composed and executed, full of intellect and thought, and particularly full of skill—skill, yes! for Delarochepar excellenceis the dexterous painter. He possesses the expertness of Casimir Delavigne, with whom he has all kinds of points of resemblance, although, in our opinion, he strikes us as being stronger, as a painter, than Casimir Delavigne as a dramatic author. Every artist has his double in some kindred contemporary. Hugo and Delacroix have many points of contact; I pride myself upon my resemblance to Vernet.
Delaroche's skill is, indeed, great; not that we think it the fruit of studied calculation, such cleverness is intuitive, and, perhaps, not so much an acquired quality as a natural gift, a gift that is doubtless rather a negative one, from the point of view of art. I prefer certain painters, poets and players who are inclined to err on the side of being awkward rather than too skilful. But, just as all the studying in the world will not change clumsiness into skilfulness, so you cannot cure a clever man of his defect. Therefore, although it is a singular statement to make, Delaroche has the defect of being too skilful. If a man is going to his execution, Delaroche will not choose the shuddering moment when the guards open the doors of the prison, nor the terror-stricken instant when the victim catches sight of the scaffold. No, the resigned victim will pass before the window of the Bishop of London; as he descends a staircase, will kneel with downcast eyes and receive the benediction bestowed on him by two white aristocratic trembling hands thrust through the bars of that window. If he paints the assassination of the Duc de Guise, he does not choose the moment of struggle, the supreme instant when the features contract in spasms of anger, in convulsions of agony; when the hands dig into the flesh and tear out hair; when hearts drink vengeance and daggers drink blood. No, it is the moment when all is over, when the Duc de Guise is laid dead at the foot of the bed, when daggers and swords are wiped clean and cloaks have hidden the rending of the doublet, when the murderers open the door to the assassin, and Henri III. enters, pale and trembling, and recoils as he comes in murmuring—
"Why, he must have been ten feet high?—he looks taller lying down than standing, dead than alive!"
Again, if he paints the children of Edward, he does not choose the moment when the executioners of Richard III. rush upon the poor innocent boys and stifle their cries and their lives with bedding and pillows. No, he chooses the time when the two lads, seated on the bed which is to become their grave, are terrified and trembling by reason of a presentiment of thefootsteps of Death, as yet unrecognised by them, but noted by their dog. Death is approaching, as yet hidden behind the prison door, but his pale and cadaverous light is already creeping in through the chinks.
It is evident that this is one side of art, one aspect of genius, which can be energetically attacked and conscientiously defended. It does not satisfy the artist supremely, but it gives the middle classes considerable pleasure. That is why Delaroche had, for a time, the most universal reputation, and the one that was least disputed among all his colleagues. It also explains why, after having been too indulgent towards him, and from the very fact of being over-indulgent, criticism has become too severe. And this is why we are putting the artist and his works in their true place and light. We say, then: Delaroche must not be so much blamed for his skill as felicitated for it. It is an organic part not merely of his talent, but still more of his temperament and character. He does not look all round his subject to find out from which side he can see it the best. He sees his subject immediately in just that particular pose; and it would be impossible for the painter to realise it in any other way. Along with this, Delaroche puts all the consciousness of which he is capable into his work. Here is yet another point of resemblance between him and Casimir Delavigne; only, he does not pour his whole self out as does Delavigne; he does not need, as does Delavigne, friends to encourage him and give him strength;—he is more prolific: Casimir is cunning; Delaroche is merely freakish. Then, Casimir shortens, contracts and is niggardly. He treats the same subject as does Delaroche; but why does he treat it? Not by any means because the subject is a magnificent one; or because it moves the heart of the masses and stirs up the Past of a People; or because Shakespeare has created a sublime drama from it, but because Delaroche has made a fine picture out of it. Thus the fifteen more or less lengthy acts of Shakespeare become, under the pen of Casimir Delavigne, three short acts; there is no mention whatever of the king's procession, the scene between Richard III. and Queen Anne,the apparition of the victims between the two armies, the fight between Richard III. and Richmond. Delavigne's three acts have no other aim than to make a tableau-vivant framed in the harlequin hangings of the Théâtre-Français, representing with scrupulous exactitude, and in the manner of a deceptive painting of still-life, the canvas of Delaroche. It happens, therefore, that the drama finds itself great, even as is the Academy, not by any means because of what it possesses, but by what it lacks. Then, although, in the case of both, their convictions or, if you prefer it, their prejudices exceed the bounds of obstinacy and amount to infatuation, Delaroche, being the stronger of the two, rarely giving in, although he does occasionally! while Casimir never does so! To give one instance,—I have said that each great artist has his counterpart in a kindred contemporary art; and I have said that Delaroche resembled Casimir Delavigne. This I maintain. This is so true that Victor Hugo and Delacroix, the two least academic talents imaginable, both had the ambition to be of the Academy. Both competed for it: Hugo five times and Delacroix ten, twelve, fifteen.... I cannot count how many times. Very well, you remember what I said before; or rather, lest you should not remember it, I will repeat it. During one of the vacancies in the Academy I took it upon myself to call on some academicians, who were my friends, on Hugo's behalf. One of these calls was in the direction of Menus-Plasirs, where Casimir Delavigne had rooms. I have previously mentioned how fond I was of Casimir Delavigne, and that this feeling was reciprocated. Perhaps it will be a matter for surprise that, being so fond of him, and boasting of his affection for myself, I speakillof him. In the first place, I do not speakillof his talent, I merely state the truth about it. That does not prevent me from liking the man Casimir personally. I speak well of the talent of M. Delaroche, but does that prove that I like him? No, I do not like M. Delaroche; but my friendship for the one and my want of sympathy with the other does not influence my opinion of their talent. It is not for me either to blame or to praise their talent, and I may be permittedboth to praise and to blame individuals. I put all these trifles on one side, and I judge their works. With this explanation I return to Casimir Delavigne, who liked me somewhat, and whom I liked much. I had decided to make use of this friendship on behalf of Hugo, whom I loved, and whom I still love with quite a different affection, because admiration makes up at least two kinds of my friendship for Hugo, whilst I have no admiration for Casimir Delavigne at all. So I went to find Casimir Delavigne. I employed all the coaxing which friendship could inspire, all the arguments reason could prompt to persuade him to give his vote to Hugo. He refused obstinately, cruelly and, worse still, tactlessly. It would have been a stroke of genius for Casimir Delavigne to have voted for Hugo. But he would not vote for him. Cleverness, in the case of Casimir Delavigne, was an acquired quality, not a natural gift. Casimir gave his vote to I know not whom—to M. Dupaty, or M. Flourens, or M. Vatout. Well, listen to this. The same situation occurred when Delacroix paid his visits as when Hugo was trying to get himself placed among applicants for the Academy. Once, twice, Delaroche refused his vote to Delacroix. Robert Fleury,—you know that excellent painter of sorrowful situations and supreme anguish, an apparently ideal person to be an impartial appreciator of Delacroix and of Delaroche! Well, Robert Fleury sought out Delaroche and did what I had done in the case of Casimir Delavigne, he begged, implored Delaroche to give his vote to Delacroix. Delaroche at first refused with shudders of horror and cries of indignation; and he showed Robert Fleury to the door. But when he was by himself his conscience began to speak to him; softly at first, then louder and still louder; he tried to struggle against it, but it grew bigger and bigger, like the shadow of Messina's fiancée! He sent for Fleury.
"You can tell Delacroix he has my vote!" he burst out;—"all things considered, he is a great painter."
And he fled to his bed-chamber as a vanquished lion retires into his cave, as the sulky Achilles withdrew into his tent. Now, in exchange for that concession made to his consciencewhen it said to him: "You are wrong!" let us show Delaroche's stubbornness when conscience said, "You are right!" Delaroche was not only a great painter, but, as you will see, he was still more a very fine and a very great character.
In 1835, Delaroche, who was commissioned to paint six pictures for the dome of the Madeleine, learnt that M. Ingres, who also had been commissioned to paint the dome, had drawn back from the immense task and retired. He ran off to M. Thiers, then Minister of the Interior.
"Monsieur le Ministre," he said to him, "M. Ingres is withdrawing; my work is bound up with his, I am at one with him concerning it; he discussed his plans with me, and I showed him my sketches; his task and mine were made to harmonise together. It may not be thus with his successor. May I ask who his successor is, in order that I may know whether we can work together as M. Ingres and I have worked together? In case you should not have any person in view, and should wish me to undertake the whole, I will do the dome for nothing, that is to say, you shall pay me the sum agreed upon for my six pictures and I will give you the dome into the bargain."
M. Thiers got up and assumed the attitude of Orosmane, and said as said Orosmane—
"Chrétien, te serais tu flatté,D'effacer Orosmane en générosité."
The result of the conversation was that the Minister, after having said that there might not perhaps be any dome to paint, and that it was possible they might content themselves with a sculptured frieze, passed his word of honour to Delaroche—the word of honour which you knew, which I knew, which Rome and Spain knew!—that, if the dome of the Madeleine had to be painted, he, Delaroche, should paint it. Upon that assurance Delaroche departed joyously for Rome, carrying with him the hope of his life. That work was to be his life's work, his Sistine Chapel. He reached Rome; he shut himself up, as did Poussin, in a Camaldule monastery, copied monks'heads, made prodigious studies and admirable sketches—and the sketches of Delaroche are often worth more than his pictures—painted by day, designed by night and returned with huge quantities of material. On his return he learned that the dome was given to Ziégler! Even as I after the interdiction ofAntony, he took a cab, forced his way to the presence of M. Thiers, found him in his private room, and stopped in front of his desk.
"Monsieur le Ministre, I do not come to claim the work you had promised me; I come to return you the twenty-five thousand francs you advanced me."
And, flinging down the bank-notes for that sum upon the Minister's desk, he bowed and went out.
This was dignified, noble and grand! But it was dismal. The unhappiness of Delaroche, let us rather say, his misanthropy, dates from that day.
Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix had exhibited in the Salon of 1831 hisTigres, hisLiberté, hisMort de l'Évêque de Liége.Notice how well the grave and misanthropie face of Delaroche is framed between Horace Vernet, who is life and movement, and Delacroix, who is feeling, imagination and fantasy. Here is a painter in the full sense of the term,à la bonne heure!Full of faults impossible to defend, full of qualities impossible to dispute, for which friends and enemies, admirers and detractors can cut one another's throats in all conscience. And all will have right on their side: those who love him and those who hate him; those who admire, those who run him down. To battle, then! For Delacroix is equally afait de guerreand acas de guerre.
We will try to draw this great and strange artistic figure, which is like nothing that has been and probably like nothing that ever will be; we will try to give, by the analysis of his temperament, an idea of the productions of this great painter, who bore a likeness to both Michael Angelo and Rubens; not so good at drawing as the first, nor as good at composition as the second, but more original in his fancies than either. Temperament is the tree; works are but its flowers and fruit.
Eugène Delacroix was born at Charenton near Paris,—at Charenton-les-Fous; nobody, perhaps, has painted such fools as did he: witness the stupid fool, the timid fool and the angry fool of thePrison du Tasse.He was born in 1798, in the full tide of the Directory. His father was first a Ministerduring the Revolution, then préfet at Bordeaux, and was later to become préfet at Marseilles. Eugène was the last of his family, theculot—the nestling, as bird-nest robbers say; his brother was twenty-five years old when he was born, and his sister was married before he was born. It would be difficult to find a childhood fuller of events than that of Delacroix. At three, he had been hung, burned, drowned, poisoned and strangled! He must have been made very tough by Fate to escape all this alive. One day his father, who was a soldier, took him up in his arms, and raised him to the level of his mouth; meantime the child amused itself by twisting the cord of the cavalryman's forage cap round his neck; the soldier, instead of putting him down on the ground, let him fall, and behold there was Delacroix hung. Happily, they loosened the cord of the cap in time, and Delacroix was saved. One night, his nurse left the candle too near his mosquito net, the wind set the net waving and it caught fire; the fire spread to the bedding, sheets and child's nightshirt, and behold Delacroix was on fire! Happily he cries; and, at his cries people come in, and Delacroix is extinguished. It was high time, the man's back is to this day marked all over with the burns which scarred the child's skin. His father passed from the prefecture of Bordeaux to that of Marseilles, and they gave an inaugural fête to the new préfet in the harbour; while passing from one boat to another, the serving lad who carried the child made a false step, dropped him and there was Delacroix drowning! Luckily, a sailor jumped into the sea and fished him out just when the serving lad, thinking of his own salvation, was about to drop him. A little later, in his father's study, he found somevert-de-griswhich was used to clean geographical maps; the colour pleased his fancy,—Delacroix has always been a colourist;—he swallowed thevert-de-gris, and there he was poisoned! Happily, his father came back, found the bowl empty, suspected what had happened and called in a doctor; the doctor ordered an emetic and freed the child from the poison. Once, when he had been very good, his mother gave him a bunch of driedgrapes; Delacroix was greedy; instead of eating his grapes one by one, he swallowed the whole bunch; it stuck in his throat, and he was being suffocated in exactly the same way as was Paul Huet with the fish bone! Fortunately, his mother stuffed her hand into his mouth up to the wrist, caught hold of the bunch by its stalk, managed to draw it up, and Delacroix, who was choking, breathed again. These various events no doubt caused one of his biographers to say that he had anunhappychildhood. As we see, it should rather have been saidexciting.Delacroix was adored by his father and mother, and it is not an unhappy childhood to grow up and develop surrounded by the love of father and mother. They sent him to school at eight,—to the Lycée Impérial. There he stayed till he was seventeen, making good progress with his studies, spending his holidays sometimes with his father and sometimes with his uncle Riesener, the portrait-painter. At his uncle's house he met Guérin. The craze to be a painter had always stuck to him: at six years old, in 1804, when in the camp at Boulogne, he had made a drawing with white chalk on a black plank, representing theDescente des Français en Angleterre; only, France figured as a mountain and England as a valley; and a company of soldiers was descending the mountain into the valley: this was thedescentinto England. Of the sea itself there was no question. We see that, at six years of age, Delacroix's geographical ideas were not very clearly defined. It was agreed upon between Riesener and the composer ofClymnestreandPyrrhusthat, when Delacroix left college, he should enter the studio of the latter. There were, indeed, some difficulties raised by the family, the father inclining to law, the mother to the diplomatic service; but, at eighteen, Delacroix lost his fortune and his father; he had only forty thousand francs left, and liberty to make himself a painter. He then went to Guérin, as soon as it could be arranged, and, working like a negro, dreamed, composed and executed his picture ofDante.This picture, not the worst of those he has painted,—strong men sometimes put as much or even more into their first work as into any afterwards,—came under thenotice of Géricault. The gaze of the young master when in process of painting hisNaufrage de la Médusewas like the rays of a hot sun. Géricault often came to see the work of Delacroix; the rapidity and original fancy of the brush of his young rival, or, rather, of his young disciple, amused him. He looked over his shoulder—Delacroix is of short and Géricault of tall stature,—or he looked on seated astride a chair. Géricault was so fond of horses that he always sat astride something. When the last stroke of the brush was put to the dark crossing of hell, it was shown to M. Guérin. M. Guérin bit his lips, frowned and uttered a little growl of disapprobation accompanied by a negative shake of the head. And that was all Delacroix could extract from him. The picture was exhibited. Gérard saw it as he was passing by, stopped short, looked at it a long time and that night, when dining with Thiers,—who was making his first campaign in literature, as was Delacroix in painting,—he said to the future Minister—
"We have a new painter!"
"What is his name?"
"Eugène Delacroix!"
"What has he done?"
"A Dante passant l'Acheron avec Virgile.Go and see his picture."
Next day Thiers goes to the Louvre, seeks for the picture, finds it, gazes at it and goes out entranced.
Intellectually, Thiers possessed genuine artistic feeling, even if it did not spring from the heart. He did what he could for art; and when he displeased, wounded and discouraged an artist, the fault has lain with his environment, his family, or some salon coterie, and, even when causing pain to an artist, and in failing to keep his promises, he did his utmost to spare the artist any pain he may have had to cause him, at the cost of pain to himself. He was lucky, also, in his dealings, if not always just; it was his idea to send Sigalon to Rome. True, Sigalon died there of cholera; but not till after he had sent from Rome his beautiful copy of theJugement dernier.So Thiers went back delighted with Delacroix's picture; hewas then working on the staff of theConstitutionnel, and he wrote a splendid article on the new painter. In short, theDantedid not raise too much envy. It was not suspected what a family of reprobates the exile from Florence dragged in his wake! The Government bought the picture for two thousand francs, upon the recommendation of Gérard and Gros, and had it taken to the Luxembourg, where it still is. You can see it there, one of the finest pictures in the palace.
Two years flew by. At that time exhibitions were only held every two or three years. The salon of 1824 then opened. All eyes were turned towards Greece. The memories of our young days formed a kind of propaganda, recruiting under its banner, men, money, poems, painting and concerts. People sang, painted, made verses, begged for the Greeks. Whoever pronounced himself a Turkophile ran the risk of being stoned like Saint Stephen. Delacroix exhibited his famousMassacre de Scio.
Good Heavens! Have you who belonged to that time forgotten the clamour that picture roused, with its rough and violent style of composition, yet full of poetry and grace? Do you remember the young girl tied to the tail of a horse? How frail and fragile she looked! How easily one could see that her whole body would shed its fragments like the petals of a rose, and be scattered like flakes of snow, when it came in contact with pebbles and boulders and bramble thorns!