The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pierre Grassou, by Honore de Balzac
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Title: Pierre Grassou
Author: Honore de Balzac
Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Release Date: March, 1998 [Etext #1230]
Posting Date: February 21, 2010
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE GRASSOU ***
Produced by John Bickers and Dagny
PIERRE GRASSOU
By Honore De Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Dedication
To The Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, Periollas, As a Testimony of the
Affectionate Esteem of the Author,
De Balzac
PIERRE GRASSOU
Whenever you have gone to take a serious look at the exhibition of works
of sculpture and painting, such as it has been since the revolution
of 1830, have you not been seized by a sense of uneasiness, weariness,
sadness, at the sight of those long and over-crowded galleries? Since
1830, the true Salon no longer exists. The Louvre has again been taken
by assault,--this time by a populace of artists who have maintained
themselves in it.
In other days, when the Salon presented only the choicest works of art,
it conferred the highest honor on the creations there exhibited. Among
the two hundred selected paintings, the public could still choose: a
crown was awarded to the masterpiece by hands unseen. Eager, impassioned
discussions arose about some picture. The abuse showered on Delacroix,
on Ingres, contributed no less to their fame than the praises and
fanaticism of their adherents. To-day, neither the crowd nor the
criticism grows impassioned about the products of that bazaar. Forced to
make the selection for itself, which in former days the examining
jury made for it, the attention of the public is soon wearied and the
exhibition closes. Before the year 1817 the pictures admitted never went
beyond the first two columns of the long gallery of the old masters; but
in that year, to the great astonishment of the public, they filled the
whole space. Historical, high-art, genre paintings, easel pictures,
landscapes, flowers, animals, and water-colors,--these eight specialties
could surely not offer more than twenty pictures in one year worthy of
the eyes of the public, which, indeed, cannot give its attention to a
greater number of such works. The more the number of artists increases,
the more careful and exacting the jury of admission ought to be.
The true character of the Salon was lost as soon as it spread along
the galleries. The Salon should have remained within fixed limits of
inflexible proportions, where each distinct specialty could show its
masterpieces only. An experience of ten years has shown the excellence
of the former institution. Now, instead of a tournament, we have a mob;
instead of a noble exhibition, we have a tumultuous bazaar; instead of
a choice selection we have a chaotic mass. What is the result? A great
artist is swamped. Decamps' "Turkish Cafe," "Children at a Fountain,"
"Joseph," and "The Torture," would have redounded far more to his credit
if the four pictures had been exhibited in the great Salon with the
hundred good pictures of that year, than his twenty pictures could,
among three thousand others, jumbled together in six galleries.
By some strange contradiction, ever since the doors are open to every
one there has been much talk of unknown and unrecognized genius. When,
twelve years earlier, Ingres' "Courtesan," and that of Sigalon, the
"Medusa" of Gericault, the "Massacre of Scio" by Delacroix, the "Baptism
of Henri IV." by Eugene Deveria, admitted by celebrated artists accused
of jealousy, showed the world, in spite of the denials of criticism,
that young and vigorous palettes existed, no such complaint was made.
Now, when the veriest dauber of canvas can send in his work, the whole
talk is of genius neglected! Where judgment no longer exists, there is
no longer anything judged. But whatever artists may be doing now, they
will come back in time to the examination and selection which presents
their works to the admiration of the crowd for whom they work. Without
selection by the Academy there will be no Salon, and without the Salon
art may perish.
Ever since the catalogue has grown into a book, many names have appeared
in it which still remain in their native obscurity, in spite of the ten
or a dozen pictures attached to them. Among these names perhaps the most
unknown to fame is that of an artist named Pierre Grassou, coming from
Fougeres, and called simply "Fougeres" among his brother-artists, who,
at the present moment holds a place, as the saying is, "in the sun," and
who suggested the rather bitter reflections by which this sketch of
his life is introduced,--reflections that are applicable to many other
individuals of the tribe of artists.
In 1832, Fougeres lived in the rue de Navarin, on the fourth floor of
one of those tall, narrow houses which resemble the obelisk of Luxor,
and possess an alley, a dark little stairway with dangerous turnings,
three windows only on each floor, and, within the building, a courtyard,
or, to speak more correctly, a square pit or well. Above the three or
four rooms occupied by Grassou of Fougeres was his studio, looking over
to Montmartre. This studio was painted in brick-color, for a background;
the floor was tinted brown and well frotted; each chair was furnished
with a bit of carpet bound round the edges; the sofa, simple enough, was
clean as that in the bedroom of some worthy bourgeoise. All these things
denoted the tidy ways of a small mind and the thrift of a poor man. A
bureau was there, in which to put away the studio implements, a table
for breakfast, a sideboard, a secretary; in short, all the articles
necessary to a painter, neatly arranged and very clean. The stove
participated in this Dutch cleanliness, which was all the more visible
because the pure and little changing light from the north flooded with
its cold clear beams the vast apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre
painter, does not need the immense machinery and outfit which ruin
historical painters; he has never recognized within himself sufficient
faculty to attempt high-art, and he therefore clings to easel painting.
At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at
which the bourgeois of Paris conceive, periodically, the burlesque idea
of perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in themselves,
Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette, and lighted
his stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting till the frost
on his windows had melted sufficiently to let the full light in. The
weather was fine and dry. At this moment the artist, who ate his bread
with that patient, resigned air that tells so much, heard and recognized
the step of a man who had upon his life the influence such men have
on the lives of nearly all artists,--the step of Elie Magus, a
picture-dealer, a usurer in canvas. The next moment Elie Magus entered
and found the painter in the act of beginning his work in the tidy
studio.
"How are you, old rascal?" said the painter.
Fougeres had the cross of the Legion of honor, and Elie Magus bought his
pictures at two and three hundred francs apiece, so he gave himself the
airs of a fine artist.
"Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such
pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six
sous' worth of color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll
say that. You are steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business in
your way."
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"
"No."
"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business
to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden time
they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.' Well,
what do you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which
Fougeres employed what painters call studio fun.
"Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for nothing."
"Oh! oh!"
"I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest
man."
"Come, out with it!"
"Well, I'm prepared to bring you a father, mother, and only daughter."
"All for me?"
"Yes--they want their portraits taken. These bourgeois--they are crazy
about art--have never dared to enter a studio. The girl has a 'dot' of a
hundred thousand francs. You can paint all three,--perhaps they'll turn
out family portraits."
And with that the old Dutch log of wood who passed for a man and who was
called Elie Magus, interrupted himself to laugh an uncanny laugh which
frightened the painter. He fancied he heard Mephistopheles talking
marriage.
"Portraits bring five hundred francs apiece," went on Elie; "so you can
very well afford to paint me three pictures."
"True for you!" cried Fougeres, gleefully.
"And if you marry the girl, you won't forget me."
"Marry! I?" cried Pierre Grassou,--"I, who have a habit of sleeping
alone; and get up at cock-crow, and all my life arranged--"
"One hundred thousand francs," said Magus, "and a quiet girl, full of
golden tones, as you call 'em, like a Titian."
"What class of people are they?"
"Retired merchants; just now in love with art; have a country-house at
Ville d'Avray, and ten or twelve thousand francs a year."
"What business did they do?"
"Bottles."
"Now don't say that word; it makes me think of corks and sets my teeth
on edge."
"Am I to bring them?"
"Three portraits--I could put them in the Salon; I might go in for
portrait-painting. Well, yes!"
Old Elie descended the staircase to go in search of the Vervelle family.
To know to what extend this proposition would act upon the painter, and
what effect would be produced upon him by the Sieur and Dame Vervelle,
adorned by their only daughter, it is necessary to cast an eye on the
anterior life of Pierre Grassou of Fougeres.
When a pupil, Fougeres had studied drawing with Servin, who was
thought a great draughtsman in academic circles. After that he went to
Schinner's, to learn the secrets of the powerful and magnificent color
which distinguishes that master. Master and scholars were all discreet;
at any rate Pierre discovered none of their secrets. From there he went
to Sommervieux' atelier, to acquire that portion of the art of painting
which is called composition, but composition was shy and distant to him.
Then he tried to snatch from Decamps and Granet the mystery of their
interior effects. The two masters were not robbed. Finally Fougeres
ended his education with Duval-Lecamus. During these studied and
these different transformations Fougeres' habits and ways of life were
tranquil and moral to a degree that furnished matter of jesting to the
various ateliers where he sojourned; but everywhere he disarmed his
comrades by his modesty and by the patience and gentleness of a lamblike
nature. The masters, however, had no sympathy for the good lad; masters
prefer bright fellows, eccentric spirits, droll or fiery, or else gloomy
and deeply reflective, which argue future talent. Everything about
Pierre Grassou smacked of mediocrity. His nickname "Fougeres" (that
of the painter in the play of "The Eglantine") was the source of much
teasing; but, by force of circumstances, he accepted the name of the
town in which he had first seen light.
Grassou of Fougeres resembled his name. Plump and of medium height, he
had a dull complexion, brown eyes, black hair, a turned-up nose, rather
wide mouth, and long ears. His gentle, passive, and resigned air gave a
certain relief to these leading features of a physiognomy that was full
of health, but wanting in action. This young man, born to be a virtuous
bourgeois, having left his native place and come to Paris to be clerk
with a color-merchant (formerly of Mayenne and a distant connection of
the Orgemonts) made himself a painter simply by the fact of an obstinacy
which constitutes the Breton character. What he suffered, the manner in
which he lived during those years of study, God only knows. He suffered
as much as great men suffer when they are hounded by poverty and hunted
like wild beasts by the pack of commonplace minds and by troops of
vanities athirst for vengeance.
As soon as he thought himself able to fly on his own wings, Fougeres
took a studio in the upper part of the rue des Martyrs, where he began
to delve his way. He made his first appearance in 1819. The first
picture he presented to the jury of the Exhibition at the Louvre
represented a village wedding rather laboriously copied from Greuze's
picture. It was rejected. When Fougeres heard of the fatal decision,
he did not fall into one of those fits of epileptic self-love to which
strong natures give themselves up, and which sometimes end in challenges
sent to the director or the secretary of the Museum, or even by threats
of assassination. Fougeres quietly fetched his canvas, wrapped it in
a handkerchief, and brought it home, vowing in his heart that he would
still make himself a great painter. He placed his picture on the easel,
and went to one of his former masters, a man of immense talent,--to
Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon
was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and criticise the rejected
work. The great painter left everything and went at once. When poor
Fougeres had placed the work before him Schinner, after a glance,
pressed Fougeres' hand.
"You are a fine fellow," he said; "you've a heart of gold, and I must
not deceive you. Listen; you are fulfilling all the promises you made in
the studios. When you find such things as that at the tip of your brush,
my good Fougeres, you had better leave colors with Brullon, and not take
the canvas of others. Go home early, put on your cotton night-cap, and
be in bed by nine o'clock. The next morning early go to some government
office, ask for a place, and give up art."
"My dear friend," said Fougeres, "my picture is already condemned; it is
not a verdict that I want of you, but the cause of that verdict."
"Well--you paint gray and sombre; you see nature being a crape veil;
your drawing is heavy, pasty; your composition is a medley of Greuze,
who only redeemed his defects by the qualities which you lack."
While detailing these faults of the picture Schinner saw on Fougeres'
face so deep an expression of sadness that he carried him off to dinner
and tried to console him. The next morning at seven o'clock Fougeres was
at his easel working over the rejected picture; he warmed the colors; he
made the corrections suggested by Schinner, he touched up his figures.
Then, disgusted with such patching, he carried the picture to Elie
Magus. Elie Magus, a sort of Dutch-Flemish-Belgian, had three reasons
for being what he became,--rich and avaricious. Coming last from
Bordeaux, he was just starting in Paris, selling old pictures and living
on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. Fougeres, who relied on his palette
to go to the baker's, bravely ate bread and nuts, or bread and milk, or
bread and cherries, or bread and cheese, according to the seasons. Elie
Magus, to whom Pierre offered his first picture, eyed it for some time
and then gave him fifteen francs.
"With fifteen francs a year coming in, and a thousand francs for
expenses," said Fougeres, smiling, "a man will go fast and far."
Elie Magus made a gesture; he bit his thumbs, thinking that he might
have had that picture for five francs.
For several days Pierre walked down from the rue des Martyrs and
stationed himself at the corner of the boulevard opposite to Elie's
shop, whence his eye could rest upon his picture, which did not obtain
any notice from the eyes of the passers along the street. At the end of
a week the picture disappeared; Fougeres walked slowly up and approached
the dealer's shop in a lounging manner. The Jew was at his door.
"Well, I see you have sold my picture."
"No, here it is," said Magus; "I've framed it, to show it to some one
who fancies he knows about painting."
Fougeres had not the heart to return to the boulevard. He set about
another picture, and spent two months upon it,--eating mouse's meals and
working like a galley-slave.
One evening he went to the boulevard, his feet leading him fatefully to
the dealer's shop. His picture was not to be seen.
"I've sold your picture," said Elie Magus, seeing him.
"For how much?"
"I got back what I gave and a small interest. Make me some Flemish
interiors, a lesson of anatomy, landscapes, and such like, and I'll buy
them of you," said Elie.
Fougeres would fain have taken old Magus in his arms; he regarded him as
a father. He went home with joy in his heart; the great painter Schinner
was mistaken after all! In that immense city of Paris there were some
hearts that beat in unison with Pierre's; his talent was understood and
appreciated. The poor fellow of twenty-seven had the innocence of a lad
of sixteen. Another man, one of those distrustful, surly artists, would
have noticed the diabolical look on Elie's face and seen the twitching
of the hairs of his beard, the irony of his moustache, and the movement
of his shoulders which betrayed the satisfaction of Walter Scott's Jew
in swindling a Christian.
Fougeres marched along the boulevard in a state of joy which gave to his
honest face an expression of pride. He was like a schoolboy protecting
a woman. He met Joseph Bridau, one of his comrades, and one of those
eccentric geniuses destined to fame and sorrow. Joseph Bridau, who had,
to use his own expression, a few sous in his pocket, took Fougeres to
the Opera. But Fougeres didn't see the ballet, didn't hear the music; he
was imagining pictures, he was painting. He left Joseph in the middle
of the evening, and ran home to make sketches by lamp-light. He invented
thirty pictures, all reminiscence, and felt himself a man of genius. The
next day he bought colors, and canvases of various dimensions; he piled
up bread and cheese on his table, he filled a water-pot with water,
he laid in a provision of wood for his stove; then, to use a studio
expression, he dug at his pictures. He hired several models and Magus
lent him stuffs.
After two months' seclusion the Breton had finished four pictures. Again
he asked counsel of Schinner, this time adding Bridau to the invitation.
The two painters saw in three of these pictures a servile imitation
of Dutch landscapes and interiors by Metzu, in the fourth a copy of
Rembrandt's "Lesson of Anatomy."
"Still imitating!" said Schinner. "Ah! Fougeres can't manage to be
original."
"You ought to do something else than painting," said Bridau.
"What?" asked Fougeres.
"Fling yourself into literature."
Fougeres lowered his head like a sheep when it rains. Then he asked and
obtained certain useful advice, and retouched his pictures before taking
them to Elie Magus. Elie paid him twenty-five francs apiece. At that
price of course Fougeres earned nothing; neither did he lose, thanks to
his sober living. He made a few excursions to the boulevard to see what
became of his pictures, and there he underwent a singular hallucination.
His neat, clean paintings, hard as tin and shiny as porcelain, were
covered with a sort of mist; they looked like old daubs. Magus was out,
and Pierre could obtain no information on this phenomenon. He fancied
something was wrong with his eyes.
The painter went back to his studio and made more pictures. After seven
years of continued toil Fougeres managed to compose and execute quite
passable work. He did as well as any artist of the second class.
Elie bought and sold all the paintings of the poor Breton, who earned
laboriously about two thousand francs a year while he spent but twelve
hundred.
At the Exhibition of 1829, Leon de Lora, Schinner, and Bridau, who all
three occupied a great position and were, in fact, at the head of the
art movement, were filled with pity for the perseverance and the poverty
of their old friend; and they caused to be admitted into the grand salon
of the Exhibition, a picture by Fougeres. This picture, powerful in
interest but derived from Vigneron as to sentiment and from Dubufe's
first manner as to execution, represented a young man in prison, whose
hair was being cut around the nape of the neck. On one side was
a priest, on the other two women, one old, one young, in tears. A
sheriff's clerk was reading aloud a document. On a wretched table was a
meal, untouched. The light came in through the bars of a window near
the ceiling. It was a picture fit to make the bourgeois shudder, and
the bourgeois shuddered. Fougeres had simply been inspired by the
masterpiece of Gerard Douw; he had turned the group of the "Dropsical
Woman" toward the window, instead of presenting it full front. The
condemned man was substituted for the dying woman--same pallor, same
glance, same appeal to God. Instead of the Dutch doctor, he had painted
the cold, official figure of the sheriff's clerk attired in black; but
he had added an old woman to the young one of Gerard Douw. The cruelly
simple and good-humored face of the executioner completed and dominated
the group. This plagiarism, very cleverly disguised, was not discovered.
The catalogue contained the following:--
510. Grassou de Fougeres (Pierre), rue de Navarin, 2.
Death-toilet of a Chouan, condemned to execution in 1809.
Though wholly second-rate, the picture had immense success, for it
recalled the affair of the "chauffeurs," of Mortagne. A crowd collected
every day before the now fashionable canvas; even Charles X. paused to
look at it. "Madame," being told of the patient life of the poor Breton,
became enthusiastic over him. The Duc d'Orleans asked the price of
the picture. The clergy told Madame la Dauphine that the subject was
suggestive of good thoughts; and there was, in truth, a most satisfying
religious tone about it. Monseigneur the Dauphin admired the dust on
the stone-floor,--a huge blunder, by the way, for Fougeres had painted
greenish tones suggestive of mildew along the base of the walls.
"Madame" finally bought the picture for a thousand francs, and the
Dauphin ordered another like it. Charles X. gave the cross of the Legion
of honor to this son of a peasant who had fought for the royal cause
in 1799. (Joseph Bridau, the great painter, was not yet decorated.) The
minister of the Interior ordered two church pictures of Fougeres.
This Salon of 1829 was to Pierre Grassou his whole fortune, fame,
future, and life. Be original, invent, and you die by inches; copy,
imitate, and you'll live. After this discovery of a gold mine, Grassou
de Fougeres obtained his benefit of the fatal principle to which society
owes the wretched mediocrities to whom are intrusted in these days the
election of leaders in all social classes; who proceed, naturally, to
elect themselves and who wage a bitter war against all true talent. The
principle of election applied indiscriminately is false, and France will
some day abandon it.
Nevertheless the modesty, simplicity, and genuine surprise of the good
and gentle Fougeres silenced all envy and all recriminations. Besides,
he had on his side all of his clan who had succeeded, and all who
expected to succeed. Some persons, touched by the persistent energy of a
man whom nothing had discouraged, talked of Domenichino and said:--
"Perseverance in the arts should be rewarded. Grassou hasn't stolen his
successes; he has delved for ten years, the poor dear man!"
That exclamation of "poor dear man!" counted for half in the support
and the congratulations which the painter received. Pity sets up
mediocrities as envy pulls down great talents, and in equal numbers.
The newspapers, it is true, did not spare criticism, but the chevalier
Fougeres digested them as he had digested the counsel of his friends,
with angelic patience.
Possessing, by this time, fifteen thousand francs, laboriously earned,
he furnished an apartment and studio in the rue de Navarin, and painted
the picture ordered by Monseigneur the Dauphin, also the two church
pictures, and delivered them at the time agreed on, with a punctuality
that was very discomforting to the exchequer of the ministry, accustomed
to a different course of action. But--admire the good fortune of men who
are methodical--if Grassou, belated with his work, had been caught by
the revolution of July he would not have got his money.
By the time he was thirty-seven Fougeres had manufactured for Elie Magus
some two hundred pictures, all of them utterly unknown, by the help of
which he had attained to that satisfying manner, that point of execution
before which the true artist shrugs his shoulders and the bourgeoisie
worships. Fougeres was dear to friends for rectitude of ideas, for
steadiness of sentiment, absolute kindliness, and great loyalty; though
they had no esteem for his palette, they loved the man who held it.
"What a misfortune it is that Fougeres has the vice of painting!" said
his comrades.
But for all this, Grassou gave excellent counsel, like those
feuilletonists incapable of writing a book who know very well where a
book is wanting. There was this difference, however, between literary
critics and Fougeres; he was eminently sensitive to beauties; he felt
them, he acknowledged them, and his advice was instinct with a spirit
of justice that made the justness of his remarks acceptable. After
the revolution of July, Fougeres sent about ten pictures a year to the
Salon, of which the jury admitted four or five. He lived with the most
rigid economy, his household being managed solely by an old charwoman.
For all amusement he visited his friends, he went to see works of art,
he allowed himself a few little trips about France, and he planned to go
to Switzerland in search of inspiration. This detestable artist was an
excellent citizen; he mounted guard duly, went to reviews, and paid his
rent and provision-bills with bourgeois punctuality.
Having lived all his life in toil and poverty, he had never had the time
to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to complicate
his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of increasing his
little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his notary, Cardot,
his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary had received
about three thousand francs he invested them in some first mortgage, the
interest of which he drew himself and added to the quarterly payments
made to him by Fougeres. The painter was awaiting the fortunate moment
when his property thus laid by would give him the imposing income of two
thousand francs, to allow himself the otium cum dignitate of the
artist and paint pictures; but oh! what pictures! true pictures! each a
finished picture! chouette, Koxnoff, chocnosoff! His future, his dreams
of happiness, the superlative of his hopes--do you know what it was?
To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of officer of the Legion
of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon de Lora, to reach the
Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his buttonhole! What a
dream! It is only commonplace men who think of everything.
Hearing the sound of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed up
his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was not a
little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face vulgarly
called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted a pumpkin,
clothed in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of tintinnabulating baubles.
The melon puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin advanced on turnips,
improperly called legs. A true painter would have turned the little
bottle-vendor off at once, assuring him that he didn't paint vegetables.
This painter looked at his client without a smile, for Monsieur Vervelle
wore a three-thousand-franc diamond in the bosom of his shirt.
Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang
term then much in vogue in the studios.
Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois drew
after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of his wife
and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her face, and
in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head and tied in
around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-rooted,
and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly exhibited
unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of a
first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned
her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the
spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that
painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in a
swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into the
shoes, no one knows.
Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented
a tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that a
Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish spots
upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any brows, a
leghorn bonnet bound with white satin and adorned with two honest bows
of the same satin, hands virtuously red, and the feet of her mother. The
faces of these three beings wore, as they looked round the studio, an
air of happiness which bespoke in them a respectable enthusiasm for Art.
"So it is you, monsieur, who are going to take our likenesses?" said the
father, assuming a jaunty air.
"Yes, monsieur," replied Grassou.
"Vervelle, he has the cross!" whispered the wife to the husband while
the painter's back was turned.
"Should I be likely to have our portraits painted by an artist who
wasn't decorated?" returned the former bottle-dealer.
Elie Magus here bowed to the Vervelle family and went away. Grassou
accompanied him to the landing.
"There's no one but you who would fish up such whales."
"One hundred thousand francs of 'dot'!"
"Yes, but what a family!"
"Three hundred thousand francs of expectations, a house in the rue
Boucherat, and a country-house at Ville d'Avray!"
"Bottles and corks! bottles and corks!" said the painter; "they set my
teeth on edge."
"Safe from want for the rest of your days," said Elie Magus as he
departed.
That idea entered the head of Pierre Grassou as the daylight had burst
into his garret that morning.
While he posed the father of the young person, he thought the
bottle-dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full
of violent tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel,
marvelling at all his preparations; they evidently thought him a
demigod. This visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf threw
upon the family its fantastic reflections.
"You must earn lots of money; but of course you don't spend it as you
get it," said the mother.
"No, madame," replied the painter; "I don't spend it; I have not the
means to amuse myself. My notary invests my money; he knows what I have;
as soon as I have taken him the money I never think of it again."
"I've always been told," cried old Vervelle, "that artists were baskets
with holes in them."
"Who is your notary--if it is not indiscreet to ask?" said Madame
Vervelle.
"A good fellow, all round," replied Grassou. "His name is Cardot."
"Well, well! if that isn't a joke!" exclaimed Vervelle. "Cardot is our
notary too."
"Take care! don't move," said the painter.
"Do pray hold still, Antenor," said the wife. "If you move about you'll
make monsieur miss; you should just see him working, and then you'd
understand."
"Oh! why didn't you have me taught the arts?" said Mademoiselle Vervelle
to her parents.
"Virginie," said her mother, "a young person ought not to learn certain
things. When you are married--well, till then, keep quiet."
During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate
with the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As they
went away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite of
this separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally
awakened her curiosity.
"Decorated--thirty-seven years old--an artist who gets orders--puts his
money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! Madame de Fougeres!
not a bad name--doesn't look like a bad man either! One might prefer a
merchant; but before a merchant retires from business one can never know
what one's daughter may come to; whereas an economical artist--and then
you know we love Art--Well, we'll see!"
While the Vervelle family discussed Pierre Grassou, Pierre Grassou
discussed in his own mind the Vervelle family. He found it impossible to
stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard, and
looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. He made a series of
the oddest reasonings to himself: gold was the handsomest of metals; a
tawny yellow represented gold; the Romans were fond of red-haired women,
and he turned Roman, etc. After two years of marriage what man would
ever care about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty fades,--but
ugliness remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That night when he
went to bed the painter had come to think Virginie Vervelle charming.
When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the
artist received them with smiles. The rascal had shaved and put on clean
linen; he had also arranged his hair in a pleasing manner, and chosen
a very becoming pair of trousers and red leather slippers with pointed
toes. The family replied with smiles as flattering as those of the
artist. Virginie became the color of her hair, lowered her eyes, and
turned aside her head to look at the sketches. Pierre Grassou thought
these little affectations charming, Virginie had such grace; happily she
didn't look like her father or her mother; but whom did she look like?
During this sitting there were little skirmishes between the family
and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty. This
flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of the
artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and a sketch to the mother.
"What! for nothing?" they said.
Pierre Grassou could not help smiling.
"You shouldn't give away your pictures in that way; they are money,"
said old Vervelle.
At the third sitting pere Vervelle mentioned a fine gallery of pictures
which he had in his country-house at Ville d'Avray--Rubens, Gerard Douw,
Mieris, Terburg, Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Potter, etc.
"Monsieur Vervelle has been very extravagant," said Madame Vervelle,
ostentatiously. "He has over one hundred thousand francs' worth of
pictures."
"I love Art," said the former bottle-dealer.
When Madame Vervelle's portrait was begun that of her husband was nearly
finished, and the enthusiasm of the family knew no bounds. The notary
had spoken in the highest praise of the painter. Pierre Grassou was, he
said, one of the most honest fellows on earth; he had laid by thirty-six
thousand francs; his days of poverty were over; he now saved about ten
thousand francs a year and capitalized the interest; in short, he was
incapable of making a woman unhappy. This last remark had enormous
weight in the scales. Vervelle's friends now heard of nothing but the
celebrated painter Fougeres.
The day on which Fougeres began the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie,
he was virtually son-in-law to the Vervelle family. The three Vervelles
bloomed out in this studio, which they were now accustomed to consider
as one of their residences; there was to them an inexplicable attraction
in this clean, neat, pretty, and artistic abode. Abyssus abyssum, the
commonplace attracts the commonplace. Toward the end of the sitting the
stairway shook, the door was violently thrust open by Joseph Bridau; he
came like a whirlwind, his hair flying. He showed his grand haggard face
as he looked about him, casting everywhere the lightning of his glance;
then he walked round the whole studio, and returned abruptly to Grassou,
pulling his coat together over the gastric region, and endeavouring, but
in vain, to button it, the button mould having escaped from its capsule
of cloth.
"Wood is dear," he said to Grassou.
"Ah!"
"The British are after me" (slang term for creditors) "Gracious! do you
paint such things as that?"
"Hold your tongue!"
"Ah! to be sure, yes."
The Vervelle family, extremely shocked by this extraordinary apparition,
passed from its ordinary red to a cherry-red, two shades deeper.
"Brings in, hey?" continued Joseph. "Any shot in your locker?"
"How much do you want?"
"Five hundred. I've got one of those bull-dog dealers after me, and if
the fellow once gets his teeth in he won't let go while there's a bit of
me left. What a crew!"
"I'll write you a line for my notary."
"Have you got a notary?"
"Yes."
"That explains to me why you still make cheeks with pink tones like a
perfumer's sign."
Grassou could not help coloring, for Virginie was sitting.
"Take Nature as you find her," said the great painter, going on with his
lecture. "Mademoiselle is red-haired. Well, is that a sin? All things
are magnificent in painting. Put some vermillion on your palette, and
warm up those cheeks; touch in those little brown spots; come, butter it
well in. Do you pretend to have more sense than Nature?"
"Look here," said Fougeres, "take my place while I go and write that
note."
Vervelle rolled to the table and whispered in Grassou's ear:--
"Won't that country lout spoilt it?"
"If he would only paint the portrait of your Virginie it would be worth
a thousand times more than mine," replied Fougeres, vehemently.
Hearing that reply the bourgeois beat a quiet retreat to his wife, who
was stupefied by the invasion of this ferocious animal, and very uneasy
at his co-operation in her daughter's portrait.
"Here, follow these indications," said Bridau, returning the palette,
and taking the note. "I won't thank you. I can go back now to d'Arthez'
chateau, where I am doing a dining-room, and Leon de Lora the tops of
the doors--masterpieces! Come and see us."
And off he went without taking leave, having had enough of looking at
Virginie.
"Who is that man?" asked Madame Vervelle.
"A great artist," answered Grassou.
There was silence for a moment.
"Are you quite sure," said Virginie, "that he has done no harm to my
portrait? He frightened me."
"He has only done it good," replied Grassou.
"Well, if he is a great artist, I prefer a great artist like you," said
Madame Vervelle.
The ways of genius had ruffled up these orderly bourgeois.
The phase of autumn so pleasantly named "Saint Martin's summer" was
just beginning. With the timidity of a neophyte in presence of a man of
genius, Vervelle risked giving Fougeres an invitation to come out to
his country-house on the following Sunday. He knew, he said, how little
attraction a plain bourgeois family could offer to an artist.
"You artists," he continued, "want emotions, great scenes, and witty
talk; but you'll find good wines, and I rely on my collection of
pictures to compensate an artist like you for the bore of dining with
mere merchants."
This form of idolatry, which stroked his innocent self-love, was
charming to our poor Pierre Grassou, so little accustomed to such
compliments. The honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity, that heart
of gold, that loyal soul, that stupid draughtsman, that worthy fellow,
decorated by royalty itself with the Legion of honor, put himself under
arms to go out to Ville d'Avray and enjoy the last fine days of the
year. The painter went modestly by public conveyance, and he could not
but admire the beautiful villa of the bottle-dealer, standing in a park
of five acres at the summit of Ville d'Avray, commanding a noble view
of the landscape. Marry Virginie, and have that beautiful villa some day
for his own!
He was received by the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a
kindliness, a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was
indeed a day of triumph. The prospective son-in-law was marched about
the grounds on the nankeen-colored paths, all raked as they should be
for the steps of so great a man. The trees themselves looked brushed and
combed, and the lawns had just been mown. The pure country air wafted
to the nostrils a most enticing smell of cooking. All things about the
mansion seemed to say:
"We have a great artist among us."
Little old Vervelle himself rolled like an apple through his park, the
daughter meandered like an eel, the mother followed with dignified step.
These three beings never let go for one moment of Pierre Grassou
for seven hours. After dinner, the length of which equalled its
magnificence, Monsieur and Madame Vervelle reached the moment of their
grand theatrical effect,--the opening of the picture gallery illuminated
by lamps, the reflections of which were managed with the utmost care.
Three neighbours, also retired merchants, an old uncle (from whom were
expectations), an elderly Demoiselle Vervelle, and a number of other
guests invited to be present at this ovation to a great artist followed
Grassou into the picture gallery, all curious to hear his opinion of the
famous collection of pere Vervelle, who was fond of oppressing them with
the fabulous value of his paintings. The bottle-merchant seemed to have
the idea of competing with King Louis-Philippe and the galleries of
Versailles.
The pictures, magnificently framed, each bore labels on which was read
in black letters on a gold ground:
Rubens
Dance of fauns and nymphs
Rembrandt
Interior of a dissecting room. The physician van Tromp
instructing his pupils.
In all, there were one hundred and fifty pictures, varnished and dusted.
Some were covered with green baize curtains which were not undrawn in
presence of young ladies.
Pierre Grassou stood with arms pendent, gaping mouth, and no word upon
his lips as he recognized half his own pictures in these works of art.
He was Rubens, he was Rembrandt, Mieris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Gerard
Douw! He was twenty great masters all by himself.
"What is the matter? You've turned pale!"
"Daughter, a glass of water! quick!" cried Madame Vervelle. The painter
took pere Vervelle by the button of his coat and led him to a corner on
pretence of looking at a Murillo. Spanish pictures were then the rage.
"You bought your pictures from Elie Magus?"
"Yes, all originals."
"Between ourselves, tell me what he made you pay for those I shall point
out to you."
Together they walked round the gallery. The guests were amazed at the
gravity in which the artist proceeded, in company with the host, to
examine each picture.
"Three thousand francs," said Vervelle in a whisper, as they reached the
last, "but I tell everybody forty thousand."
"Forty thousand for a Titian!" said the artist, aloud. "Why, it is
nothing at all!"
"Didn't I tell you," said Vervelle, "that I had three hundred thousand
francs' worth of pictures?"
"I painted those pictures," said Pierre Grassou in Vervelle's ear, "and
I sold them one by one to Elie Magus for less than ten thousand francs
the whole lot."
"Prove it to me," said the bottle-dealer, "and I double my daughter's
'dot,' for if it is so, you are Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Gerard Douw!"
"And Magus is a famous picture-dealer!" said the painter, who now saw
the meaning of the misty and aged look imparted to his pictures in
Elie's shop, and the utility of the subjects the picture-dealer had
required of him.
Far from losing the esteem of his admiring bottle-merchant, Monsieur
de Fougeres (for so the family persisted in calling Pierre Grassou)
advanced so much that when the portraits were finished he presented them
gratuitously to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and his wife.
At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the
Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns
some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs' worth
of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he
lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree
delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth.
Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he
is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not a family
portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue du Temple
that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs less than
five hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois families have
for employing him is this:--
"Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year with
his notary."
As Grassou took a creditable part on the occasion of the riots of May
12th he was appointed an officer of the Legion of honor. He is a major
in the National Guard. The Museum of Versailles felt it incumbent to
order a battle-piece of so excellent a citizen, who thereupon walked
about Paris to meet his old comrades and have the happiness of saying to
them:--
"The King has given me an order for the Museum of Versailles."
Madame de Fougeres adores her husband, to whom she has presented two
children. This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to
eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh at
his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and that
the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still works on;
he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter. And--oh!
vengeance which dilates his heart!--he buys the pictures of celebrated
artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these true works
of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the collection at
Ville d'Avray.
There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than
that of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and
truly obliging.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bridau, Joseph
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
Letters of Two Brides
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Cardot (Parisian notary)
The Muse of the Department
A Man of Business
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Grassou, Pierre
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Lora, Leon de
The Unconscious Humorists
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
Honorine
Cousin Betty
Beatrix
Magus, Elie
The Vendetta
A Marriage Settlement
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cousin Pons
Schinner, Hippolyte
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
Albert Savarus
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
The Imaginary Mistress
The Unconscious Humorists
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