Pierre Grassou

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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.