Pierre Grassou

"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.