Pierre Grassou

"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