In , having received a government scholarship, she went to Munich, Bologna, and Florence, and lived three years and a half in Rome, where she was associated with Fogelberg, Overbeck, and Schnetz, and became a Catholic. During this time she copied Raphael's "Transfiguration," now in the Catholic church at Stockholm, and painted from life a portrait of Pius IX. Ahrens , Ellen Wetherald. Second prize and silver medal, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Many of her portraits are in private hands. That called "Sewing," a prize picture, will be in the St.
Her portrait of Mr. EUwood Johnson is in the Pennsylvania Academy. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, A sister of the well-known author, Louisa M. She made wonderful copies of Turner's pictures, both in oil and water colors, which were greatly praised by Ruskin and were used in the South Kensington Art Schools for the pupils to copy. Her still-life and flower pictures are in private collections and much valued.
She exhibited at the Paris Salon and in the Dudley Gallery, London, and, student as she still was, her works were approved by art critics on both sides of the Atlantic, and a brilliant future as an artist was foretold for her. Her married life was short, and her death sincerely mourned by a large circle of friends, as well as by the members of her profession who appreciated her artistic genius and her enthusiasm for her work.
Born in Florence, Italy. Daughter of the portrait painter, Francis Alexander. Her pen-and-ink drawing is her best work. The exquisite conceits in her illustrations were charmingly rendered by the delicacy of her work. She thus illustrated an unpublished Italian legend, writing the text also. Ruskin edited her "Story of Ida" and brought out "Roadside Songs of Tuscany," collected, translated, and illustrated by this artist. Born in Urbino, She was the daughter of the jurisconsult Luigi Alippi. She studied drawing and painting in Rome with Ortis and De Sanctis.
Following her father to Perugia in , whither he had been called to the Court of Appeals, she continued her study under Moretti. She married Ferdinando Fabretti in She made admira- ble copies of some of the best pictures in Perugia, notably Perugino's "Presepio" for a church in Mount Lebanon, Syria. She was also commissioned to paint an altar-piece, representing St. Stephen, for the same church. Her interiors are admirable. She painted two interior views of the church of San Giovanni del Cambio in Perugia, and an interior of the vestibule of the Confraternity of St.
Honorable mention at Paris Ex hibition, ; silver medal from Brussels Exhibition, ; bronze medal from the Columbian Exhibition, Chi- cago. Born near Burton-on-Trent, Began the study of art at fourteen, in Birmingham School of Art, where she remained about five years, when she entered the schools of the Royal Academy, where instruction is given by the Ro ral Academicians in turn. In she went to Italy.
Allingham has constantly exhibited at the Academy and many other exhibitions. Her pictures are of genre subjects, chiefly from English rural life and landscapes. She has also been successful as an illustrator for the Graphic , the Cornhill Magazine , and other publications.
Her water-color portraits of Carlyle in his later years are well known. She introduced his cat "Tib" into a portrait taken in his Chelsea garden. The "Young Customers," water-color, was exhibited at Paris in When seen at the Academy in , Ruskin wrote of it: The drawing with whatever temporary purpose executed, is forever lovely; a thing which I believe Gainsborough would have given one of his own paintings for—old-fashioned as red- tipped dresses are, and more precious than rubies. Alma-Tadema, Lady Laura Therese. From early childhood this artist was fond of drawing and had the usual drawing-class lessons at school and also drew from the antique in the British Museum.
Her serious study, however, began at the age of eighteen, under the direction of Laurenz Alma- Tadema. Her pictures are principally of domestic scenes, child- life, and other genre subjects. The room is attractive, the accessories well painted, and a second girl just coming through the door and turning her eyes up to the shuttlecock is an interesting figure. Of quite a different character is the picture called "In Winter. In a sled, well wrapped up, is a little girl, with a doll on her lap; the older boy—brother?
Apples leave the tree, my own. A pupil of her sister Sofonisba, painted a life-size portrait of Piermaria, a physician of Cremona. Lucia's portrait of her sister Europa is at Brescia. Some authorities believe that the small portrait in the Borghese Gallery is by Lucia, although it has been attributed to Sofonisba. Vasari relates that Europa and a younger sister, Anna Maria, were artists. A picture of the Holy Family, inscribed with Europa's name, was formerly in the possession of a vicar of the church of San Pietro; it was of far less merit than the works of her sisters.
Born in Cremona, about Daughter of the patrician, Amilcare Anguisciola, whose only fame rests on the fact that he was the father of six daughters, all of whom were distinguished by unusual talents in music and painting. Dear old Vasari was so charmed by his visit to their palace that he pronounced it " the very home of painting and of all other accomplishments. Sofonisba was the second daughter. The actual date of her birth is unknown, but from various other dates that we have concerning her, that given above is generally adopted.
She was educated with great care and began her study of drawing and painting when but seven years old, under the care of Bernardino Campi, the best artist of the five Campi of Cremona. Later she was a pupil of Bernardino Gatti, "il Sojaro," and in turn she superintended the artistic studies of her sisters. Sofonisba excelled in portraits, and when twenty-four years old was known all over Italy as a good artist. Her extraordinary proficiency at an early age is proved by a picture in the Yarborough collection, London—a portrait of a man, signed, and dated , when she was not more than twelve years old.
The reputation of the ceremonious Spanish court, under its gloomy and exacting sovereign, was not attractive to a young woman already surrounded by devoted admirers, to one of whom she had given her heart. The separation from her family, too, and the long, fatiguing journey to Spain, were objections not easily overcome, and her final acceptance of the proposal was a proof of her energy and strength of purpose.
Her journey was made in and was conducted with all possible care for her comfort. She was attended by two noble ladies as maids of honor, two chamberlains, and six servants in livery—in truth, her mode of travelling differed but little from that of the young ladies of the royal family.
As she entered Madrid she was received by the king and queen, and by them conducted to the royal palace. We can imagine Sofonisba's pleasure in painting the portrait of the lovely Isabella, and her pictures of Philip and his family soon raised her to the very summit of popularity. All the grandees of Madrid desired to have their portraits from her hand, and rich jewels and large sums of money were showered upon her. Gratifying as was her artistic success, the affection of the queen, which she speedily won, was more precious to her.
She was soon made a lady-in-waiting to her Majesty, and a little later was promoted to the distinguished position of governess to the Infanta Clara Eugenia. She wrote that no picture could worthily figure the royal lady, and added: The Pope bestowed rich gifts on Sofonisba, among which were sacred relics, set with gems. He also wrote an autograph letter, still in existence, in which he assured her that much as he admired her skill in painting, he had been led to believe this the least of her many gifts.
Sofonisba soon gained the approval of the serious and solemn King, for while Philip was jealous of the French ladies of the court and desired Isabella to be wholly under Spanish influence, he proposed to the artist a marriage with one of his nobles, by which means she would remain permanently in the Queen's household.
When Philip learned that Sofonisba was already betrothed to Don Fabrizio de Mongada—a Sicilian nobleman—in spite of his disappointment he joined Isabella in giving her a dowry of twelve thousand crowns and a pension of one thousand. It would seem that one who could so soften the heart and manners of Philip II. One is compelled to a kindly feeling for this much-hated man, who daily visited the Queen when she was suffering from smallpox. In her many illnesses he was tenderly devoted to her, and when we remember the miseries of royal ladies whose children are girls, we almost love Philip for comforting Isabella when her first baby was not a son.
Philip declared him self better pleased that she had given him a daughter, and made the declaration good by devotion to this child so long as he lived. Isabella, in a letter to her mother, wrote: I assure you, however, madame, that I have so kind a husband that even did I deem this place a hundredfold more wearisome I should not complain.
While Sofonisba was overwhelmed with commissions in Spain, her sisters were far from idle in Cremona. Europa sent pictures to Madrid which were purchased for private collections, and a picture by Lucia is now in the Gallery of the Queen at Madrid.
When the time for Sofonisba's marriage came she was sorry to leave her " second home," as she called Madrid, and as Don Fabrizio lived but a short time, the King urged her return to Spain; but her desire to be once more with her family impelled her to return to Italy. The ship on which she sailed from Sicily was commanded by one of the Lomellini, a noble family of Genoa, with whom Sofonisba fell so desperately in love that she offered him her hand — which, says her biographer, "he accepted like a generous man.
In Genoa she devotedly pursued her art and won new honors, while she was not forgotten in Madrid. Presents were sent her on her second marriage, and later the Infanta Clara Eugenia and other Spaniards of exalted rank visited her in Genoa. Her palace became a centre of attraction to Genoese artists and men of letters, while many strangers of note sought her acquaintance.
She contributed largely to the restoration of art and literature to the importance that had been accorded them in the most brilliant days of Genoese power. We have not space to recount all the honors conferred on Sofonisba, both as a woman and an artist. She lived to an extreme old age, and, although she lost her sight, her intellect was undimmed by time or blindness. Van-dyck, who was frequently her guest, more than once declared that he "was more benefited by the counsels of the blind Sofonisba than by all his studies of the masters of his art!
The chief characteristics of Sofonisba's painting were grace and spirit. Her portrait of herself when at her best is in possession of the Lomellini. A second is the splendid picture at Althorpe, in which she is represented as playing the harpsichord. One can scarcely imagine a place in which a portrait would be more severely tested than in the gallery of the Earl of Spencer, beside portraits of lovely women and famous men, painted by master artists.
Yet this work of Sofonisba' s is praised by discerning critics and connoisseurs. Of the other portraits of herself, that in the Uffizi is signed by her as " of Cremona," which suggests that it was painted before she went to Spain. That in the Vienna Gallery is dated , and inscribed Sophonisba Anguissola. Still another, in which a man stands beside her, is in the Sienna Gallery. He holds a brush in his hand, and is probably one of her masters.
Her portrait of her sisters playing chess, while an old duenna looks on, was in the collection of Lucien Bona- parte and is said to be now in a private gallery in England. Her religious pictures are rare; a "Marriage of St. Catherine" is in the gallery at Wilton House. A small Holy Family, signed and dated , belonged to the art critic and author, Morelli. One regrets that so remarkable a woman left no record of her unusual experiences. How valuable would be the story of Don Carlos from so disinterested a person.
Of all this she has told us nothing. We glean the story of her life from the works of various authors, while her fame rests securely on her superiority in the art to which she was devoted. Ancher , Anna Kristine. Genre painter, won high praise at Berlin in for two pictures: She was born at Skagen, , the daughter of Erik Brondum, and early showed her artistic tendencies.
Michael Ancher whom she married in noticed and encouraged her talent, which was first dis- played in small crayons treating pathetic or humorous sub- jects. From she studied with Khyn, and later more or less under the direction of her husband. She has painted exclusively small pictures, dealing with simple and natural things, and each picture, as a rule, contains but a single figure.
She believes that a dilapidated Skagen hovel may meet every demand of beauty. The last represents an old fisher, who has fallen asleep on the bench by the stove, and a young woman is waking him with the above announcement.
The coffin is hung with green wreaths; the walls of the room are red; the people stand around with a serious air. The whole story is told in a simple, homely way. In the "History of Modern Painters " we read: But the execution is downright and virile. It is only in little touches, in fine and delicate traits of observation which would probably have escaped a man, that these paintings are recognized as the work of a feminine artist. Pupil of her husband, Jean Pierre Antigna, and of Delacroix. Her best works are small genre subjects, which are excellent and much admired by other artists.
In she exhibited at the Paris Salon "On n'entre pas! Appia, before her marriage, exhibited at the Paris Salon several years continuously. Since then she has exhibited at Turin and Geneva. This artist has exhibited her work since Although her sketches in water-color are clever and attractive, it is as a sculptor that her best work has been done. Pupil of Sir J. Of this statue Mr. The Duchess of Argyll has been commissioned to design a statue of heroic size, to be executed in bronze and placed in Westminster Abbey, to commemorate the colonial troops who gave up their lives in South Africa in the Boer war.
Arnold , Annie R. A Scotch miniature painter. Studied in Edinburgh, first in the School of Art, under Mr. Arnold writes me that she thinks it important for miniature painters to do work in a more realistic medium occasionally, and something of a bolder character than can be done in their specialty. She never studied miniature painting, but took it up at the request of a patroness who, before the present fashion for this art had come about, complained that she could find no one who painted miniatures.
This lady gave the artist a number of the Girls' Own Journal, containing directions for miniature painting, after which Mrs. Arnold began to work in this specialty. Her work is seen in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, London. In she exhibited miniatures of Miss M. Fenton, the late Mrs. Cameron Corbett, and the Hon. Thomas Erskine, younger son of the Earl of Mar and Kellie.
Portrait painter and court painter to Queen Louise Marie of Belgium. She was born in , and was the daughter of Henri Jean van Assche. Her first teachers were Mile. Her portraits, which are thought to be very good likenesses, are also admirable in color, drawing, and modelling; and her portrait of Leopold I. Assche , Isabel Catherine van. She was born at Brussels, She took a first prize at Ghent in , and became a pupil of her uncle, Henrf van Assche, who was often called the painter of waterfalls.
Her subjects were all taken from the neighborhood of Brussels, and one of them belongs to the royal collection in the Pavilion at Haarlem. Member of the Union des Femmes and Cercle Artistique. Studies made at Geneva under Mme. Gillet and Professors Hubert and B. Penn, in drawing and painting; M. Has executed statues, busts, medallion portraits; has painted costumes, according to an invention of her own, for the Theatre of Geneva, and has also made tapestries in New York. All her works have been commended in the journals of Geneva and New York. Member of Society of Women Artists, London.
Miss Austen exhibits in the Royal Academy exhibitions; her works are well hung—one on the line. Her favorite subjects are wild animals, and she is successful in the illustration of books. Her pictures are in private collections. At the Royal Academy in she exhibited "The Day of Reckoning," a wolf pursued by hunters through a forest in snow.
A second shows a snow scene, with a wolf baying, while two others are apparently listening to him. Born in Paris, where she died. She was a pupil of Regnault and excelled in portraits of women. She exhibited in the Paris Salon from , when but eighteen years old. Baker , Elizabeth Gowdy. Medal at Cooper Union. Born at Xenia, Ohio. This artist has painted numerous portraits and has been especially successful with pictures of children. She has a method of her own of which she has recently written me. She claims that it is excellent for life-size portraits in water-colors.
The paper she uses is heavier than any made in this country, and must be imported; the water-colors are very strong. Baker claims that in this method she gets "the strength of oils with the daintiness of water-colors, and that it is beautiful for women and children, and sufficiently strong for portraits of men. Bakhuyzen , Juffrouw Gerardina Jacoba van de Sande.
Silver medal at The Hague, ; honorary medal at Amsterdam, ; another at The Hague, ; and a medal of distinction at Amsterdam Colonial Exhibition, Daughter of the well-known animal painter. From childhood she painted flowers, and for a time this made no especial impression on her family or friends, as it was not an uncommon occupation for girls.
At length her father saw that this daughter, Gerardina—for he had numerous daughters, and they all desired to be artists—had talent, and when, in , the Minerva Academy at Groningen gave out "Roses and Dahlias" as a subject, and offered a prize of a little more than ten dollars for the best example, he encouraged Gerardina to enter the contest. She received the contemptible reward, and found.
However, this affair brought the name of the artist to the knowledge of the public, and she determined to devote herself to the painting of flowers and fruit, in which she has won unusual fame. There is no sameness in her pictures, and her subjects do not appear to be "arranged"—everything seems to have fallen into its place by chance and to be entirely natural. Gerardina Jacoba and her brother Julius van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the landscape painter, share one studio. She paints with rapidity, as one must in order to picture the freshness of fast-fading flowers.
Johan Gram writes of her: If she paints the branch of a rose-tree, it seems to spring from the ground with its flowers in all their luxurious wantonness, and one can almost imagine one's self inhaling their delightful perfume. This talented artist knows so well how to depict with her brush the transparency and softness of the tender, ethereal rose, that one may seek in vain among a crowd of artists for her equal. The paintings are all bright and sunny, and we are filled with enthusiasm when gazing at her powerful works. This artist was born in and died in She lived and died in her family residence.
In , at Groningen, she took for her motto, "Be true to nature and you will produce that which is good. Baldwin , Edith Ella. Born at Worcester, Massachusetts. Paints portraits and miniatures. Ball , Caroline Peddle. Honorable mention at Paris Exhibition, Born at Terre Haute, Indiana. Gaudens and Kenyon Cox. This sculptor exhibited at Paris a Bronze Clock. A memorial fountain at Flushing, Long Island, a medallion portrait of Miss Cox of Terre Haute, a monument to a child in the same city, a Victory in a quadriga, seen on the United States Building, Paris, , and also at the Buffalo Exhibition, , are among her important works.
At the Paris Exposition of several portraits by this artist attracted attention, one of them being a portrait of herself. At the Exposition of she exhibited "A Guitar Player. Mem ber of the Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, This institution possesses a drawing by her of the "Virgin with the Christ-Child" and a portrait in oil of a person of the epoch of Charles III. Born in Russia of a noble family. This remarkable young woman is interesting in various phases of her life, but here it is as an artist that she is to be considered. Her journal, she tells us, is absolutely truthful, and it is but courteous to take the story of her artistic career from that.
She had lessons in drawing, as many children do, but she gives no indication of a special love for art until she visits Florence when fourteen years old, and her love of pictures and statues is awakened. She spent hours in galleries, never sitting down, without fatigue, in spite of her delicacy. So long as there are pictures and, better still, statues to be seen, I am made of iron.
The countenance of the Virgin is pale, the color is not natural, the expression is that of a waiting-maid rather than of a Madonna. Ah, but there is a Magdalen of Titian that enchanted me. Only — there must always be an only—her wrists are too thick and her hands are too plump—beautiful hands they would be on a woman of fifty.
There are things of Rubens and Vandyck that are ravishing. I do not speak as a connoisseur; what most resembles nature pleases me most. Is it not the aim of painting to copy nature? I like very much the full, fresh countenance of the wife of Paul Veronese, painted by him. I like the style of his faces. I adore Titian and Vandyck; but that poor Raphael! The portrait of Pope Leo X. When seventeen she made her first picture of any importance. I am delighted to have made a picture of persons sitting down in different attitudes; I copied the position of the hands and arms, the expressions of the countenance, etc.
I had never before done anything but heads, which I was satisfied to scatter over the canvas like flowers. Her enthusiasm for her art constantly increased. She was not willing to acknowledge her semi-invalidism and was filled with the desire to do something in art that would live after her. She was opposed by her family, who wished her to be in fashionable society. At length she had her way, and when not quite eighteen began to study regularly at the Julian Academy. She worked eight and nine hours a day. Julian encouraged her, she rejoiced in being with " real artists who have exhibited in the Salon and whose pictures are bought," and declared herself "happy, happy!
Julian told her that she might become a great artist, and the first time that Robert Fleury saw her work and learned how little she had studied, and that she had never before drawn from a living model, he said: Her masters always assured her of her talent, but she was much of the time depressed. She admired the work of Mile. Breslau and acknowledged herself jealous of the Swiss artist. But after a year of study she took the second prize in the Academy, and admitted that she ought to be content. Robert-Fleury took much interest in her work, and she began to hope to equal Breslau; but she was as often despondent as she was happy, which no doubt was due to her health, for she was already stricken with the malady from which she died.
In the autumn of she took a studio, and, besides her painting, she essayed modelling. In her portrait of her sister was exhibited at the Salon, and her mother and other friends were gratified by its acceptance. At one time Mile. Bashkirtseff had suffered with her eyes, and, getting better of that, she had an attack of deafness. For these reasons she went, in the summer of , to Mont-Dore for treatment, and was much benefited in regard to her deafness, though not cured, and now the condition of her lungs was recognized, and what she had realized for some time was told to her family.
She suffered greatly from the restrictions of her condition.
She could not read very much, as her eyes were not strong enough to read and paint; she avoided people because of her deafness; her cough was very tiresome and her breathing difficult. At the Salon of her picture was well hung and was praised by artists. In the autumn of that year she was very ill, but happily, about the beginning of , she was much better and again enthusiastic about her painting. She had been in Spain and excited admiration in Madrid by the excellence of her copy of "Vulcan," by Velasquez. January 15th she wrote: I think I caught the sacred fire in Spain at the same time that I caught the pleurisy.
From being a student I now begin to be an artist. This sudden influx of power puts me beside myself with joy. I sketch future pictures; I dream of painting an Ophelia. She now met Bastien-Lepage, who, while he was some- what severe in his criticism of her work, told her seriously that she was "marvellously gifted. From this time until her death her journal is largely occupied with her health, which constantly failed, but her interest in art and her intense desire to do something worthy of a great artist—something that Julian, Robert-Fleury, and, above all, Bastien-Lepage, could praise, seemed to give her strength, and, in spite of the steady advance of the fell tuberculosis from which she was dying, she worked devotedly.
She had a fine studio in a new home of the family, and was seized with an ardent desire to try sculpture—she did a little in this art—but that which proved to be her last and best work was her contribution to the Salon of This brought her to the notice of the public, and she had great pleasure, although mingled with the convic- tion of her coming death and the doubts of her ability to do more. Of this time she writes: It is easy to answer that question; I am neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
My success is just enough to keep me from being unhappy. We remained a long time seated on a bench before the picture. It attracted a good deal of attention, and I smiled to myself at the thought that no one would ever imagine the elegantly dressed young girl seated before it, showing the tips of her little boots, to be the artist.
Ah, all this is a great deal better than last year! Have I achieved a success, in the true, serious meaning of the word? I almost think so. The picture was called the "Meeting," and shows seven gamins talking together before a wooden fence at the corner of a street. The faces and the attitudes of the children are strikingly real. The glimpse of meagre landscape expresses the sadness of the poorer neighborhoods. All this gratified her while it also surprised.
She was at work on a picture called "Spring," for which she went to Sevres, to paint in the open. Naturally she hoped for a Salon medal, and her friends encouraged her wish—but alas! Many thought her unfairly treated, but it was remembered that the year before she had publicly spoken of the committee as "idiots"! People now wished to buy her pictures and in many ways she realized that she was successful.
How pathetic her written words: It is probable that the "Meeting" received no medal because it was suspected that Mile. Bashkirtseff had been aided in her work. No one could tell who had originated this idea, but as some medals had been given to women who did not paint their pictures alone, the committee were timid, although there seems to have been no question as to superiority. A friendship had grown up between the families Bash kirtseff and Bastien-Lepage. Both the great artist and the dying girl were very ill, but for some time she and her mother visited him every two or three days.
He seemed almost to live on these visits and complained if they were omitted. At last, ill as Bastien-Lepage was, he was the better able of the two to make a visit. On October i6th she writes of his being brought to her and made comfortable in one easy-chair while she was in another. These visits were continued. October 20th she writes of his increasing feebleness.
She wrote no more, and in eleven days was dead. In the works of Marie Bashkirtseff were exhibited. He saw her studio and her works, and wrote, after speaking of the "Meeting," as follows:. Why was this verdict not confirmed by the jury? Because the artist was a foreigner? Perhaps because of her wealth. This injustice made her suffer, and she endeavored—the noble child—to avenge herself by redoubling her efforts. In a word, works in which is incessantly sought, or more often asserts itself, the sentiment of the sincerest and most original art, and of the most personal talent.
Mathilde Blind, in her "Study of Marie Bashkirtseff," says: It was natural it should please her, since it was the most conspicuous of her many gifts. As we might expect, therefore, she was especially successful as a portrait painter, for she had a knack of catching her sitter's likeness with the bloom of nature yet fresh upon it.
All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with their sadly stunted look. What observation is shown in the painting of those heavily bulging lips, which express weakness rather than wickedness of disposition—in those coarse hands engaged in the feminine occupation of knitting a blue and white stocking!
Born in Stockholm in Portrait and landscape painter. Her later work is marked by the romantic influence of C. Ludwig, who was for a time her instructor, but she shows unusual breadth and sureness in dealing with difficult subjects, such as dusky forests with dark waters or bare ruins bordered with stiff, ghost-like trees. Though not without talent and boldness, she lacks a feeling for style. This artist was the daughter of the Rev. Beale, an artist and a color-maker. She studied under Sir Peter Lely, who obtained for her the privilege of copying some of Vandyck's most famous works.
Beale's portraits of Charles II. This portrait was the first example of an ecclesiastic represented as wearing a wig instead of the usual silk coif. Her drawing was excellent and spirited, her color strong and pure, and her portraits were sought by many distinguished persons. Several poems were written in praise of this artist, in one of which, by Dr. Woodfall, she is called "Belasia. He left more than thirty pocket-notebooks filled with these records, and showed himself far more content that his wife should be appreciated than any praise of himself could have made him.
Prize of honor at Exposition of Black and White, ; third-class medal, Salon, ; bronze medal. Born at Barcelona, of French parents. Pupil of Julian Academy. This artist has also contributed to several magazines. Beaury-Saurel is also Mme. Julian, wife of the head of the Academy in which she was educated. Her portraits are numerous. Miss Beaux's technique is altogether French, sometimes reminding me a little of Carolus Duran and of Sargent; but her individuality has triumphed over all suggestions of her foreign masters, and the combination of refinement and strength is altogether her own.
Seven years later, in the International Studio , September, , we read: But in its lack of intimacy it is positively callous. One has met these ladies on many occasions, but with no increase of acquaintanceship or interest on either side—our meetings are sterile of any human interest. They are not concerned with us, but at least interested in one another; and we can attach ourselves, if only as outsiders, to the human interest involved.
Is it not more than the mere ableness of method, still more than the audacity of brush work, that often passes for style? Is it possible to dissociate the manner of a picture from its embodiment of some fact or idea? For it to have style in the full sense of the word, surely it must embody an expression of life as serious and thorough as the method of record. In the International Studio of March, , we read: Roosevelt, by Miss Cecilia Beaux, seemed to me to be one of the happiest of her creations.
Nothing could exceed the skill and daintiness with which the costume is painted, and the characterization of the head is more sympathetic than usual, offering a most winsome type of beautiful, good womanhood. The figure is cleverly merged in half shadow, but the treatment of the face is brusque, and a most unpleasant smirk distorts the child's mouth. It is the portrait of the mother that carries the. A writer in the Mail and Express says: Thus she starts with an advantage denied to all but a very few American portrait painters, and this explains the instinctive way in which she gives to her pictured subjects an air of natural ease and good breeding.
Miss Beaux's picture of "Brighton Cats" is so excellent that one almost regrets that she has not emulated Mme. Ronner's example and left portraits of humans to the many artists who cannot paint cats! Beck , Carol H. Fellow of above Academy and member of the Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Studied in schools of Pennsylvania Academy, and later in Dresden and Paris.
Miss Beck paints portraits and her works have been frequently exhibited. Her portraits are also seen in the University of Pennsylvania, in the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, in Wesleyan College, at the capitols of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and other public places, as well as in many private homes. In she won a medal at Vienna, in a gold medal at the Brussels Salon, and still other medals at Philadelphia , Sydney , and Teplitz She was made Ch6valier de TOrdre de Leopold in Beemaerts was born at Ostend, , and studied under Kuhner in Brussels.
She travelled in Germany, France, and Italy, and exhibited admirable landscapes at Brussels, Antwerp, and Paris, her favorite subjects being Dutch. In the following pictures by her were shown in Paris: Begas , Luise Parmentier. Pupil of Schindler and Unger. She travelled extensively in Europe and the Orient, and spent some time in Sicily. She married Adalbert Begas in and then established her studio in Berlin. Her subjects are landscape, architectural monuments, and interiors.
Some of the latter are especially tine. Her picture of the "Burial Ground at Scutari" was an unusual subject at the time it was exhibited and attracted much attention. Her rich gift in the use of color is best seen in her pictures of still life and flowers. In Berlin, in , she exhibited "Before the Walls of Constantinople" and "From Constantinople," which were essentially different from her earlier works and attracted much attention. Fraulein Parmentier also studied etching, in which art Unger was her instructor. In her exquisite architectural pictures and landscapes she has represented Italian motives almost exclusively.
Among these are her views of Venice and other South Italian sketches, which are also the subjects of some of her etchings. Paints in oils and pastels, landscapes especially, of which she exhibited seventeen in June, The larger part of these were landscape portraits, so to speak, as they were done on the spots represented with faithfulness to detail. The subjects were pleasing, and the various hours of day, with characteristic lighting, unusually well rendered. Mammas" and a "Souvenir of Bormes," showing the tomb of Cazin.
In she exhibited a pastel called "Calvary," now in the Museum at Amiens, which has been praised for its harmony of color and the manner in which the rainbow is represented. Her pictures of "Twilight" and "Sunset" are unusually successful. Painter and sculptor of the nineteenth century, living in Padua since Her talent, which showed itself early, was first developed by an unknown painter named Soldan, and later at the Royal Academy in Venice. She made copies of Guido, Sasso-ferrato and Veronese, the Laokoon group, and the Hercules of Canova, and executed a much-admired bas-relief called "Love and Innocence.
Sebastian," "Melancholy," a "St. Ciro," and many Madonnas. Her pictures are noble in conception and firm in execution. Benito y Tejada, Benita. Born in Bilboa, where she first studied drawing; later she went to Madrid, where she entered the Escuela superior. In this famous actress watched Mathieu-Meusnier making a bust. She made her criticisms and they were always just. The sculptor told her that she had the eye of an artist and should use her talent in sculpture. Not long after she brought to him a medallion portrait of her aunt. So good was it that Mathieu-Meusnier seriously encouraged her to persevere in her art.
She was fascinated by the thought of what might be pos sible for her, took a studio, and sent to the Salon in a bust, which attracted much attention. In she exhibited "After the Tempest," the subject taken from the story of a poor woman who, having buried two sons, saw the body of her last boy washed ashore after a storm. This work was marvellously effective, and a great future as a sculptress was foretold for the "divine Sara.
This remarkable woman is a painter also, and exhibited a picture called "La jeune Fille et la Mort. The envious and evil speakers, who always want to say nasty things, pretend to trace in the picture very frequent touches of Alfred Stevens, who has been Sarah's master in painting, as Mathieu-Meusnier was in sculpture. However that may be, Sarah has posed her figures admirably and her coloring is excellent. It is worthy of notice that, being as yet a comparative beginner, she has not attempted to give any expression to the features of the young girl over whose shoulder Death is peeping.
One of the numerous ephemeral journals which the young and old jeunesse of the Latin Quarter is constantly creating has made a very clever caricature of the picture in a sort of Pompeian style. This architect, whose maiden name was Blanchard, was born in Waterloo, New York, She studied drawing and architecture, and in opened an office, being the first woman architect in the United States.
Since her marriage to Robert A. Bethune they have practised their art together. Bethune is the only woman holding a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects. Honorable mention in Paris twice. Born in Springfield, Illinois. Studied under William R. Among her works are a statue called "Rhodesia," "Rough Rider Monument," a statue called "Lascire," which belongs to Dr.
Johnson, and many others. Miss Beveridge was first noticed as an artist in this country in , when her busts of ex-President Cleveland and Mr. Jefferson called favorable attention to her. In she married Charles Coghlan, and soon discovered that he had a living wife at the time of her marriage and obtained a divorce. Before she went to South Africa Miss Beveridge had executed several commissions for Cecil Rhodes and others living in that country.
Her mother is now the Countess von Wrede, her home being in Europe, where her daughter has spent much time. She has married the second time, an American, Mr. Branson, who resides at Johannesburg, in the Transvaal. It seems a curious fact that several persons born without arms and hands have become reputable artists. This miniature painter was one of these. Her first teacher, a man named Dukes, persuaded her to bind herself to live in his house and give her time to his service for some years. Later, when the Earl of Morton made her acquaintance, he proved to her that her engagement was not legally binding and wished her to give it up; but Miss Biffin was well treated by the Dukes and preferred to remain with them.
The Earl of Morton, however, caused her to study under Mr. Craig, and she attained wonderful excellence in her miniatures. In the Duke of Sussex, on behalf of the Society of Arts, presented her with a prize medal for one of her pictures. She remained sixteen years with the Dukes, and during this time never received more than five pounds a year! After leaving them she earned a comfortable income. She was patronized by George III.
After the death of the Earl of Morton she had no other friend to aid her in getting commissions or selling her finished pictures, and she moved to Liverpool. A small annuity was purchased for her, which, in addition to the few orders she received, supported her until her death at the age of sixty-six. Her miniatures have been seen in loan collections in recent years.
Her portrait of herself, on ivory, was exhibited in such a collection at South Kensington. Family name Van Bosse. Born in Amsterdam, ; died in Wiesbaden, Settled in Oosterbeck, and painted landscapes from views in the neighborhood. This artist was important, and her works are admired especially by certain Dutch artists who are famous in all countries. These facts are well known to me from good authority, but I fail to find a list of her works or a record of their present position. Received the small gold medal at Berlin in , and won distinguished recognition at other international exhibitions in Berlin and Munich by her portraits and figure studies.
She was born in Warsaw in , and died there in She studied in Paris, where she quickly became a favorite painter of aristocratic Russians and Poles. Her pictures are strong and of brilliant technique. Born at Capua, One of her pictures, called "Una partita," was exhibited at Naples and attracted much attention. It was purchased by Duke Martini. Another, "Ultima Prova," was exhibited in Rome and favorably noticed. Honorable mention in Paris, , for her "Spring in the Prater. This talented landscape painter was born in Vienna, She was a pupil of Schaffer in Vienna, and of W.
After travelling in Austria, Holland, and Italy, she followed her predilection for landscape, and chose her themes in great part from those countries. In she married Heinrich Lang, painter of battle scenes who died in , and she now works alternately in Munich and Vienna. In she gave an exhibition of her pictures in Munich; they were thought to show great vigor of composition and color and much delicacy of artistic perception. Her foreign scenes, especially, are characterized by unusual local truth and color. Officer of public instruction. Born at Breslau, Silesia, She first exhibited at the Salon of , a medallion portrait of M.
Bloch has made numerous portrait busts, among them being the kings of Spain and Portugal, Buffalo Bill, C, Flammarion, etc. At the Salon of the Artistes Frangais, , Mme. Bloch exhibited a " Portrait of M. Has been much talked of in Dresden. She certainly possesses distinguished talents, and is easily in the front rank of Dresden women artists. Her gouache pictures dealing with Hungarian subjects, a "Village Street," a "Peasant Farm," a "Churchyard," exhibited at Dresden in , were well drawn and full of sentiment, but lacking in color sense and power.
She works unevenly and seems pleased when she succeeds in setting a scene cleverly. She paints portraits also, mostly in pastel, which are spirited, but not especially good likenesses. Honorable mention at the Salon of Lyons, This artist paints portraits principally. Born in Rome, Pupil of her father, Roberto Bompiani, and of the professors in the Academy of St. The following pictures in water-colors have established her reputation as an artist: Sister of Rosa Bonheur, and a pupil of her father.
The last-named work was much remarked at the Salon of Peyrol was associated with her famous sister in the conduct of the Free School of Design, founded by Rosa Bonheur in Member of Antwerp Institute, She was taught drawing by her father, who, perceiving that she had unusual talent, permitted her to give up dressmaking, to which, much against her will, she had been apprenticed.
From her fame was established; she was greatly appreciated, and her works competed for in England and the United States, as well as in European countries.
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Her chief merit is the actual truthfulness with which she represented animals. Her skies might be bettered in some cases—the atmosphere of her pictures was sometimes open to question—but her animals were anatomi cally perfect and handled with such virility as few men have excelled or even equalled. Her position as an artist is so established that no quoted opinions are needed when speaking of her—she was one of the most famous women of her century. Her home at By was near Fontainebleau, where she lived quietly, and for some years held gratuitous classes for drawing.
She left, at her death, a collection of pictures, studies, etchings, etc. Her "Hay Harvest in the Auvergne," , is one of her most important works. Bonheur did not exhibit at the Salon until , a few weeks before her death. One must pay a tribute to this artist as a good and generous woman.
She founded the Free School of Design for Girls, and in took the direction of it and devoted much of her valuable time to its interests. How valuable an hour was to her we may understand when we remember that Hamerton says: She was afoot betimes in the morning, and often walked ten or twelve miles and worked hard all day. The diffi culty of reaching her models proved such a hindrance to her that she conceived the idea of visiting the abattoirs, where she could see animals living and dead and study their anatomy. It is not easy to imagine all the difficulties she encountered in doing this—the many repulsive features of such places—while the company of drovers and butchers made one of the disagreeables of her pursuits.
Her love for the animals, too, made it doubly hard for her to see them in the death agony and listen to their pitiful cries for freedom. In all this experience, however, she met no rude or unkind treatment. Her drawings won the admiration of the men who watched her make them and they treated her with respect.
She pursued her studies in the same manner in the stables of the Veterinary School at Alfort and in the Jardin des Plantes. At other times she studied in the country the quiet grazing herds, and, though often mistaken for a boy on account of the dress she wore, she inspired only admiration for her simplicity and frankness of manner, while the graziers and horse-dealers respectfully regarded her and wondered at her skill in picturing their favorite animals.
Some very amusing stories might be told of her comical embarrassments in her country rambles, when she was determined to preserve her disguise and the pretty girls were equally determined to make love to her! Aside from all this laborious study of living animals, she obtained portions of dead creatures for dissection; also moulds, casts, and illustrated anatomical books; and, in short, she left no means untried by which she could perfect herself in the specialty she had chosen. Her devotion to study and to the practice of her art was untiring, and only the most engrossing interest in it and an indomitable perseverance, supplemented and supported by a physically and morally healthful organization, could have sustained the nervous strain of her life from the day when she was first allowed to follow her vocation to the time when she placed herself in the front rank of animal painters.
A most charming picture is drawn of the life of the Bonheur family in the years when Rosa was making her progressive steps. They lived in an humble house in the Rue Rumfort, the father, Auguste, Isidore, and Rosa all working in the same studio. She had many birds and a pet sheep. As the apartment of the Bonheurs was on the sixth floor, this sheep lived on the leads, and from time to time Isidore bore him on his shoulders down all the stairs to the neighboring square, where the animal could browse on the real grass, and afterward be carried back by one of the devoted brothers of his mistress.
They were very poor, but they were equally happy. At evening Rosa made small models or illustrations for books or albums, which the dealers readily bought, and by this means she added to the family store for needs or pleasures. In , when Rosa was nineteen years old, she first experienced the pleasures, doubts, and fears attendant upon a public exhibition of one's work. Two small pictures, called "Goats and Sheep" and "Two Rabbits," were hung at the Salon and were praised by critics and connois seurs.
In she sent twelve works to the Salon, accompanied by those of her father and her brother Auguste, who was admitted that year for the first time. In Isidore was added to the list, exhibiting a picture and a group in marble, both representing " A Combat between a Liones3 and an African Horseman. In Rosa Bonheur's "Cantal Oxen" was awarded the gold medal, and was followed by "Ploughing in the Nivernais," so well known the world over by engravings and photographs.
When the medal was assigned her, Horace Vernet proclaimed her triumph to a brilliant assemblage, and also presented to her a magnificent vase of Sevres porcelain, in the name of the French Government. This placed her in the first rank of living artists, and the triumph was of double value to her on account of the happiness it afforded her father, to see this, his oldest child, of whose future he had often despaired, taking so eminent a place in the artistic world. This year of success was also a year of sorrow, for before its end the old Raymond had died.
He had been for some time the director of the Government School of Design for Girls, and, being freed from pecuniary anxiety, he had worked with new courage and hope. After her father's death Rosa Bonheur exhibited nothing for two years, but in she brought out her "Horse Fair," which added to her fame. She was perfectly at home in the mountains, and spent much time in the huts of charcoal burners, huntsmen, or woodcutters, contented with the food they could give her and happy in her study.
She once lived six weeks with her party on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, where they saw no one save muleteers going and coming, with their long lines of loaded mules. Their only food was frogs' legs, which they prepared themselves, and the black bread and curdled milk which the country afforded. Rousseau, which exactly suited her expanding mind, already formed by the heroics of Corneille. The harassed father, to whom the necessity of finding the daily bread made all philosophy vain, soon returned with his daughters to Mesnil-Imbert, while he tried to place the eldest in the establishment for impoverished gentlewomen endowed by Madame de Maintenon at Saint-Cyr.
The little housewife, with her head full of Corneille, Rousseau and Plutarch, did not fail in childish tenderness to "papa" on his birthday; when she had no means with which to buy a present, she wrote a little verse:. The placid, melancholy Norman fields did not look so fair to the young girl as before she had left them to go to Caen. Her laugh was no longer so frequent, nor so joyous; she did not run so freely over the fields or muse so long beside the resting water.
She knew now where the money went that was wrung from a soil too often watered by tears—to support the idle men, the insolent women, the fat tradesmen, the pampered lackeys whom she had seen in Caen. Melancholy and indignation coloured her childish musings, but her Norman firmness kept her resigned, silent, even cheerful. However many political pamphlets M. Every sacrifice had been made to place the sons in the army; then the daughters must be taken under the wing of the Church.
The application to Saint-Cyr failed. The father used his only weapon, the influence of his rank and connections, and solicited for his girls the advantage of an education at the abbaye-aux-dames. Their aunt, Madame de Louvagny, was a nun in this establishment; she put the case of the two noble and desolate young girls before her friend, the Abbess of the Convent, Madame de Belzunce. Thus, at the age of fourteen, Mlle. This made an abrupt break with her former life; the existence of the rustic infant, the anxious little housewife, the earnest pupil of the uncle priest, had come to an end.
Rousseau, Du Contrat Social , Tome II, Histoire des Indes, The stately establishment of l'abbaye aux dames was conducted with saintly decency and admirable order; no gossip or scandal had ever attached to the band of devoted women who kept alive the piety of William the Conqueror's wife. They lived in community, but were not an enclosed order; they took some pupils and they interested themselves in works of charity.
This lady, then twenty-eight years of age, imposing and delicate in appearance, with large blue eyes, a smiling mouth and long fine hands, undertook to direct the education of the two motherless girls. Under the guidance of this noble lady the education of Mlle. As well as these definite accomplishments the nuns taught those intangible arts and graces that composed, in their opinion, good breeding.
The girl, used to poverty and hard work, who had already from her parents learned a gentlewoman's bearing, now was trained in deportment, courtesy, suppleness in her approach to life, a grasp of the technique of living, the finesse of behaviour. If the nuns were aware of any of the signs of the times or understood the epoch in which they lived, they gave no sign of it; they prayed, taught, and went round with their doles of bread and soup as if they were still living in the age of William and Matilda.
The pupils of the abbaye were, at this period, four: Alexandrine de Forbin and Mlle. They wore dark blue habits like those of novices, had to obey without discussion, to lead a severe life without excitement and amusement, and to help the nuns in their charitable labours. She came of a noble, half-ruined family of Avignon and was related to the Abbess and the Bishop of Marseilles; this Comtesse Alexandrine was the chosen friend of Mlle. Among other nuances of conduct taught by the nuns was pride of birth; the four girls understood that they were of the nobility; the two de Corday d'Armont girls who had lived almost like peasants in Mesnil-Imbert, learned that it was of importance to be a de Corday, to have a long pedigree and a coat-of-arms.
The four young ladies lived in a perfect accord; their amiable behaviour sprang from goodness of heart, intelligence and fine training, so that no ill-humour, temper, jealousy or spite marred their intercourse. The most brilliant and the most difficult of the pupils was Marie-Anne-Charlotte; docile and sweet as was her disposition, she found it hard to submit to the severe rules of the convent. The liveliness eclipsed by her mother's death returned—she had a quick wit, an ironic turn not always acceptable to the nuns.
Her aunt and teacher, Madame de Louvagny, had often to struggle with her on questions that arose during the lessons.
The girl had an intense mental activity; she could take nothing on trust—all must be argued and proved. Nor could she resign, on any count, her own convictions. On the contrary, she would defend them with fire and force, taking them always to extremes. The Abbess was alarmed at this independence of spirit, which the girl carried so far as to argue with her Confessor. But as her ideals were all lofty, her instincts all noble, no one was prepared to punish her for the exaltation and enthusiasm with which she pressed her points, or the lively intelligence with which she examined dogmas and traditions.
Then her conduct was excellent, her charm of person and of manner so compelling, her piety so warm and orthodox. The young Norman believed in the Church whose rites she so piously followed; there was nothing of the atheist or the heretic in her disposition, which was raised above all these differences and restrictions. She was a mystic. She had brought her Plutarch, her Corneille into the convent; her reading was not unduly limited, she was allowed to mingle the exploits of the ancient heroes with the lives of the Saints.
Owing to her high character she was permitted, as she grew older, to read J. Plutarch's Lives , which might at this period be termed the intellectuals' handbook, was often between her fingers and always in her mind. Like many lofty minded women she was delighted in creating something with her hands and took a great pleasure in needlework; she drew her own embroidery designs and was an exquisite lace-maker; she learned to play the clavecin excellently. In her own language she was not accomplished; although she read so much she always spelled incorrectly and made many childish mistakes in putting her sentences together.
Her physical gifts were as abundant as her mental endowments; she developed into " un vrai soleil "—her charm was enhanced by her touching modesty, her complete unself-consciousness; she enjoyed a brilliant health which gave her a serenity, a poise and a cheerful common sense that would have been impossible to the feeble, the nervous or the hysterical. Her voice, low and warm, was extremely beautiful and could hardly be heard without emotion. Her serenity of mind rose from her perfect spiritual, as well as her perfect physical, adjustment; she had the mystic's supreme happiness of feeling at one with God.
This conviction of union with the Divine gave her the confidence that some mistook for pride and obstinacy; it was not possible for her complete integrity to betray what she felt to be a sacred truth for the sake of agreeing with human arguments. She became very devout in her religious observances, showing an exalted fervour that was a perfume rising from her consciousness of the faith whose observances were so closely round her. Everything mediocre being distasteful to her, she strove to raise her religion to sublime heights, she wished to be not only a Christian, but a saint, a martyr; to the rites of the Church she brought the emotional heroism of Corneille, the stoicism of Plutarch's worthies.
Into a little notebook she copied sermons, litanies and prayers with her large, irregular hand, and these lines: O, Jesus, I present myself before you with a humble and contrite heart, to recommend to you my last hour and that which must follow it When my pale and livid cheeks inspire with compassion and terror those who attend me When my ears, about to be for ever sealed to the voices of men, wait, trembling to hear the word of Judgment pronounced— Miserere mei.
She loved, too, the company of children; one of these, whom she taught at the age of six to make lace on a pillow, spoke of her long afterwards as " un ange du bon Dieu. The vacances were spent at Mesnil-Imbert, where the two sisters were regular in their attendance at the parish church and where the elder gathered round her the infants and the poor, inventing games for the first and giving generously, sometimes even to her entire substance, to the second. When she had lived in the Buttes de Saint-Gilles she had eaten black bread in order to give the white loaves to charity; any sacrifice afforded her pleasure.
This life of nun, of gentlewoman, of young girl approaching womanhood, lasted nearly seven years. During that period she was most influenced by the books she read, which were more to her than the gentle company of the nuns and her fellow-pupils, more than the environment of the ancient, massive building that enshrined her devotions, more, to her than anything she saw or heard about her daily life.
This seclusion of seven years was ideal for breeding dreams, for encouraging visions, for forcing a strong imagination back on itself. Rousseau was to her the author of Contrat Social and she knew none of the scandals of his miserable life. Her natural disposition, the circumstances of her upbringing, the subtle influences of her time, above all her reading, turned her thoughts in one direction, that of virtue and strength.
A passionate admiration for Sparta and Rome roused in her a secret exaltation that was at the root of her serenity, her gaiety, her piety. She was in love with heroism. Through her adored Corneille, she reached out to antiquity, where she found her ideals realised—the hero combating the tyrant, the hero dying for the country. The enthusiasm she felt burnt the stronger for being concealed; she had no confidante among these delicate women, with their resignation and their meekness; she knew that the expression of her exaltation would sound strangely among the muted tones of the nuns breaking the silence of the cloisters.
Often her musing, her concentration on these heroisms, these ideals, would result in an ecstasy. Consider first the works of Pierre Corneille for whom she had, as his descendant, an almost superstitious reverence. This connection gave her great prestige at the Convent, heightened by the fact that her uncle one-eyed like her mother was a Chevalier de Saint-Louis—a de Corday d'Armont truly shone with such embellishments. How easily these famous dramas which she never saw acted, but from which she drew such fervent inspiration, might seem to another eye dull, insipid, almost absurd. Neither the plots nor the characters of Pierre Corneille's plays bear any relation to any life that could ever have been lived anywhere.
The elimination of all commonplaces, of all incidents in the minor key, of all humble details, leaves nothing but inhuman figures declaiming sentiments that only rarely and intermittently stir the human heart. There are no half-shades in the studies of the tyrant, the hero, the wicked woman, the heroine—there is no relief from emotional crisis; the protagonists leap from one peak of passion to another; there is always some mighty decision in debate. Not a single gleam of irony, of wit, of true pathos, lightens the long outbursts of eloquence with which these metallic figures express their woes, their indignations, their resolutions.
They cannot be said to be characters, they are embodied virtues and vices, they settle no problems, they open no new vistas, they are quite incompatible with any existence of any human being. They are grand, they have the heroic outline, they are raised above the petty needs of everyday; they declaim against tyranny, against wrong, against injustice; the heroes are ready, eager for sacrifice, for liberty, for the country, i. And all this impossible enthusiasm of antique virtue is couched in splendid diction, which rolls seductively off the tongue and fascinates the ear, as the elevation, dignity and grandeur of the sentiment fascinate the mind.
Artificial, impossible it may be, even irritating or ridiculous in its refusal to recognise the real measure of humanity, but it is sublime and like fire to tinder when represented to a heart of noble mould. I would have made him a Prince. With with delight, then, did Mlle. This sentiment exactly suited her own desire for self-sacrifice, for abnegation, as did this, put into the mouth of Emilie, a stern and patriotic heroine:. Rousseau referred his disciples back to Sparta and Rome, and Plutarch was in everyone's hands, as if it had been a guide book to daily life.
People talked, wrote and thought about antiquity; in some it became a pose, an intolerable affectation, in most it prevented a clear understanding of the problems of the moment. The words republic—liberty—sacrifice—heroism, excited and confused the ardent spirits who dreamed of reforming France, the names of Cinna, the grandson of Pompey, who conspired against Augustus to avenge the murdered father of Emilia, of Mucius Scaevola, who thrust his hand into the brazier full of fire in front of Porsenna, of Marcus Curtius who leaped into the gulf to save the city, which recalled the two Roman Consuls, father and son, who rushed on death to appease the gods and gain the victory for their country, of Brutus, the Roman father, who sacrificed his son to the laws; of Manlius, the Roman David, who slew the gigantic Gaul and put to death his successful but disobedient son—these names were on everyone's lips, as if they belonged to living people; these actions were quoted, as if these were profitable examples to consider in the France of the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
But the name that was most often repeated, which became a charm, a watchword, a symbol, an invocation, was that of Marcus Brutus, who slew his friend and benefactor in order to secure the liberty of Rome. Marcus Brutus, who was the fashion and the god of the moment was also, before even Cinna or Rodriguez , the first hero of Mlle. A book that had an equal value in her eyes with J. Rousseau, with Corneille, with Plutarch, was an extraordinary work which contained sentiment and heroism, tenderness and grandeur, a passion for liberty, a hatred of tyranny and slavery and a high admiration for Greece and Rome.
So immensely popular had this work proved that it had run into edition after edition and had been translated into several languages by the time it came into the hands of Mlle. So dangerous was it considered, and so offensive to authority, that the author had to flee France, and so when the pupil of the abbaye-aux-dames was reading his pages he was an old man living in exile in Germany. Raynal , a native of Rouergue, had been a Jesuit preacher of some distinction, but his independent spirit irked at all restrictions and he left the Church to become editor of the Mercure de France and a writer who combined fame with profit.
He had travelled in England and Holland—the seats of enlightened government—but had resided in Paris until the Parliament of Paris proscribed Les Deux Indes. To read this book is like looking into a mirror wherein is mirrored the serene soul of the pupil of the abbaye-aux-dames , so easy is it to see the reflection of her spirit in this work she so loved, which she re-read again and again.
Purporting to be an account, laborious and accurate, of the conquest and colonisation of the East by the West, this rambling book, in much superficial, alternating between the style of the guide-book and an impassioned eloquence, has a rare fascination, which is, in part, that of the fairytale.
For a girl who had never permitted herself even to think of luxury, there was pleasure in the description of mares with henna-dyed tails, of the peacock throne of the great Mogul, of the silks, brocades and lacquers of China, of the muslins and cloths of gold of India, of the exquisite spices of the East, of landscapes such as these: The gentlewoman who had never had any but the simplest ornaments satisfied her taste by reading of the pearls of the Gulf of California, the virgin gold of the mines of India, the shawls of Kashmir, the balm, the camphire, the sapphires, the crystals—all the exotic luxuries of the new world that was the oldest world of all.
But while, in this immense book, itself as full of odd treasures as the storehouse of an Eastern King, the young girl liked to ponder over the accounts of distant, almost fabulous countries; what made the author so near her heart was his passionate hatred of tyranny and cruelty, his noble indignation over the unhappy peoples enslaved, exploited and ruined to satisfy the greed of the tyrant, the adventurer, the trader. Mingling the sentimentality of J. Rousseau with the vigour of Pierre Corneille, Raynal, after soberly describing the vanilla plant, the cochineal industry, the culture of jalap or of indigo, would break into diatribe against the savage Europeans and eloquently extol the native virtues and liberties they so wantonly destroyed.
A handsome edition of the Deux Indes was brought out in Geneva in ; in front of each volume was a copperplate from the elegant burin of Moreau le Jeune, representing some exotic, far-off scene—Montezuma's capture by the Spaniards, the English at the feet of Aurengzeyb—in itself sufficient to set the romantic mind on a fanciful voyage. On one passage Mlle. In a tone of high-flown sentimentality, not without charm or pathos, Raynal proceeded to celebrate the young Englishwoman, Mrs.
Laurence Sterne, a delicate woman, who died of consumption at the age of thirty-three. Exhorting Raynal to follow the severe muse of History, the dying Eliza exclaimed, after references to Fame and the Phoenix: In response Raynal swore to the shades of Eliza, "in Heaven, thy first and last dwelling-place," never to write a line she would wish blotted, and proceeded to a description of Cochin, where there was a colony of Jews who foolishly maintained that they had been there since the captivity in Babylon.
All this was strange reading for an imaginative young girl, shut away from intercourse with the world, a nun in all but the vows, full of noble, generous instincts and completely ignorant of modern conditions. What could she make, in her solitary musings, of this unworkable mixture of paganism and Christianity, of the energetic grandeur of Corneille, the half-visionary ideas of J. And these heroes, who were they? Most of them had never existed, were fabulous demi-gods, or were ordinary men credited with impossible exploits. Such of them as might prove to be authentic lived in times so remote, under conditions so different, that their examples were useless to eighteenth-century France.
False Greeks, false Romans, the turgid imaginings of a middle-class Frenchman, the nostalgic romancings of a neurotic, the sentimental meanderings of a third-rate philosopher, the brutal savagery of the old Testament—what intelligence could fuse this to any practical rule of life, to any clear and definite faith?
No intelligence, perhaps, but this young woman was a mystic, she did not heed the dross in all these muddled doctrines, for, put through the alembic of her temperament, only the pure gold remained. From her long brooding over the strange assortment of books which formed her little library she drew only ideals of liberty, goodness, strength, courage, self-sacrifice. She saw a Sparta, a Rome that had never existed, and could write, she who had wit and humour, in all sincerity:. O nation trop frivole! Thus the young patrician in her convent, in her chaste seclusion, while in France events were taking place which would be written even in the briefest handbook to history, none of these, as yet, had anything to do with Mlle.
The nuns went about their lace-making, tapestry and embroidery, played their clavecins, distributed their bread and soup, visited their sick and poor, prayed and praised as the nuns of Matilda had done for nearly seven hundred years, and as peacefully as if their Norman cloisters were strong enough to stand till the Judgment Day and to weather all the storms of heaven and earth. The pupils studied and read, dreamt and sewed, wandered in the old park and sat in the ancient chambers of the convent with their tapestry frames and their psalters.
They, too, were assured that none of the distant excitement of which they occasionally heard would ever disturb this sacred tranquillity, and they turned their thoughts more and more to taking the vows. The world was so ugly, so corrupt, so distasteful! They were so poor, so high-born—where was there any place for them save in this sanctified retreat? There is an old legend of the magic mirror, in which not only the future could be seen, but events that were taking place at the other side of the world.
The witch would breathe on the dim surface, and the seer peering within could glimpse the beloved who was oceans away, or even the stranger whose destiny was one day to cross his own. One of them she was to know well and to see once only for a few moments, the other she was never to see, never to be aware of his existence; on both she was to exercise the power of a Fate. Let them be considered, briefly and severally, while all their destinies are at pause, yet slowly converging together, like three travellers in leisurely fashion proceeding along three different roads to a common goal.
The first picture that the magic mirror would have shown Mlle. The successful student was the son of peasants, who had gained a scholarship at the University; on the academic register he was inscribed as pauper. At first he had wished to study medicine, but anatomy had disgusted him and he had turned his lively intelligence and his diligence towards Philosophy. The teachers thought well of the amiable youth and he was in particular the favourite of Nicholas Vogt and his brother, Johann Heinrich Vogt.
To obtain his diploma the young man had written a Latin thesis; his subject was Enthusiasm De Enthusiasmo. He had, besides, to discuss with the examiners twenty-two subjects, the origin of ideas, Greek philosophy, the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, on the Beautiful, astronomy, geometry, and physics among them. Having satisfied the professors the young doctor was free to go in the streets of Mayence; the University. It was November, , and the ardent young man long remembered the sensation of pleasure he had felt on that day of late autumn when he had succeeded in the first important step of his life and when his spirit was animated by, and his heart full of, the noble and sublime ideas that he had been expounding.
He was nineteen years of age, of middle height, with blunt Teutonic features, brilliant grey eyes, a wide forehead and long, heavy light-brown hair; he had an appearance of great energy. The essay Enthusiasm had been written from his heart; in it he had, in mediocre Latin, full of Teutonic terms, striven to paint the "enthusiasm of the heart, transported by sublime and grand actions, showing its sentiments in abundant and lively expressions, without rule, without art, with movement and fire," and while he had composed his stiff periods his own blood had burned with the desire for self-sacrifice, for some splendid heroism, for service in the cause of liberty and virtue—republicanism and virtue.
He, too, was a pupil of J. Rousseau; he, too, was lost in admiration of the heroes of antiquity; he, too, valued the beautiful, the grand, the great enterprises—Mlle. The young doctor, detailing the different kinds of enthusiasms, moral, political, religious, was careful to repudiate fanaticism, intolerance, excess of any nature, and to teach that the true enthusiasm, which is capable of cutting through any obstacle, is free from vice, is pure and elevated.
Above all, he extolled public and national enthusiasm—"such as animated the Greeks. With his head full of these exciting and otherworldly thoughts, the young doctor sought for a living. He found a post as tutor to the children of Herr Dumont, a rich merchant of Mayence. His gentle manners, his noble and candid nature, his intelligence and the graces of his person obtained for him not only the friendship of his employers, but the hand and heart of Sabina Reuter, Madame Dumont's sister.
Full of the ideals of Sparta, Rome and J. There he lived, with his loving wife and the three little girls whom she bore him, a life of classic simplicity such as would have pleased the author of Emile. He tilled his fields, cultivated his vines, gathered his dear ones round his humble hearth, meditated in the woods and lanes, or enclosed himself in his closet with his books and his meditations on politics, on literature, on the ideals of J.
When he left this charming retreat it was to go into the city to meet the savants and professors of Mayence and to discuss with them the thoughts which had risen in him during his solitude. Closest among his friends was the counsellor to the tribunal of the University, his brother-in-law, Johan Georg Reuter. Thus the magic mirror would have shown this young man living in studious idyllic repose in his rustic retreat during the years that Mlle. This man came from the village of Obernburg in the electorate of Mayence.
His name was Jean-Adam Lux. After the magic mirror had shown this simple and touching picture, which would have roused Mlle. The scene is not very different; again it is a University, this time that of Rouen, where a prize is being awarded to the best thesis "on the use of electricity in medicine" electro-therapy ; again it is a doctor at a successful moment of his career, but now a doctor of medicine of the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland. He is older than Mlle. He is soured, jealous, ambitious, gifted, hard-working, by birth a Sardinian, by upbringing a Swiss Calvinist.
This struggling man of medicine, with his Scotch degree, had been born at Boudry, near the city of Geneva, and was the son of a poor chemist who worked at a textile factory and who came from Cagliari in the Isle of Sardinia. These children were taught as a trade that famous Swiss craft, the making of clocks, watch hands and very fine jewellery.
The eldest daughter, Albertine, showed herself especially skilful at this delicate work. The eldest of the family, Jean-Paul, was carefully educated; his quickness of mind and ardour to succeed secured him several prizes and the encouragement of his master, but his gloomy, bilious temperament, his fantastic vanity and uncouth appearance earned him the dislike, often actively expressed, of his fellow-students.
He had a turn for science, was expert in several languages, energetic, curious and enterprising. In his early youth he had endeavoured in vain to obtain permission to join an expedition that was being sent to Tobolsk to observe the transit of Venus. Finding no definite goal for his vague and stormy ambitions he resolved to travel, and supporting himself by teaching, journeyed to the Midi, residing in Toulouse and Bordeaux.
He then went to London, Dublin, Edinburgh, The Hague, Utrecht, Amsterdam, London again, always poor, restless, bitter, observant and gnawed by worldly ambition. He early turned to writing as a scope for his feelings and a bait for his desires. From the pleasant seclusion of Pimlico he sent forth pamphlets, essays, in the fashion of the moment; one of these, "A Philosophical Essay on Man," written in English, attracted considerable attention but produced no solid results.
His work did not lack brilliancy, but was confused and superficial, largely owing to the obscurities and difficulties of his subject, and a little perhaps because some of his ideas were novel and ill-digested. Translated into French, his books had a bad reception in Paris; the philosophes would have none of the young adventurer, and stung by their scorn he gloomily and bitterly started again on his travels. At Saint Andrews, in , he took his degree in medicine, and he afterwards practised humbly in London, writing the while anonymous English pamphlets on medical subjects and a political one entitled "Chains of Slavery.
His position was that of doctor to the gardes or gentlemen attendant on the Prince; he received his keep and, annually, two thousand livres. So far, gifts and industry were suitably rewarded and Jean-Paul might congratulate himself on being, at the age of thirty, a successful man. He may then be imagined, in the years when Mlle. He neglected his patients for laboratory work and threw his passionate energy into an attempt to discover a remedy for a disease that he saw devastating his contemporaries—consumption phthisis. This cure seemed like a miracle and brought Jean-Paul a number of patients and a good sale for the water that had rescued the fair marquise from the grave.
The young doctor was doubtless sincere in believing that he had made a remarkable discovery and did not suspect that if the lady had really been in the last stages of lung consumption, no eau factice antipulmonique could have cured her malady. In Jean-Paul competed for and failed to obtain a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons; the subject was Sir Isaac Newton's theory of light. Deeply chagrined by this rebuff, the energetic competitor printed his thesis, which was an attack on Newton, and roused contempt and derision from the Academics. Fearless and embittered, the author, attacking all accepted authorities, published one pamphlet after another, which showed no profound knowledge of his subjects but a quick, restless and lively mind.
He became embroiled in quarrels with the scientists and the orthodox members of his own profession and began to turn to journalism and that type of political pamphlet which he, so long employed by royalty, had issued against tyrants in L'esclavage , written in his lonely youth. He was a quick, vivid writer, and his industry was enormous; the lust for power, for fame, for applause, drove him on like a spur in his side; he had no interest save for his work; he wrote of the "sublime Corneille," he admired the heroes of Greece and Rome, he called himself a disciple of J.
Rousseau, but not for him was the dream of rural bliss, the vision of heroic grandeur, of self-sacrifice, of the felicity of mankind. His egotism was profound and with every failure more deeply wounded, until the whole morose and melancholy nature turned savage. If he ever pondered over the reformation of society it was because he thought that an upheaval might mean an advantage to himself; if he hated society it was because it had not honoured him; if he thought the world was awry it was because there was not a sufficiently exalted place in it for himself.
Could he have found his court in the civilisation about him he would not have found it corrupt, filthy, detestable. Could the worldly prizes he coveted have been his he would not have greatly cared for the wrongs and miseries of his fellow-men. It was his own grievance that corroded his soul, his personal disappointment that clouded his mind, his frustrated vanity that coloured his views. His merits were considerable; his private life was chaste, he had no vices, he was capable of great endurance, he spared nothing in the furtherance of an aim, he was morally and physically fearless.
His was, in much, the temperament of a Puritan, frustrated, thwarted, suppressed, unhappy, savagely ready to turn on those who had helped themselves to all those things he could not or would not enjoy. In contrast to the serene health enjoyed by Mlle. Adam Lux, Jean-Paul was a neurasthenic, exhausted by toil, anxiety, envy and jealousy. He would spend hours at his desk, writing with furious speed, until he trembled with fatigue, then drink quantities of black coffee to revive himself, this being repeated until he sank, insensible from exhaustion, into a half-drugged, uneasy sleep.
His appearance was remarkable, terrible and imposing. No more than five feet in height, his torso was huge, his head enormous and sunk in his shoulders, his colouring of the South, masses of tousled dark hair, a yellow complexion, usually showing the unshaven traces of a black beard, yellow-hazel eyes, piercing, lively, formidable. The bony structure of the face showed under the lead-coloured skin, the nose was heavy, with a crushed look, the mouth swollen, brutal and distorted by a nervous twitching, the jowl gross and ugly. If the brow and eyes had a certain nobility, the lower part of the face might well be termed the jowl of a monster.
He moved and spoke with a natural force and pride that were graceful in its spontaneous vigour. His voice was deep and powerful with a slight defect in his speech owing to the size of his tongue. He had neither manners, taste, nor any sense of the conventions, his attire was careless, his person neglected; he gave the impression of a driving force that did not yet know in what direction to turn its fury.
In the years Mlle. Going abroad in Caen she bought a Typus Mundi , dated , ornamented with engravings, and in it she wrote: She was ignorant of the existence of Dr. Marat; she scarcely knew what was taking place in France; she was still ignorant of love, still without fault or stain, resolute then to dedicate her life to God and to remain for ever in the seclusion of the abbaye-aux-dames. Every morning she took the Sacrament; when she prayed her face was hidden in her hands; she was pious, charitable, obedient, the humours of her youth were subdued; she no longer argued or showed obstinacy; she considered herself, and others considered her, as a nun— une vraie religieuse.
She wrote to her brothers on the charms of a conventual life and told of her communications avec Dieu. She was eager to show her devotion in undertaking the humblest and most difficult of labours; she eagerly nursed the sick—"if she had been asked to give her life," it was said of her, "she would not have hesitated to do so. Yet amid all this atmosphere of Christianity, of feminine abnegation, of elegant seclusion, her soul was with her beloved heroes of antiquity, with Cinna, Manlius, Brutus, Decius, and her dreams were bright with sublime grandeur.
The year , Mlle. The States General opened on May 5th; what can they do for a country where affairs are in chaos and everyone is either incompetent or helpless? After disputes the Commons vote themselves a National Assembly and refuse June 23rd to obey the Royal command ordering them to quit the Tennis Court Jeu de Paume , to which they have adjourned when the doors of La Salle des Menus Plaisirs are closed to them. While the Assembly is arguing, the People, feeling authority feeble, begins to try its strength.
On July 14th the Bastille, the almost disused State prison and fortress, is taken by the mob and its military defenders slain. Seven freed prisoners, five of whom are criminals, are paraded in triumph; it is a notable date in history, the era of liberty has begun. The King recalls Necker, grants an amnesty to the rioters, establishes the Commune government of the city of Paris and puts the tricolour cockade in his hat.
The ladies of the abbaye-aux-dames may have considered themselves safe from all these events, but the sudden outbursts of savage violence in different parts of the country did not spare Caen. Before the Revolution was well begun it was marred by the terrible excesses of the lowest classes and the violent characters who seized the opportunity of the weakening of all authority to try to push the nation into an anarchy where they might rape and plunder at their will.
In the salon of the abbaye Mlle. This arrogant young aristocrat, wilful and fearless, did not hesitate to express his disgust at the growing power of the people; supported by a fellow-officer, the duc de Beavron, he turned his disdain on the newly-raised militia or National soldiers, and on his own authority broke up the meetings of the political clubs then being formed in Caen. General Dumouriez, Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the new Cabinet, warned him to be careful, but the young Vicomte laughed. A pamphlet exciting the army against the people was attributed to him and so exasperating was his insolent behaviour considered that the National Committee that had been set up in Caen requested the Governor-General of Normandy to remove M.
The climax came with a scuffle between the militia and the regulars in the streets of Caen; some fool fired, a man was killed, and the town in an uproar. The Bourbon regiment fired on the crowd, the tocsin broke the slumbers of the nuns and their pupils; the alarm bells sounded, the Faubourg de Vaucelles was set on fire, the soldiers began to drag out their cannon. It was a riot passing into a revolution; the officers of both sides went to the Town Hall to endeavour to come to an understanding. When he left the militia guarded him in order to protect him from the fury of the people, to whom he was an object of peculiar detestation.
As they were taking him to the citadel the mob broke through the escort and seized the unhappy young man; a national guard shot him and his mutilated body was dragged through the streets, his head set on a pike, his heart torn out, roasted and eaten by a woman of the People. This was some of the first blood shed in the Revolution, a terrible indication of the almost incredible savagery of the lowest people, who, brutalised by long oppression, ignorant, bestial, full of hatred towards their superiors, had not the intelligence to wait for the reforms being taken in hand by the Assembly, but, impatient and roused, rushed at once to bloody excess.
The young girl shuddered deeper into her cloisters, delivered herself more passionately to her prayers and her dreams. The deputies hesitate; what do the people want? Can we even at this moment of terrible crisis venture to take from the only classes who have to give, the nobles, the clergy? It is a famous date—August 4th, ; the Vicomte Jean de Noailles rises and suggests the abolition of the Feudal system—quiet the people by giving them all they ask for, make all Frenchmen equal! He is seconded by the duc d'Aiguillon, always a liberal; amazed, the Tiers Etat applaud.
The deputies semblent fous , they weep, faint, embrace one another, 1, men become hysterical; not only have they saved their country from anarchy, they have laid the foundation-stone of the golden age; they rush, overcome by emotion, to hear the Archbishop of Paris conduct a Te Deum in the ornate chapel of Versailles; it is a transport, a delirium, a stammering of joy: Rousseau, for believers in antique virtue and the goodness of man—what a scene for an Adam Lux or Mlle. There is no one among the enthusiastic legislators to note that M.
But Mirabeau, the one great man in the Assembly, remarks on hearing the news from the provinces—"Before you give the people their rights, you must teach them their duties. Rousseau, of Raynal, "her oracle," put into practice—France would be great, would be free, would be glorious, on the model of Sparta or the Rome of Brutus. Rousseau, excited her most profound admiration. The promised land was in sight at last; "the rights of man" had been proclaimed by the government of a great nation. A constitution, modelled on that of the United States and inspired by the teachings of the Genevan philosopher, was to be given to the people of France: This is the language of hysteria, of delirium.
Dumont, a Swiss present at the meetings of the Assembly, dryly commented: There was, however, no "medley of balderdash" in all this to Mlle. Adam Lux wept in an ecstasy over his books in his rustic retreat, a young English poet then in Paris sighed:. Jean-Paul Marat, abandoning all orthodox ways of a livelihood, had thrown himself violently into the disturbed current of the times.
An inflammatory pamphleteer, a venomous journalist, scribbling with facility, power and fury, he soon was marked as a dangerous man and pursued from pillar to post by the police under Lafayette. In his own words he was "exposed to a thousand dangers, surrounded by spies and assassins, chased from hole to hole, never able to sleep two nights in the same place. Without shirt or stockings, wrapped in a filthy coat and breeches, his head of greasy hair tied in a torn handkerchief damped with vinegar, he sat hunched in his foul retreat, a pen in his hand, a wad of paper on his knees, like one making dynamite underground.
His health, always miserable, failed rapidly; the noisome air of his hole, the stink from the coarse oil of his crazy lamp, the damp, the wretched food, the anxiety, the rage that racked him caused inflamed eyes, chronic indigestion, constant headaches, nervous convulsion, and gradually a most repulsive skin disease resembling, in the eyes of the ignorant, leprosy. He had willingly accepted the abolition of those feudal rights which had not favoured him, a younger son, and, as representative of his parish, he claimed a share in the newly freed lands—he desired an equality of division among all the sons of a man of property; beyond this he did not go; he remained attached to the King, to the traditions of his class, and he viewed with alarm the possibility that the reforms he approved might be pushed to excesses that he would regard with horror.
In October, , the frantic reception of the loyal Flanders regiment in the Salon de Hercule , the tricolour trampled underfoot, the white cockade triumphant, in the streets of Paris women with drums, shouting: It is another triumph for the idealists; the Bishop of Autun, assisted by four hundred priests on a huge altar, celebrates Mass and sprinkles holy water on the hundreds of banners of the people; they all wear tricolour sashes, there is more weeping, more embracing, more enthusiasm; Autun, whose name is Charles de Talleyrand, whispers to Lafayette as he mounts the altar, "As long as you don't make one laugh"; a few weeks later Necker has resigned again; there is no money in the country, no bread—"You play act," says Mirabeau, "with bankruptcy staring you in the face.
The clubs are founded; with their headquarters in Paris, they have branches all over the country; in the gloomy rooms of the old Jacobin convent in the rue St. In the ancient monastery of the Cordeliers is another club, the members of which are poor, oppressed, sombre and passionate; their avowed aim is the establishment of a free Republic.
Among those who creep out of hiding to join these secret meetings is Jean-Paul Marat. The country is not satisfied by the spoliation of the Church any more than it has been satisfied by the self-sacrifice of the nobility; thoughtful people dread to look ahead, but Mlle. The royal family tries to fly the country and is brought back, all functions of royalty are suspended, the Constituent Assembly is dissolved, the Legislative Assembly is formed of Deputies elected by the people to frame the laws for the new Constitution.
The divisions are as before; the Right, consists of the Monarchists , the Centre, the Moderates , the Left, the Gironde , so called because the most famous members were from the Gironde. The King chooses his ministers from the Left, Roland, Dumouriez; they declare war on the Holy Roman Empire and on Russia, for these two Powers have sent insolent rebukes and demands to the Assembly; the French are defeated in the field, the government enrols 20, men for the defence of Paris, the King vetoes the measure; the mob storms the Tuileries ; the Duke of Brunswick, sent with , men to crush the Revolution, issues an arrogant manifesto—"I am commissioned by the Sovereigns of Europe to lay Paris in the dust and crush the republican vipers under heel.
Among the members of the Assembly who come into prominence is Jean-Paul Marat, who leaves his refuge of sewer rat to sit on the benches of the tribunes. And, in his rage, his dirt, his suffering, his fury, his venom, he does indeed seem to typify, foreigner as he is, that portion of the French nation which has hitherto been shut out, despised, starved, beaten, ridiculed.
He is a figure of horror, a monster, terrible and fascinating. Cette chose fauve, verte d'habits; ces yeux gris faune si saillants! By a decree of all monasteries and convents are closed; Mlle. No longer are masses to be sung for the soul of Queen Matilda; the abbaye-aux-dames becomes National Property.
The young girl lingers on the threshold of change; she is allowed to remain in the cloisters for a while, reading, pondering; she is there when Marat and Danton, representing the Mountain , or Extreme Left, urge on the September massacres as reprisals against the royalists for the march of the invaders on Verdun; ten thousand prisoners are slaughtered in two days by hired murderers, while Dumouriez drives the enemy back across the Rhine, retaking Verdun and Longwy.
Rousseau, lovers of Plutarch, who talk in terms of Greece and Rome, these men worthy of the names of Cato, Cincinnatus, Brutus, Manlius—she perceives that they have their enemies, that the tyrants are not crushed. But Tarquin and Caligula were not to be found on the throne, now overturned, but on the benches of the tribunes, disguised under the ferocious masks of Danton and Marat. In this terrible year of Mlle.
It seemed very far from all these events at Mesnil-Imbert; Charlotte de Corday was absorbed into her pastoral life again, mingled with her friends, became part once more of the Norman air, the Norman landscape. For a while she wore the dark blue habit of the abbaye-aux-dames which appears to be that of a novice, worked among the poor and the sick, but soon she adopted a secular dress and occupied herself almost entirely with children, for whom she had a tender affection.
She gathered round her in the old bakehouse little classes for lace-making, for reading, and she could often be seen racing her little pupils down the valleys, the winner rewarded with a doll of her own making. Above all, she was admired for her sweetness— douce, si douce , they said of her; she was frequently compared to an angel, the type of angel worshipped by holy nuns and trusted by little children. She had an entire absence of any kind of affectation. Her sincerity was absolute; she had the unselfconsciousness of perfect breeding and did not appear to know that she was beautiful; her gorgeous tresses were not dressed or powdered more than four times a year; for the rest they hung as they would over her shoulders, confined by a simple ribbon or falling under a plain cap; sometimes lightly powdered by herself in front where the small ringlets waved on the pure brow.
She wore in the summer austere gowns of Indian muslin, embroidered by herself round the hems, and grey in colour; one was in wide stripes of two shades of brown. When not reading or occupied with her pupils, she was busy with the little arts taught her at the convent, drawing, tapestry, fine sewing, all of which well suited her delicate fingers. She taught lace-making to the peasant women, introducing le point de France , which she said had been brought to the country by a Queen of France and by which a poor woman could gain as much as three francs a day.
After her lessons to her little ones she would play with them, blind-man's-buff, ring-a-roses, dances; she was gay, light-hearted, cheerful—Mesnil-Imbert was so far from Paris with its gathering storms, the pastoral beauty of the fields was so changeless! In the old brick colombier where the doves flew in and out of their niches she would tell the fair-haired little Normans of the sublime deeds of the ancient heroes which might be found in Plutarch and Corneille, teach them the grandeur of love, of country, of self-sacrifice, of fortitude.
She would tell them of the new government in France, which was founded on these pure models of antiquity, of the new tribunes of France, the members of the Gironde , republicans all worthy of Sparta. Surely these children would live to see this glorious dawn increase in power until the beams of brilliant day blessed the beloved land! A government modelled on Rousseau, conducted by men who were nourished on Marcus Aurelius, who had put up a bust of Brutus in the Senate and who had taken as their motto, Liberty or Death!