IV

Fougeres lowered his head like a sheep when it rains. Then he asked

and obtained certain useful advice, and retouched his pictures before

taking them to Elie Magus. Elie paid him twenty-five francs apiece. At

that price of course Fougeres earned nothing; neither did he lose,

thanks to his sober living. He made a few excursions to the boulevard

to see what became of his pictures, and there he underwent a singular

hallucination. His neat, clean paintings, hard as tin and shiny as

porcelain, were covered with a sort of mist; they looked like old

daubs. Magus was out, and Pierre could obtain no information on this

phenomenon. He fancied something was wrong with his eyes.

The painter went back to his studio and made more pictures. After

seven years of continued toil Fougeres managed to compose and execute

quite passable work. He did as well as any artist of the second class.

Elie bought and sold all the paintings of the poor Breton, who earned

laboriously about two thousand francs a year while he spent but twelve

hundred.

At the Exhibition of 1829, Leon de Lora, Schinner, and Bridau, who all

three occupied a great position and were, in fact, at the head of the

art movement, were filled with pity for the perseverance and the

poverty of their old friend; and they caused to be admitted into the

grand salon of the Exhibition, a picture by Fougeres. This picture,

powerful in interest but derived from Vigneron as to sentiment and

from Dubufe's first manner as to execution, represented a young man in

prison, whose hair was being cut around the nape of the neck. On one

side was a priest, on the other two women, one old, one young, in

tears. A sheriff's clerk was reading aloud a document. On a wretched

table was a meal, untouched. The light came in through the bars of a

window near the ceiling. It was a picture fit to make the bourgeois

shudder, and the bourgeois shuddered. Fougeres had simply been

inspired by the masterpiece of Gerard Douw; he had turned the group of

the "Dropsical Woman" toward the window, instead of presenting it full

front. The condemned man was substituted for the dying woman--same

pallor, same glance, same appeal to God. Instead of the Dutch doctor,

he had painted the cold, official figure of the sheriff's clerk

attired in black; but he had added an old woman to the young one of

Gerard Douw. The cruelly simple and good-humored face of the

executioner completed and dominated the group. This plagiarism, very

cleverly disguised, was not discovered. The catalogue contained the

following:--

510. Grassou de Fougeres (Pierre), rue de Navarin, 2.

Death-toilet of a Chouan, condemned to execution in 1809.

Though wholly second-rate, the picture had immense success, for it

recalled the affair of the "chauffeurs," of Mortagne. A crowd

collected every day before the now fashionable canvas; even Charles X.

paused to look at it. "Madame," being told of the patient life of the

poor Breton, became enthusiastic over him. The Duc d'Orleans asked the

price of the picture. The clergy told Madame la Dauphine that the

subject was suggestive of good thoughts; and there was, in truth, a

most satisfying religious tone about it. Monseigneur the Dauphin

admired the dust on the stone-floor,--a huge blunder, by the way, for

Fougeres had painted greenish tones suggestive of mildew along the

base of the walls. "Madame" finally bought the picture for a thousand

francs, and the Dauphin ordered another like it. Charles X. gave the

cross of the Legion of honor to this son of a peasant who had fought

for the royal cause in 1799. (Joseph Bridau, the great painter, was

not yet decorated.) The minister of the Interior ordered two church

pictures of Fougeres.

This Salon of 1829 was to Pierre Grassou his whole fortune, fame,

future, and life. Be original, invent, and you die by inches; copy,

imitate, and you'll live. After this discovery of a gold mine, Grassou

de Fougeres obtained his benefit of the fatal principle to which

society owes the wretched mediocrities to whom are intrusted in these

days the election of leaders in all social classes; who proceed,

naturally, to elect themselves and who wage a bitter war against all

true talent. The principle of election applied indiscriminately is

false, and France will some day abandon it.

Nevertheless the modesty, simplicity, and genuine surprise of the good

and gentle Fougeres silenced all envy and all recriminations. Besides,

he had on his side all of his clan who had succeeded, and all who

expected to succeed. Some persons, touched by the persistent energy of

a man whom nothing had discouraged, talked of Domenichino and said:--

"Perseverance in the arts should be rewarded. Grassou hasn't stolen

his successes; he has delved for ten years, the poor dear man!"

That exclamation of "poor dear man!" counted for half in the support

and the congratulations which the painter received. Pity sets up

mediocrities as envy pulls down great talents, and in equal numbers.

The newspapers, it is true, did not spare criticism, but the chevalier

Fougeres digested them as he had digested the counsel of his friends,

with angelic patience.

Possessing, by this time, fifteen thousand francs, laboriously earned,

he furnished an apartment and studio in the rue de Navarin, and

painted the picture ordered by Monseigneur the Dauphin, also the two

church pictures, and delivered them at the time agreed on, with a

punctuality that was very discomforting to the exchequer of the

ministry, accustomed to a different course of action. But--admire the

good fortune of men who are methodical--if Grassou, belated with his

work, had been caught by the revolution of July he would not have got

his money.

By the time he was thirty-seven Fougeres had manufactured for Elie

Magus some two hundred pictures, all of them utterly unknown, by the

help of which he had attained to that satisfying manner, that point of

execution before which the true artist shrugs his shoulders and the

bourgeoisie worships. Fougeres was dear to friends for rectitude of

ideas, for steadiness of sentiment, absolute kindliness, and great

loyalty; though they had no esteem for his palette, they loved the man

who held it.

"What a misfortune it is that Fougeres has the vice of painting!" said

his comrades.

But for all this, Grassou gave excellent counsel, like those

feuilletonists incapable of writing a book who know very well where a

book is wanting. There was this difference, however, between literary

critics and Fougeres; he was eminently sensitive to beauties; he felt

them, he acknowledged them, and his advice was instinct with a spirit

of justice that made the justness of his remarks acceptable. After the

revolution of July, Fougeres sent about ten pictures a year to the

Salon, of which the jury admitted four or five. He lived with the most

rigid economy, his household being managed solely by an old charwoman.

For all amusement he visited his friends, he went to see works of art,

he allowed himself a few little trips about France, and he planned to

go to Switzerland in search of inspiration. This detestable artist was

an excellent citizen; he mounted guard duly, went to reviews, and paid

his rent and provision-bills with bourgeois punctuality.