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When I arrive in Paris I always go first to the Y.M.C.A. headquarters
in the Rue de Treville—that fine building erected and presented to the
Association by Banker Stokes of New York. There's a good table-d'hote
dinner there every day for a franc; then there tare bathrooms and
writing-rooms and reading-rooms, and all are yours if you are a stranger.
The polite Secretary does not look like a Christian: he has a very tight
hair-cut, a Vandyke beard and lists of lodgings that can be had for
twenty, fifteen or ten francs a week. Or, should you be an American
Millionaire and be willing to pay thirty francs a week, the secretary
knows a nice Protestant lady who will rent you her front parlor on the
first floor and serve you coffee each morning without extra charge.
Not being a millionaire, I decided, the last time I was there, on a
room at fifteen francs a week on the fourth floor. A bright young fellow
was called up, duly introduced, and we started out to inspect the
quarters.
The house we wanted was in a little side street that leads off the
Boulevard Montmartre. It was a very narrow and plain little street, and I
was somewhat disappointed. Yet it was not a shabby street, for there are none
such in Paris; all was neat and clean, and as I caught sight of a birdcage
hanging in one of the windows and a basket of ferns in another I was
reassured and rang the bell.
The landlady wore a white cap, a winning smile and a big white apron. A
bunch of keys dangling at her belt gave the necessary look of authority.
She was delighted to see me—everybody is glad to see you in Paris—and
she would feel especially honored if I would consent to remain under her
roof. She only rented her rooms to those who were sent to her by her
friends, and among her few dear friends none was so dear as Monsieur ze
Secretaire of ze Young Men Christians.
And so I was shown the room—away up and up and up a dark winding
stairway of stone steps with an iron balustrade. It was a room about the
size of a large Jordan-Marsh drygoods-box.
The only thing that tempted me to stay was the fact that the one window
was made up of little diamond panes set in a leaden sash, and that this
window looked out on a little courtway where a dozen palms and as many
ferns grew lush and green in green tubs and where in the center a fountain
spurted. So a bargain was struck and the landlady went downstairs to find
her husband to send him to the Gare Saint Lazare after my luggage.
What a relief it is to get settled in your own room! It is home and
this is your castle. You can do as you please here; can I not take mine
ease in mine inn?
I took off my coat and hung it on the corner
of the high bedpost of the narrow, little bed and hung my collar and cuffs
on the floor; and then leaned out of the window indulging in a drowsy
dream of sweet content. 'Twas a long, dusty ride from Dieppe, but who
cares—I was now settled, with rent paid for a week!
All around the courtway were flower-boxes in the windows; down below,
the fountain cheerfully bubbled and gurgled, and from clear off in the
unseen rumbled the traffic of the great city. And coming from somewhere,
as I sat there, was the shrill warble of a canary. I looked down and
around, but could not see the feathered songster, as the novelists always
call a bird. Then I followed the advice of the Epworth League and looked
up, not down, out, not in, and there directly over my head hung the cage
all tied up in chiffon (I think it was chiffon). I was surprised, for I
felt sure it could not be possible there was a room higher than
mine—when I had come up nine stairways! Then I was more surprised; for
just as I looked up, a woman looked down and our eyes met. We both smiled
a foolish smile of surprise; she dodged in her head and I gazed at the
houses opposite with an interest quite unnecessary.
She was not a very young woman, nor very pretty—in fact, she was
rather plain—but when she leaned out to feed her pet and found a man
looking up at her she proved her divine femininity beyond cavil. Was there
ever a more womanly action? And I said to
myself, "She is not handsome—but God bless her, she is human!"
Details are tiresome—so suffice it to say that next day the birdcage
was lowered that I might divide my apple with Dickie (for he was very fond
of apple). The second day, when the cage was lowered I not only fed Dickie
but wrote a message on the cuttlefish. The third day, there was a note
twisted in the wires of the cage inviting me up to tea.
And I went.
There were four girls living up there in one attic-room. Two of these
girls were Americans, one English and one French. One of the American
girls was round and pink and twenty; the other was older. It was the older
one that owned the bird, and invited me up to tea. She met me at the door,
and we shook hands like old-time friends. I was introduced to the trinity
in a dignified manner, and we were soon chatting in a way that made Dickie
envious, and he sang so loudly that one of the girls covered the cage with
a black apron.
With four girls I felt perfectly safe, and as for the girls there was
not a shadow of a doubt that they were safe, for I am a married man. I
knew they must be nice girls, for they had birds and flower-boxes. I knew
they had flower-boxes, for twice it so happened that they sprinkled the
flowers while I was leaning out of the window wrapped in reverie.
This attic was the most curious room I ever saw. It was large—running
clear across the house. It had four gable-windows, and the ceiling sloped
down on the sides, so there was danger of bumping your head if you played
pussy-wants-a-corner. Each girl had a window that she called her own, and
the chintz curtains, made of chiffon (I think it was chiffon), were tied
back with different-colored ribbons. This big room was divided in the
center by a curtain made of gunny-sack stuff, and this curtain was covered
with pictures such as were never seen on land or
sea. The walls were papered with brown wrapping-paper, tacked up with
brass-headed nails, and this paper was covered with pictures such as were
never seen on sea or land.
The girls were all art students, and when they had nothing else to do
they worked on the walls, I imagined, just as the Israelites did in
Jerusalem years ago. One half of the attic was studio, and this was where
the table was set. The other half of the attic had curious chairs and
divans and four little iron beds enameled in white and gold, and each bed
was so smoothly made up that I asked what they were for. White Pigeon said
they were bric-a-brac—that the Attic Philosophers rolled themselves up
in the rugs on the floor when they wished to sleep; but I have thought
since that White Pigeon was chaffing me.
White Pigeon was the one I saw that first afternoon when I looked up,
not down, out, not in. She was from White Pigeon, Michigan, and from the
very moment I told her I had a cousin living at Coldwater who was a
conductor on the Lake Shore, we were as brother and sister. White Pigeon
was thirty or thirty-five, mebbe; she had some gray hairs mixed in with
the brown, and at times there was a tinge of melancholy in her laugh and a
sort of half-minor key in her voice. I think she had had a Past, but I
don't know for sure.
Women under thirty seldom know much, unless Fate has been kind and
cuffed them thoroughly, so the little peachblow
Americaine did not interest me. The peachblow was all gone from White
Pigeon's cheek, but she was fairly wise and reasonably good—I'm certain
of that. She called herself a student and spoke of her pictures as
"studies," but she had lived in Paris ten years. Peachblow was
her pupil—sent over from Bradford, Pennsylvania, where her father was a
"producer." White Pigeon told me this after I had drunk five
cups of tea and the Anglaise and the Soubrette were doing the dishes.
Peachblow the while was petulantly taking the color out of a canvas that
was a false alarm.
White Pigeon had copied a Correggio in the Louvre nine years before,
and sold the canvas to a rich wagon-maker from South Bend. Then orders
came from South Bend for six more Louvre masterpieces. It took a year to
complete the order and brought White Pigeon a thousand dollars. She kept
on copying and occasionally receiving orders from America; and when no
orders came, potboilers were duly done and sent to worthy Hebrews in Saint
Louis who hold annual Art Receptions and sell at auction paintings painted
by distinguished artists with unpronounceable names, who send a little of
their choice work to Saint Louis, because the people in Saint Louis
appreciate really choice things.
"And the mural decorations—which one of you did those?" I
remarked, as a long pause came stealing in.
"Did you hear what Mr. Littlejourneys asked?" called White
Pigeon to the others.
"No; what was it?"
"He wants to know which one of us decorated the walls!"
"Mr. Littlejourneys meant illumined the walls," jerked
Peachblow, over her shoulder.
Then Anglaise gravely brought a battered box of crayon and told me I
must make a picture somewhere on the wall or ceiling: all the pictures
were made by visitors—no visitor was ever exempt.
I took the crayons and made a picture such as was never seen on land or
sea. Having thus placed myself on record, I began to examine the other
decorations. There were heads and faces, and architectural scraps, trees
and animals, and bits of landscape and ships that pass in the night. Most
of the work was decidedly sketchy, but some of the faces were very good.
Suddenly my eye spied the form of a sleeping dog, a great shaggy Saint
Bernard with head outstretched on his paws, sound asleep. I stopped and
whistled.
The girls laughed.
"It is only the picture of a dog," said Soubrette.
"I know; but you should pay dog-tax on such a picture—did you
draw it?" I asked White Pigeon.
"Did I! If I could draw like that, would I copy pictures in the
Louvre?"
"Well, who drew it?"
"Can't you guess?"
"Of course I can guess. I am a Yankee—I guess Rosa Bonheur."
"Well, you have guessed right."
"Stop joking and tell me who drew the Saint Bernard."
"Madame Rosalie, or Rosa Bonheur, as you call her."
"But she never came here!"
"Yes, she did—once. Soubrette is her great-grandniece, or
something."
"Yes, and Madame Bonheur pays my way and keeps me in the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. I'm not ashamed for Monsieur Littlejourneys to know!"
said Soubrette with a pretty pout; "I'm from Lyons, and my mother and
Madame Rosalie used to know each other years ago."
"Will Madame Rosalie, as you call her, ever come here again?"
"Perhaps."
"Then I'll camp right here till she comes!"
"You might stay a year and then be disappointed."
"Then can't we go to see her?"
"Never; she does not see visitors."
"We might go visit her home," mused Soubrette, after a pause.
"Yes, if she is away," said Anglaise.
"She's away now," said Soubrette; "she went to Rouen
yesterday."
"Well, when shall we go?"
"Tomorrow."
And so Soubrette could not think of going when it looked so much like
rain, and Anglaise could not think of going without Soubrette, and
Peachblow was getting nervous about the coming examinations, and must
study, as she knew she would just die if she failed to pass.
"You will anyway—sometime!" said White Pigeon.
"Don't urge her; she may change her mind and go with you,"
dryly remarked Anglaise with back towards us as she dusted the mantel.
Then I expressed my regret that the trinity could not go, and White
Pigeon expressed her regret because they had to stay at home. And as we
went down the stairs together we chanted the Kyrie eleison for our small
sins, easing conscience by the mutual confession that we were arrant
hypocrites.
"But still," mused White Pigeon, not quite satisfied,
"we really did not tell an untruth—that is, we did not deceive
them—they understood—I wouldn't tell a real whopper, would you?"
"I don't know—I think I did once."
"Tell me about it," said White Pigeon.
But I was saved, for just as we reached the bottom stair there was a
slight jingling of keys, and the landlady came up through the floor with a
big lunch-basket. She pushed the basket into my hands and showering us
with Lombardy French pushed us out of the door, and away we went into the
morning gray, the basket carried between us. The
basket had a hinged cover, and out of one corner emerged the telltale neck
of a bottle. It did not look just right; suppose we should meet some one
from Coldwater?
But we did not meet any one from Coldwater. And when we reached the
railway-station we were quite lost in the crowd, for there were dozens of
picnickers all carrying baskets, and from the cover of each basket emerged
the neck of a bottle. We felt quite at home packed away in a Classe Trois
carriage with a chattering party of six High-School botanizing youngsters.
When the guard came to the window, touched his cap, addressing me as Le
Professeur, and asked for the tickets for my family, they all laughed.
Fontainebleau was the fourth stop from Paris. My family scampered out
and away and we followed leisurely after. Fontainebleau is quite smug.
There is a fashionable hotel near the station, before which a fine tall
fellow in uniform parades. He looked at our basket with contempt, and we
looked at him in pity. Just beyond the hotel are smart shops with windows
filled with many-colored trifles to tempt the tourist. The shops gradually
grew smaller and less gay, and residences with high stone walls in front
took their places, and over these walls roses nodded. Then there came a
wide stretch of pasture, and the town of Fontainebleau was left behind.
The sun came out and came out and came out; birds chirruped
in the hedgerows and the daws in the high poplars called and scolded. The
mist still lingered on the distant hills, and we could hear the tinkle of
sheep-bells and the barking of a dog coming out of the nothingness.
White Pigeon wore flat-soled shoes and measured off the paces with an
easy swing. We walked in silence, filled with the rich quiet of country
sounds and country sights. What a relief to get away from noisy, bustling,
busy Paris! God made the country!
All at once the mists seemed to lift from the long range of hills on
the right and revealed the dark background of forest, broken here and
there with jutting rocks and beetling crags. We stopped and sat down on
the bank-side to view the scene. Close up under the shadow of the dark
forest nestled a little white village. Near it was the red-tile roof of an
old mansion, half-lost in the foliage. All around this old mansion I could
make out a string of small buildings or additions to the original chateau.
I looked at White Pigeon and she looked at me.
"Yes; that is the place!" she said.
The sun's rays were growing warmer. I took off my coat and tucked it
through the handle of the basket. White Pigeon took off her jacket to keep
it company, and toting the basket, slung on my cane between us, we moved
on up the gently winding way to the village of By. Everybody was asleep at
By, or else gone on a journey. Soon we came to the old, massive,
moss-covered gateposts that marked the entrance to the mansion. A chain
was stretched across the entrance and we crawled under. The driveway was
partly overgrown with grass, and the place seemed to be taking care of
itself. Half a dozen long-horned Bonnie Brier Bush cows were grazing on
the lawn, their calves with them; and evidently these cows and calves were
the only mowing-machines employed. On this wide-stretching meadow were
various old trees; one elm I saw had fallen split through the
center—each part prostrate, yet growing green.
Close up about the house there was an irregular stone wall and an
ornamental iron gate with a pull-out Brugglesmith bell at one side. We
pulled the bell and were answered by a big shaggy Saint Bernard that came
barking and bouncing around the corner. I thought at first our time had
come. But this giant of a dog only approached within about ten feet, then
lay down on the grass and rolled over three times to show his goodwill. He
got up with a fine, cheery smile shown in the wag of his tail, just as a
little maid unlocked the gate.
"Don't you know that dog?" asked White Pigeon.
"Certainement—he is on the wall of your room."
We were shown into a little reception-parlor, where we were welcomed by
a tall, handsome woman, about White Pigeon's age.
The woman kissed White Pigeon on one cheek, and I afterwards asked
White Pigeon why she didn't turn to me the other, and she said I was a
fool.
Then the tall woman went to the door and called up the
stairway: "Antoine, Antoine, guess who it is? It's White
Pigeon!"
A man came down the stairs three steps at a time, and took both of
White Pigeon's hands in his, after the hearty manner of a gentleman of
France. Then I was introduced.
Antoine looked at our lunch-basket with the funniest look I ever saw,
and asked what it was.
"Lunch," said White Pigeon; "I can not tell a lie!"
Antoine made wild gesticulations of displeasure, denouncing us in
pantomime.
But White Pigeon explained that we only came on a quiet picnic in
search of ozone and had dropped in to make a little call before we went on
up to the forest. But could we see the horses?
Antoine would be most delighted to show Monsieur Littlejourneys
anything that was within his power. In fact, everything hereabouts was the
absolute property of Monsieur Littlejourneys to do with as he pleased.
He disappeared up the stairway to exchange his slippers for shoes, and
the tall woman went in another direction for her hat. I whispered to White
Pigeon, "Can't we see the studio?"
"Are we from Chicago, that we should seek to prowl through a
private house, when the mistress is away? No; there are partly finished
canvases up there that are sacred."
"Come this way," said Antoine. He led us out through the
library, then the dining-room and through the kitchen.
It is a very comfortable old place, with no extra furniture—the
French know better than to burden themselves with things.
The long line of brick stables seemed made up of a beggarly array of
empty stalls. We stopped at a paddock, and Antoine opened the gate and
said, "There they are!"
"What?"
"The horses."
"But these are broncos."
"Yes; I believe that is what you call them. Monsieur Bill of
Buffalo, New York, sent them as a present to Madame Rosalie when he was in
Paris."
There they were—two ewe-necked cayuses—one a pinto with a wall-eye;
the other a dun with a black line down the back.
I challenged Antoine to saddle them and we would ride. The tall lady
took it in dead earnest, and throwing her arms around Antoine's neck
begged him not to commit suicide.
"And the Percherons—where are they?"
"Goodness! we have no Perches."
"Those that served as models for the 'Horse Fair,' I mean."
White Pigeon took me gently by the sleeve, and turning to the others
apologized for my ignorance, explaining that I
did not know the "Marche aux Chevaux" was painted over forty
years ago, and that the models were all Paris cart-horses.
Antoine called up a little old man, who led out two shaggy little cobs,
and I was told that these were the horses that Madame drove. A roomy,
old-fashioned basket phaeton was backed out; White Pigeon and I stepped in
to try it, and Antoine drew us once around the stable-yard. This is the
only carriage Madame uses. There were doves, and chickens, and turkeys,
and rabbits; and these horses we had seen, with the cows on the lawn, make
up all the animals owned by the greatest of living animal-painters.
Years ago Rosa Bonheur had a stableful of horses and a kennel of dogs
and a park with deer. Many animals were sent as presents. One man
forwarded a lion, and another a brace of tigers, but Madame made haste to
present them to the Zoological Garden at Paris, because the folks at By
would not venture out of their houses—a report having been spread that
the lions were loose.
"An animal-painter no more wants to own the objects he paints than
a landscape-artist wishes a deed for the mountain he is sketching,"
said Antoine.
"Or to marry his model," interposed White Pigeon.
"If you see your model too often, you will lose her," added
the Tall Lady.
We bade our friends good-by and trudged on up the hillside to the
storied Forest of Fontainebleau. We sat down on
a log and watched the winding Seine stretching away like a monstrous
serpent, away down across the meadow; just at our feet was the white
village of By; beyond was Thomeray, and off to the left rose the spires of
Fontainebleau.
"And who is this Antoine and who is the Tall Lady?" I asked,
as White Pigeon began to unpack the basket.
"It's quite a romance; are you sure you want to hear it?"
"I must hear it."
And so between bites White Pigeon told me the story.
The Tall Lady is a niece of Madame Rosalie's. She was married to an
army officer at Bordeaux when she was sixteen years old. Her husband
treated her shamefully; he beat her and forced her to write begging
letters and to borrow money of her relatives, and then he would take this
money and waste it gambling and in drink. In short, he was a Brute.
Madame Rosalie accidentally heard of all this, and one day went down to
Bordeaux and took the Tall Lady away from the Brute and told him she would
kill him if he followed.
"Did she paint a picture of the Brute?"
"Keep quiet, please!"
She told him she would kill him if he followed, and although she is
usually very gentle I believe she would have kept her word. Well, she
brought the Tall Lady with her to By, and this old woman and this young woman
loved each other very much.
Now, Madame Rosalie had a butler and combination man of business, by
name of Jules Carmonne. He was a painter of some ability and served Madame
in many ways right faithfully. Jules loved the Tall Lady, or said he did,
but she did not care for him. He was near fifty and asthmatic and had
watery eyes. He made things very uncomfortable for the Tall Lady.
One night Jules came to Madame Rosalie in great indignation and said he
could not consent to remain longer on account of the way things were going
on. What was the trouble? Trouble enough, when the Tall Lady was sneaking
out of the house after decent folks were in bed, to meet a strange man
down in the evergreens! Well I guess so!!
How did he know?
Ah, he had followed her. Moreover, he had concealed himself in the
evergreens and waited for them, to make sure.
Yes, and who was the man?
A young rogue of a painter from Fontainebleau named Antoine de
Channeville.
Madame Rosalie took Jules Carmonne at his word. She said she was sorry
he could not stay, but he might go if he wished to, of course. And she
paid him his salary on the spot—with two months more to the end of the
year.
The next day Madame Rosalie drove her team of shaggy
ponies down to Fontainebleau and called on the young rogue of an artist.
He came out bareheaded and quaking to where she sat in the phaeton
waiting. She flecked the off pony twice and told him that as Carmonne had
left her she must have a man to help her. Would he come? And she named as
salary a sum about five times what he was then making.
Antoine de Channeville seized the wheel of the phaeton for support,
gasped several gasps, and said he would come.
He was getting barely enough to eat out of his work, anyway, although
he was a very worthy young fellow. And he came.
He and the Tall Lady were married about six months after.
"And about the Brute and—and the divorce!"
"Gracious goodness! How do I know? I guess the Brute died or
something; anyway, Antoine and the Tall Lady are man and wife, and are
devoted lovers besides. They have served Madame Rosalie most loyally for
these fifteen years. They say Madame Rosalie has made her will and has
left them the mansion and everything in it for their ownest own, with a
tidy sum besides to put on interest."
It was four o'clock when we got back to the railroad-station at
Fontainebleau. We missed the train we expected to take, and had an hour to
wait. White Pigeon said she did not care so very much, and I'm sure
I didn't. So we sat down in the bright little waiting-room, and White
Pigeon told me many things about Madame Rosalie and her early life that I
had never known before.
Early in the century there lived in Bordeaux a struggling artist
(artists always struggle, you know) by the name of Raymond Bonheur. He
found life a cruel thing, for bread was high in price and short in weight,
and no one seemed to appreciate art except the folks who had no money to
buy. But the poor can love as well as the rich, and Raymond married. In
his nervous desire for success, Raymond Bonheur said that if he could only
have a son he would teach him how to do it, and the son would achieve the
honors that the world withheld from the father.
So the days came and went, and a son was expected—a firstborn—an
heir. There wasn't anything to be heir to except genius, but there was
plenty of that. The heir was to bear the name of the father—Raymond
Bonheur.
Prayers were offered and thanksgivings sung.
The days were fulfilled. The child was born.
The heir was a girl.
Raymond Bonheur cursed wildly and tousled his hair like a bouffe
artist. He swore he had been tricked, trapped, seduced, undone. He would
have bought strong drink, but he had no money, and credit, like hope, was
gone.
The little mother cried.
But the baby grew, although it wasn't a very big baby. They named her
Rosa, because the initial was the same as Raymond, but they always called
her Rosalie.
Then in a year another baby came, and that was a boy. In two years
another, but Raymond never forgave his wife that first offense. He
continued to struggle, trying various styles of pictures and ever hoping
he would yet hit on what the public desired. Mr. Vanderbilt had not yet
made his famous remark about the public, and how could Raymond plagiarize
it in advance?
At last he got money enough to get to Paris—ah, yes, Paris, Paris,
there talent is appreciated!
In Paris another baby was born—it was looked upon as a calamity. The
poor little mother of the four little shivering Bonheurs ceased to
struggle. She lay quite still, and they covered her face with a white
sheet and talked in whispers, and walked on tiptoe, for she was dead.
When an artist can not succeed, he begins to teach art—that is, he
shows others how. Raymond Bonheur put his four children out among kinsmen
in four different places, and became drawing-master in a private school.
Rosa Bonheur was ten years old: a pug-nosed, square-faced little girl in a
linsey-woolsey dress, wooden shoon, with a yellow braid hanging down her
back tied with a shoestring. She could draw—all children can draw—and
the first things children draw are animals.
Her father had taught her a little and laughed at her foolish little
lions and tigers, all duly labeled.
When twelve years of age the good people with whom she lived said she
must learn dressmaking. She should be an artist
of the needle. But after some months she rebelled and, making her way
across the city to where her father was, demanded that he should teach her
drawing. Raymond Bonheur hadn't much will—this controversy proved
that—the child mastered, and the father, who really was an accomplished
draftsman, began giving daily lessons to the girl. Soon they worked
together in the Louvre, copying pictures.
It was a queer thing to teach a girl art—there were no women artists
then. People laughed to see a little girl with yellow braid mixing paints
and helping her father in the Louvre; others said it wasn't right.
"Let's cut off the braid, and I'll wear boy's clothes and be a
boy," said funny little Rosalie.
Next day, Raymond Bonheur had a close-cropped boy in loose trousers and
blue blouse to help him.
The pictures they copied began to sell. Buyers said the work was strong
and true. Prosperity came that way, and Raymond Bonheur got his four
children together and rented three rooms in a house at One Hundred
Fifty-seven Faubourg Saint Honore.
Rosalie saw that her father had always tried to please the public; she
would please no one but herself. He had tried many forms; she would stick
to one. She would paint animals and nothing else.
When eighteen years old, she painted a picture of rabbits, for the
Salon. The next year she tried again. She made the acquaintance of an
honest old farmer at Villiers and went to live
in his household. She painted pictures of all the livestock he possessed,
from rabbits to a Norman stallion. One of the pictures she then made was
that of a favorite Holland cow. A collector came down from Paris and
offered three hundred francs for the picture.
"Merciful Jesus!" said the pious farmer; "say nothing,
but get the money quick! The live cow herself isn't worth half that!"
The members of the Bonheur family married, one by one, including the
father. Rosa did not marry: she painted. She discarded all teachers, all
schools; she did not listen to the suggestions of patrons, and even
refused to make pictures to order.
And be it said to her credit, she never has allowed a buyer to dictate
the subject. She followed her own ideas in everything; she wore men's
clothes, and does even unto this day.
When she was twenty-five, the Salon awarded her a gold medal. The
Ministere des Beaux Arts paid her three thousand francs for her
"Labourge Nivernais."
Raymond Bonheur grew ill in Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, but before he
passed out he realized that his daughter, then twenty-seven years old, was
on a level with the greatest masters, living or dead.
She began "The Horse Fair" when twenty-eight. It was the
largest canvas ever attempted by an animal-painter. It was exhibited at
the Salon in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-three, and all the gabble of jealous competitors
was lost in the glorious admiration it excited. It became the rage of
Paris. All the honors the Salon could bestow were heaped upon the young
woman, and by special decision all her work henceforth was declared exempt
from examination by the Jury of Admission. Rosa Bonheur, five feet four,
weighing one hundred twenty pounds, was bigger than the Salon.
But success did not cause her to swerve a hair's breadth from her
manner of work or life. She refused all social invitations, and worked
away after her own method as industriously as ever. When a picture was
completed, she set her price on it and it was sold.
In Eighteen Hundred Sixty she bought this fine old house at By, that
she might work in quiet. Society tried to follow her, and in Eighteen
Hundred Sixty-four the Emperor Napoleon and Empress Eugenie went to By,
and the Empress pinned to the blue blouse of Rosa Bonheur the Cross of the
Legion of Honor, the first time, I believe, that the distinction was ever
conferred on a woman.
And now at seventy-four she is still in love with life, and while
taking a woman's tender interest in all sweet and gentle things, has yet
an imagination that in its strength and boldness is splendidly masculine.
Rosa Bonheur has received all the honors that man can give. She is
rich; no words of praise that tongue can utter can add to her fame; and
she is loved by all who know her.
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