III
I was for some time a consistent Barbizonian; ET EGO IN ARCADIA
VIXI, it was a pleasant season; and that noiseless hamlet lying
close among the borders of the wood is for me, as for so many
others, a green spot in memory. The great Millet was just dead,
the green shutters of his modest house were closed; his daughters
were in mourning. The date of my first visit was thus an epoch in
the history of art: in a lesser way, it was an epoch in the
history of the Latin Quarter. The PETIT CENACLE was dead and
buried; Murger and his crew of sponging vagabonds were all at rest
from their expedients; the tradition of their real life was nearly
lost; and the petrified legend of the VIE DE BOHEME had become a
sort of gospel, and still gave the cue to zealous imitators. But
if the book be written in rose-water, the imitation was still
farther expurgated; honesty was the rule; the innkeepers gave, as I
have said, almost unlimited credit; they suffered the seediest
painter to depart, to take all his belongings, and to leave his
bill unpaid; and if they sometimes lost, it was by English and
Americans alone. At the same time, the great influx of Anglo-
Saxons had begun to affect the life of the studious. There had
been disputes; and, in one instance at least, the English and the
Americans had made common cause to prevent a cruel pleasantry. It
would be well if nations and races could communicate their
qualities; but in practice when they look upon each other, they
have an eye to nothing but defects. The Anglo-Saxon is essentially
dishonest; the French is devoid by nature of the principle that we
call "Fair Play." The Frenchman marvelled at the scruples of his
guest, and, when that defender of innocence retired over-seas and
left his bills unpaid, he marvelled once again; the good and evil
were, in his eyes, part and parcel of the same eccentricity; a
shrug expressed his judgment upon both.
At Barbizon there was no master, no pontiff in the arts. Palizzi
bore rule at Gretz - urbane, superior rule - his memory rich in
anecdotes of the great men of yore, his mind fertile in theories;
sceptical, composed, and venerable to the eye; and yet beneath
these outworks, all twittering with Italian superstition, his eye
scouting for omens, and the whole fabric of his manners giving way
on the appearance of a hunchback. Cernay had Pelouse, the
admirable, placid Pelouse, smilingly critical of youth, who, when a
full-blown commercial traveller, suddenly threw down his samples,
bought a colour-box, and became the master whom we have all
admired. Marlotte, for a central figure, boasted Olivier de Penne.
Only Barbizon, since the death of Millet, was a headless
commonwealth. Even its secondary lights, and those who in my day
made the stranger welcome, have since deserted it. The good
Lachevre has departed, carrying his household gods; and long before
that Gaston Lafenestre was taken from our midst by an untimely
death. He died before he had deserved success; it may be, he would
never have deserved it; but his kind, comely, modest countenance
still haunts the memory of all who knew him. Another - whom I will
not name - has moved farther on, pursuing the strange Odyssey of
his decadence. His days of royal favour had departed even then;
but he still retained, in his narrower life at Barbizon, a certain
stamp of conscious importance, hearty, friendly, filling the room,
the occupant of several chairs; nor had he yet ceased his losing
battle, still labouring upon great canvases that none would buy,
still waiting the return of fortune. But these days also were too
good to last; and the former favourite of two sovereigns fled, if I
heard the truth, by night. There was a time when he was counted a
great man, and Millet but a dauber; behold, how the whirligig of
time brings in his revenges! To pity Millet is a piece of
arrogance; if life be hard for such resolute and pious spirits, it
is harder still for us, had we the wit to understand it; but we may
pity his unhappier rival, who, for no apparent merit, was raised to
opulence and momentary fame, and, through no apparent fault was
suffered step by step to sink again to nothing. No misfortune can
exceed the bitterness of such back-foremost progress, even bravely
supported as it was; but to those also who were taken early from
the easel, a regret is due. From all the young men of this period,
one stood out by the vigour of his promise; he was in the age of
fermentation, enamoured of eccentricities. "Il faut faire de la
peinture nouvelle," was his watchword; but if time and experience
had continued his education, if he had been granted health to
return from these excursions to the steady and the central, I must
believe that the name of Hills had become famous.
Siron's inn, that excellent artists' barrack, was managed upon easy
principles. At any hour of the night, when you returned from
wandering in the forest, you went to the billiard-room and helped
yourself to liquors, or descended to the cellar and returned laden
with beer or wine. The Sirons were all locked in slumber; there
was none to check your inroads; only at the week's end a
computation was made, the gross sum was divided, and a varying
share set down to every lodger's name under the rubric: ESTRATS.
Upon the more long-suffering the larger tax was levied; and your
bill lengthened in a direct proportion to the easiness of your
disposition. At any hour of the morning, again, you could get your
coffee or cold milk, and set forth into the forest. The doves had
perhaps wakened you, fluttering into your chamber; and on the
threshold of the inn you were met by the aroma of the forest.
Close by were the great aisles, the mossy boulders, the
interminable field of forest shadow. There you were free to dream
and wander. And at noon, and again at six o'clock, a good meal
awaited you on Siron's table. The whole of your accommodation, set
aside that varying item of the ESTRALS, cost you five francs a day;
your bill was never offered you until you asked it; and if you were
out of luck's way, you might depart for where you pleased and leave
it pending.
