Meissonier

Of this artistic virtue there are abundant examples. We have already cited one in the opening pages; we will cite another by way of conclusion: one of his friends called upon Meissonier at Poissy: “The concierge told me,” this friend relates, “‘Meissonier is in the studio opening on the court.’ I found my way into that huge studio cumbered with sketches of every sort, with studies of horses modelled in wax and standing on pedestals. I waited a while, and then in trying to discover where a beam of vivid light found its way in through some crack in a door, I discovered, in the little court adjoining the châlet, Meissonier out in the blazing sunlight astride of a bench that did duty for a horse; heavy boots, breeches of white cashmere, uniform of grenadier of the Imperial guard, decorations on his breast, and, last of all, the ‘gray redingote.’ He was seated on a saddle lent to him by the son of Prince Jerome. In his hand he held a tablet on which was fastened a sheet of white paper, and he was carefully sketching himself, studying his reflection in a mirror. It was the middle of summer and the heat was atrocious. ‘My model can’t pose as Napoleon,’ he told me, ‘but I have exactly Napoleon’s legs.’”

Is it necessary to say after this that no painter ever informed himself with such religious zeal in regard to costumes and accessories? Of the heroic Imperial Epoch which he worshipped above all others, he sought and gathered together all sorts of relics: not content with the possession of a white horse closely resembling that of Napoleon I., he used to point with pride, both in his collection and in his paintings, to a complete set of trappings that had once served the Emperor; and one of the greatest rages that he ever felt in his life was produced by the respectful but firm refusal of the Beaux-Arts to lend him the “Gray Redingote.”

His “working library,” as he called it, contained incomparable riches. It included breeches, hats, helmets, boots, shoes, pumps, buckles, walking-sticks, and jewelry. He would have been able, by rummaging there, to clothe from top to toe whole generations of bourgeoise, nobles, and labourers, from any epoch of French history, to say nothing of the various regiments and the staff officers! He quite literally bought out the stock of second-hand dealers in the Temple market, which up to the middle of the nineteeth century was the sales place of old clothes once worn by our great-grandparents and their ancestors.

And we know, – his fine passion for the truth was always cropping out, – that he actually suffered because he could not clothe his models with genuine old linen. At the end of some very conscientious researches that he had pursued in the Imperial Library, he considered that he had made a discovery that was useful to his art, when he read in the Encyclopedia that in the eighteenth century linen was cut on the bias, and not straight across, as it is today. We must not smile! For herein lay the secret of greater suppleness in the folds.

And when, detail by detail, his documentation had been completed, what endless sketches, experiments, rough drafts had to follow! For a single painting he acknowledged that he had to make whole “cubic metres” of preliminary studies.

In spite of all this, when the picture was finished and more than finished, it did not always please him. The same friend whose personal testimony we have already cited, informs us that one day, in his presence, the artist violently slashed up a painting which everybody else had pronounced perfect, while at that very moment a purchaser was waiting for it in the vestibule: “I don’t know how to paint!” cried the artist in despair, “I shall never learn my craft.”

There we have an impulse and a sacrifice which few painters would be capable of making in sincerity, and which define better than the longest dissertations could do, the soul of Meissonier, his talent and his glory.