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+ <head>
+ <title>
+ Pierre Grassou, by Honore de Balzac
+ </title>
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pierre Grassou, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Pierre Grassou
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February 21, 2010 [EBook #1230]
+Last Updated: April 3, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE GRASSOU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ PIERRE GRASSOU
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Honore De Balzac
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Dedication <br /><br /> To The Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, Periollas,<br />
+ As a Testimony of the Affectionate Esteem of the Author,<br /> <br /><br />
+ De Balzac<br />
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PIERRE GRASSOU </a><br /><br /> <a
+ href="#link2H_4_0002"> ADDENDUM </a><br /><br />
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h1>
+ PIERRE GRASSOU
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ Whenever you have gone to take a serious look at the exhibition of works
+ of sculpture and painting, such as it has been since the revolution of
+ 1830, have you not been seized by a sense of uneasiness, weariness,
+ sadness, at the sight of those long and over-crowded galleries? Since
+ 1830, the true Salon no longer exists. The Louvre has again been taken by
+ assault,&mdash;this time by a populace of artists who have maintained
+ themselves in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other days, when the Salon presented only the choicest works of art, it
+ conferred the highest honor on the creations there exhibited. Among the
+ two hundred selected paintings, the public could still choose: a crown was
+ awarded to the masterpiece by hands unseen. Eager, impassioned discussions
+ arose about some picture. The abuse showered on Delacroix, on Ingres,
+ contributed no less to their fame than the praises and fanaticism of their
+ adherents. To-day, neither the crowd nor the criticism grows impassioned
+ about the products of that bazaar. Forced to make the selection for
+ itself, which in former days the examining jury made for it, the attention
+ of the public is soon wearied and the exhibition closes. Before the year
+ 1817 the pictures admitted never went beyond the first two columns of the
+ long gallery of the old masters; but in that year, to the great
+ astonishment of the public, they filled the whole space. Historical,
+ high-art, genre paintings, easel pictures, landscapes, flowers, animals,
+ and water-colors,&mdash;these eight specialties could surely not offer
+ more than twenty pictures in one year worthy of the eyes of the public,
+ which, indeed, cannot give its attention to a greater number of such
+ works. The more the number of artists increases, the more careful and
+ exacting the jury of admission ought to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The true character of the Salon was lost as soon as it spread along the
+ galleries. The Salon should have remained within fixed limits of
+ inflexible proportions, where each distinct specialty could show its
+ masterpieces only. An experience of ten years has shown the excellence of
+ the former institution. Now, instead of a tournament, we have a mob;
+ instead of a noble exhibition, we have a tumultuous bazaar; instead of a
+ choice selection we have a chaotic mass. What is the result? A great
+ artist is swamped. Decamps' "Turkish Cafe," "Children at a Fountain,"
+ "Joseph," and "The Torture," would have redounded far more to his credit
+ if the four pictures had been exhibited in the great Salon with the
+ hundred good pictures of that year, than his twenty pictures could, among
+ three thousand others, jumbled together in six galleries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By some strange contradiction, ever since the doors are open to every one
+ there has been much talk of unknown and unrecognized genius. When, twelve
+ years earlier, Ingres' "Courtesan," and that of Sigalon, the "Medusa" of
+ Gericault, the "Massacre of Scio" by Delacroix, the "Baptism of Henri IV."
+ by Eugene Deveria, admitted by celebrated artists accused of jealousy,
+ showed the world, in spite of the denials of criticism, that young and
+ vigorous palettes existed, no such complaint was made. Now, when the
+ veriest dauber of canvas can send in his work, the whole talk is of genius
+ neglected! Where judgment no longer exists, there is no longer anything
+ judged. But whatever artists may be doing now, they will come back in time
+ to the examination and selection which presents their works to the
+ admiration of the crowd for whom they work. Without selection by the
+ Academy there will be no Salon, and without the Salon art may perish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ever since the catalogue has grown into a book, many names have appeared
+ in it which still remain in their native obscurity, in spite of the ten or
+ a dozen pictures attached to them. Among these names perhaps the most
+ unknown to fame is that of an artist named Pierre Grassou, coming from
+ Fougeres, and called simply "Fougeres" among his brother-artists, who, at
+ the present moment holds a place, as the saying is, "in the sun," and who
+ suggested the rather bitter reflections by which this sketch of his life
+ is introduced,&mdash;reflections that are applicable to many other
+ individuals of the tribe of artists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1832, Fougeres lived in the rue de Navarin, on the fourth floor of one
+ of those tall, narrow houses which resemble the obelisk of Luxor, and
+ possess an alley, a dark little stairway with dangerous turnings, three
+ windows only on each floor, and, within the building, a courtyard, or, to
+ speak more correctly, a square pit or well. Above the three or four rooms
+ occupied by Grassou of Fougeres was his studio, looking over to
+ Montmartre. This studio was painted in brick-color, for a background; the
+ floor was tinted brown and well frotted; each chair was furnished with a
+ bit of carpet bound round the edges; the sofa, simple enough, was clean as
+ that in the bedroom of some worthy bourgeoise. All these things denoted
+ the tidy ways of a small mind and the thrift of a poor man. A bureau was
+ there, in which to put away the studio implements, a table for breakfast,
+ a sideboard, a secretary; in short, all the articles necessary to a
+ painter, neatly arranged and very clean. The stove participated in this
+ Dutch cleanliness, which was all the more visible because the pure and
+ little changing light from the north flooded with its cold clear beams the
+ vast apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre painter, does not need the
+ immense machinery and outfit which ruin historical painters; he has never
+ recognized within himself sufficient faculty to attempt high-art, and he
+ therefore clings to easel painting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at which
+ the bourgeois of Paris conceive, periodically, the burlesque idea of
+ perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in themselves,
+ Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette, and lighted his
+ stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting till the frost on
+ his windows had melted sufficiently to let the full light in. The weather
+ was fine and dry. At this moment the artist, who ate his bread with that
+ patient, resigned air that tells so much, heard and recognized the step of
+ a man who had upon his life the influence such men have on the lives of
+ nearly all artists,&mdash;the step of Elie Magus, a picture-dealer, a
+ usurer in canvas. The next moment Elie Magus entered and found the painter
+ in the act of beginning his work in the tidy studio.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "How are you, old rascal?" said the painter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fougeres had the cross of the Legion of honor, and Elie Magus bought his
+ pictures at two and three hundred francs apiece, so he gave himself the
+ airs of a fine artist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such pretensions!
+ You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six sous' worth of
+ color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll say that. You are
+ steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business in your way."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business to
+ the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden time they
+ used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.' Well, what do
+ you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which Fougeres
+ employed what painters call studio fun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for nothing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh! oh!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest
+ man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Come, out with it!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, I'm prepared to bring you a father, mother, and only daughter."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All for me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes&mdash;they want their portraits taken. These bourgeois&mdash;they are
+ crazy about art&mdash;have never dared to enter a studio. The girl has a
+ 'dot' of a hundred thousand francs. You can paint all three,&mdash;perhaps
+ they'll turn out family portraits."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And with that the old Dutch log of wood who passed for a man and who was
+ called Elie Magus, interrupted himself to laugh an uncanny laugh which
+ frightened the painter. He fancied he heard Mephistopheles talking
+ marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Portraits bring five hundred francs apiece," went on Elie; "so you can
+ very well afford to paint me three pictures."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "True for you!" cried Fougeres, gleefully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And if you marry the girl, you won't forget me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Marry! I?" cried Pierre Grassou,&mdash;"I, who have a habit of sleeping
+ alone; and get up at cock-crow, and all my life arranged&mdash;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "One hundred thousand francs," said Magus, "and a quiet girl, full of
+ golden tones, as you call 'em, like a Titian."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What class of people are they?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Retired merchants; just now in love with art; have a country-house at
+ Ville d'Avray, and ten or twelve thousand francs a year."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What business did they do?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Bottles."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Now don't say that word; it makes me think of corks and sets my teeth on
+ edge."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Am I to bring them?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Three portraits&mdash;I could put them in the Salon; I might go in for
+ portrait-painting. Well, yes!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Old Elie descended the staircase to go in search of the Vervelle family.
+ To know to what extend this proposition would act upon the painter, and
+ what effect would be produced upon him by the Sieur and Dame Vervelle,
+ adorned by their only daughter, it is necessary to cast an eye on the
+ anterior life of Pierre Grassou of Fougeres.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a pupil, Fougeres had studied drawing with Servin, who was thought a
+ great draughtsman in academic circles. After that he went to Schinner's,
+ to learn the secrets of the powerful and magnificent color which
+ distinguishes that master. Master and scholars were all discreet; at any
+ rate Pierre discovered none of their secrets. From there he went to
+ Sommervieux' atelier, to acquire that portion of the art of painting which
+ is called composition, but composition was shy and distant to him. Then he
+ tried to snatch from Decamps and Granet the mystery of their interior
+ effects. The two masters were not robbed. Finally Fougeres ended his
+ education with Duval-Lecamus. During these studied and these different
+ transformations Fougeres' habits and ways of life were tranquil and moral
+ to a degree that furnished matter of jesting to the various ateliers where
+ he sojourned; but everywhere he disarmed his comrades by his modesty and
+ by the patience and gentleness of a lamblike nature. The masters, however,
+ had no sympathy for the good lad; masters prefer bright fellows, eccentric
+ spirits, droll or fiery, or else gloomy and deeply reflective, which argue
+ future talent. Everything about Pierre Grassou smacked of mediocrity. His
+ nickname "Fougeres" (that of the painter in the play of "The Eglantine")
+ was the source of much teasing; but, by force of circumstances, he
+ accepted the name of the town in which he had first seen light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Grassou of Fougeres resembled his name. Plump and of medium height, he had
+ a dull complexion, brown eyes, black hair, a turned-up nose, rather wide
+ mouth, and long ears. His gentle, passive, and resigned air gave a certain
+ relief to these leading features of a physiognomy that was full of health,
+ but wanting in action. This young man, born to be a virtuous bourgeois,
+ having left his native place and come to Paris to be clerk with a
+ color-merchant (formerly of Mayenne and a distant connection of the
+ Orgemonts) made himself a painter simply by the fact of an obstinacy which
+ constitutes the Breton character. What he suffered, the manner in which he
+ lived during those years of study, God only knows. He suffered as much as
+ great men suffer when they are hounded by poverty and hunted like wild
+ beasts by the pack of commonplace minds and by troops of vanities athirst
+ for vengeance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as he thought himself able to fly on his own wings, Fougeres took
+ a studio in the upper part of the rue des Martyrs, where he began to delve
+ his way. He made his first appearance in 1819. The first picture he
+ presented to the jury of the Exhibition at the Louvre represented a
+ village wedding rather laboriously copied from Greuze's picture. It was
+ rejected. When Fougeres heard of the fatal decision, he did not fall into
+ one of those fits of epileptic self-love to which strong natures give
+ themselves up, and which sometimes end in challenges sent to the director
+ or the secretary of the Museum, or even by threats of assassination.
+ Fougeres quietly fetched his canvas, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and
+ brought it home, vowing in his heart that he would still make himself a
+ great painter. He placed his picture on the easel, and went to one of his
+ former masters, a man of immense talent,&mdash;to Schinner, a kind and
+ patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres
+ asked him to come and criticise the rejected work. The great painter left
+ everything and went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before
+ him Schinner, after a glance, pressed Fougeres' hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You are a fine fellow," he said; "you've a heart of gold, and I must not
+ deceive you. Listen; you are fulfilling all the promises you made in the
+ studios. When you find such things as that at the tip of your brush, my
+ good Fougeres, you had better leave colors with Brullon, and not take the
+ canvas of others. Go home early, put on your cotton night-cap, and be in
+ bed by nine o'clock. The next morning early go to some government office,
+ ask for a place, and give up art."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My dear friend," said Fougeres, "my picture is already condemned; it is
+ not a verdict that I want of you, but the cause of that verdict."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well&mdash;you paint gray and sombre; you see nature being a crape veil;
+ your drawing is heavy, pasty; your composition is a medley of Greuze, who
+ only redeemed his defects by the qualities which you lack."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While detailing these faults of the picture Schinner saw on Fougeres' face
+ so deep an expression of sadness that he carried him off to dinner and
+ tried to console him. The next morning at seven o'clock Fougeres was at
+ his easel working over the rejected picture; he warmed the colors; he made
+ the corrections suggested by Schinner, he touched up his figures. Then,
+ disgusted with such patching, he carried the picture to Elie Magus. Elie
+ Magus, a sort of Dutch-Flemish-Belgian, had three reasons for being what
+ he became,&mdash;rich and avaricious. Coming last from Bordeaux, he was
+ just starting in Paris, selling old pictures and living on the boulevard
+ Bonne-Nouvelle. Fougeres, who relied on his palette to go to the baker's,
+ bravely ate bread and nuts, or bread and milk, or bread and cherries, or
+ bread and cheese, according to the seasons. Elie Magus, to whom Pierre
+ offered his first picture, eyed it for some time and then gave him fifteen
+ francs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "With fifteen francs a year coming in, and a thousand francs for
+ expenses," said Fougeres, smiling, "a man will go fast and far."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Elie Magus made a gesture; he bit his thumbs, thinking that he might have
+ had that picture for five francs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For several days Pierre walked down from the rue des Martyrs and stationed
+ himself at the corner of the boulevard opposite to Elie's shop, whence his
+ eye could rest upon his picture, which did not obtain any notice from the
+ eyes of the passers along the street. At the end of a week the picture
+ disappeared; Fougeres walked slowly up and approached the dealer's shop in
+ a lounging manner. The Jew was at his door.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, I see you have sold my picture."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No, here it is," said Magus; "I've framed it, to show it to some one who
+ fancies he knows about painting."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fougeres had not the heart to return to the boulevard. He set about
+ another picture, and spent two months upon it,&mdash;eating mouse's meals
+ and working like a galley-slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One evening he went to the boulevard, his feet leading him fatefully to
+ the dealer's shop. His picture was not to be seen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I've sold your picture," said Elie Magus, seeing him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For how much?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I got back what I gave and a small interest. Make me some Flemish
+ interiors, a lesson of anatomy, landscapes, and such like, and I'll buy
+ them of you," said Elie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fougeres would fain have taken old Magus in his arms; he regarded him as a
+ father. He went home with joy in his heart; the great painter Schinner was
+ mistaken after all! In that immense city of Paris there were some hearts
+ that beat in unison with Pierre's; his talent was understood and
+ appreciated. The poor fellow of twenty-seven had the innocence of a lad of
+ sixteen. Another man, one of those distrustful, surly artists, would have
+ noticed the diabolical look on Elie's face and seen the twitching of the
+ hairs of his beard, the irony of his moustache, and the movement of his
+ shoulders which betrayed the satisfaction of Walter Scott's Jew in
+ swindling a Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fougeres marched along the boulevard in a state of joy which gave to his
+ honest face an expression of pride. He was like a schoolboy protecting a
+ woman. He met Joseph Bridau, one of his comrades, and one of those
+ eccentric geniuses destined to fame and sorrow. Joseph Bridau, who had, to
+ use his own expression, a few sous in his pocket, took Fougeres to the
+ Opera. But Fougeres didn't see the ballet, didn't hear the music; he was
+ imagining pictures, he was painting. He left Joseph in the middle of the
+ evening, and ran home to make sketches by lamp-light. He invented thirty
+ pictures, all reminiscence, and felt himself a man of genius. The next day
+ he bought colors, and canvases of various dimensions; he piled up bread
+ and cheese on his table, he filled a water-pot with water, he laid in a
+ provision of wood for his stove; then, to use a studio expression, he dug
+ at his pictures. He hired several models and Magus lent him stuffs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After two months' seclusion the Breton had finished four pictures. Again
+ he asked counsel of Schinner, this time adding Bridau to the invitation.
+ The two painters saw in three of these pictures a servile imitation of
+ Dutch landscapes and interiors by Metzu, in the fourth a copy of
+ Rembrandt's "Lesson of Anatomy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Still imitating!" said Schinner. "Ah! Fougeres can't manage to be
+ original."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You ought to do something else than painting," said Bridau.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What?" asked Fougeres.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Fling yourself into literature."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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&mdash;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:&mdash;
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 510. Grassou de Fougeres (Pierre), rue de Navarin, 2.
+ Death-toilet of a Chouan, condemned to execution in 1809.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ 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,&mdash;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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Perseverance in the arts should be rewarded. Grassou hasn't stolen his
+ successes; he has delved for ten years, the poor dear man!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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&mdash;admire the good fortune of men who are
+ methodical&mdash;if Grassou, belated with his work, had been caught by the
+ revolution of July he would not have got his money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What a misfortune it is that Fougeres has the vice of painting!" said his
+ comrades.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having lived all his life in toil and poverty, he had never had the time
+ to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to complicate
+ his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of increasing his little
+ fortune, he carried, every three months, to his notary, Cardot, his
+ quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary had received about three
+ thousand francs he invested them in some first mortgage, the interest of
+ which he drew himself and added to the quarterly payments made to him by
+ Fougeres. The painter was awaiting the fortunate moment when his property
+ thus laid by would give him the imposing income of two thousand francs, to
+ allow himself the otium cum dignitate of the artist and paint pictures;
+ but oh! what pictures! true pictures! each a finished picture! chouette,
+ Koxnoff, chocnosoff! His future, his dreams of happiness, the superlative
+ of his hopes&mdash;do you know what it was? To enter the Institute and
+ obtain the grade of officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside
+ Schinner and Leon de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a
+ rosette in his buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who
+ think of everything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hearing the sound of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed up
+ his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was not a
+ little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face vulgarly
+ called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted a pumpkin, clothed
+ in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of tintinnabulating baubles. The melon
+ puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin advanced on turnips, improperly called
+ legs. A true painter would have turned the little bottle-vendor off at
+ once, assuring him that he didn't paint vegetables. This painter looked at
+ his client without a smile, for Monsieur Vervelle wore a
+ three-thousand-franc diamond in the bosom of his shirt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang
+ term then much in vogue in the studios.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois drew
+ after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of his wife
+ and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her face, and in
+ figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head and tied in around
+ the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-rooted, and her gown
+ was yellow with black stripes. She proudly exhibited unutterable mittens
+ on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of a first-class funeral floated on
+ an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned her shoulders, as round behind as
+ they were before; consequently, the spherical form of the cocoa-nut was
+ perfect. Her feet, of a kind that painters call abatis, rose above the
+ varnished leather of the shoes in a swelling that was some inches high.
+ How the feet were ever got into the shoes, no one knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented a
+ tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that a
+ Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish spots
+ upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any brows, a
+ leghorn bonnet bound with white satin and adorned with two honest bows of
+ the same satin, hands virtuously red, and the feet of her mother. The
+ faces of these three beings wore, as they looked round the studio, an air
+ of happiness which bespoke in them a respectable enthusiasm for Art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "So it is you, monsieur, who are going to take our likenesses?" said the
+ father, assuming a jaunty air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes, monsieur," replied Grassou.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Vervelle, he has the cross!" whispered the wife to the husband while the
+ painter's back was turned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Should I be likely to have our portraits painted by an artist who wasn't
+ decorated?" returned the former bottle-dealer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Elie Magus here bowed to the Vervelle family and went away. Grassou
+ accompanied him to the landing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There's no one but you who would fish up such whales."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "One hundred thousand francs of 'dot'!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes, but what a family!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Three hundred thousand francs of expectations, a house in the rue
+ Boucherat, and a country-house at Ville d'Avray!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Bottles and corks! bottles and corks!" said the painter; "they set my
+ teeth on edge."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Safe from want for the rest of your days," said Elie Magus as he
+ departed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That idea entered the head of Pierre Grassou as the daylight had burst
+ into his garret that morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While he posed the father of the young person, he thought the
+ bottle-dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full of
+ violent tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel, marvelling
+ at all his preparations; they evidently thought him a demigod. This
+ visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf threw upon the family
+ its fantastic reflections.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You must earn lots of money; but of course you don't spend it as you get
+ it," said the mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No, madame," replied the painter; "I don't spend it; I have not the means
+ to amuse myself. My notary invests my money; he knows what I have; as soon
+ as I have taken him the money I never think of it again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I've always been told," cried old Vervelle, "that artists were baskets
+ with holes in them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Who is your notary&mdash;if it is not indiscreet to ask?" said Madame
+ Vervelle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A good fellow, all round," replied Grassou. "His name is Cardot."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, well! if that isn't a joke!" exclaimed Vervelle. "Cardot is our
+ notary too."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Take care! don't move," said the painter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Do pray hold still, Antenor," said the wife. "If you move about you'll
+ make monsieur miss; you should just see him working, and then you'd
+ understand."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh! why didn't you have me taught the arts?" said Mademoiselle Vervelle
+ to her parents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Virginie," said her mother, "a young person ought not to learn certain
+ things. When you are married&mdash;well, till then, keep quiet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate with
+ the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As they went
+ away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite of this
+ separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally awakened
+ her curiosity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Decorated&mdash;thirty-seven years old&mdash;an artist who gets orders&mdash;puts
+ his money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! Madame de Fougeres!
+ not a bad name&mdash;doesn't look like a bad man either! One might prefer
+ a merchant; but before a merchant retires from business one can never know
+ what one's daughter may come to; whereas an economical artist&mdash;and
+ then you know we love Art&mdash;Well, we'll see!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While the Vervelle family discussed Pierre Grassou, Pierre Grassou
+ discussed in his own mind the Vervelle family. He found it impossible to
+ stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard, and
+ looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. He made a series of the
+ oddest reasonings to himself: gold was the handsomest of metals; a tawny
+ yellow represented gold; the Romans were fond of red-haired women, and he
+ turned Roman, etc. After two years of marriage what man would ever care
+ about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty fades,&mdash;but ugliness
+ remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That night when he went to
+ bed the painter had come to think Virginie Vervelle charming.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the
+ artist received them with smiles. The rascal had shaved and put on clean
+ linen; he had also arranged his hair in a pleasing manner, and chosen a
+ very becoming pair of trousers and red leather slippers with pointed toes.
+ The family replied with smiles as flattering as those of the artist.
+ Virginie became the color of her hair, lowered her eyes, and turned aside
+ her head to look at the sketches. Pierre Grassou thought these little
+ affectations charming, Virginie had such grace; happily she didn't look
+ like her father or her mother; but whom did she look like?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During this sitting there were little skirmishes between the family and
+ the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty. This
+ flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of the
+ artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and a sketch to the mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What! for nothing?" they said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pierre Grassou could not help smiling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You shouldn't give away your pictures in that way; they are money," said
+ old Vervelle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the third sitting pere Vervelle mentioned a fine gallery of pictures
+ which he had in his country-house at Ville d'Avray&mdash;Rubens, Gerard
+ Douw, Mieris, Terburg, Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Potter, etc.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Monsieur Vervelle has been very extravagant," said Madame Vervelle,
+ ostentatiously. "He has over one hundred thousand francs' worth of
+ pictures."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I love Art," said the former bottle-dealer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Madame Vervelle's portrait was begun that of her husband was nearly
+ finished, and the enthusiasm of the family knew no bounds. The notary had
+ spoken in the highest praise of the painter. Pierre Grassou was, he said,
+ one of the most honest fellows on earth; he had laid by thirty-six
+ thousand francs; his days of poverty were over; he now saved about ten
+ thousand francs a year and capitalized the interest; in short, he was
+ incapable of making a woman unhappy. This last remark had enormous weight
+ in the scales. Vervelle's friends now heard of nothing but the celebrated
+ painter Fougeres.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The day on which Fougeres began the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie, he
+ was virtually son-in-law to the Vervelle family. The three Vervelles
+ bloomed out in this studio, which they were now accustomed to consider as
+ one of their residences; there was to them an inexplicable attraction in
+ this clean, neat, pretty, and artistic abode. Abyssus abyssum, the
+ commonplace attracts the commonplace. Toward the end of the sitting the
+ stairway shook, the door was violently thrust open by Joseph Bridau; he
+ came like a whirlwind, his hair flying. He showed his grand haggard face
+ as he looked about him, casting everywhere the lightning of his glance;
+ then he walked round the whole studio, and returned abruptly to Grassou,
+ pulling his coat together over the gastric region, and endeavouring, but
+ in vain, to button it, the button mould having escaped from its capsule of
+ cloth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Wood is dear," he said to Grassou.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ah!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The British are after me" (slang term for creditors) "Gracious! do you
+ paint such things as that?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Hold your tongue!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ah! to be sure, yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Vervelle family, extremely shocked by this extraordinary apparition,
+ passed from its ordinary red to a cherry-red, two shades deeper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Brings in, hey?" continued Joseph. "Any shot in your locker?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "How much do you want?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Five hundred. I've got one of those bull-dog dealers after me, and if the
+ fellow once gets his teeth in he won't let go while there's a bit of me
+ left. What a crew!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I'll write you a line for my notary."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Have you got a notary?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That explains to me why you still make cheeks with pink tones like a
+ perfumer's sign."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Grassou could not help coloring, for Virginie was sitting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Take Nature as you find her," said the great painter, going on with his
+ lecture. "Mademoiselle is red-haired. Well, is that a sin? All things are
+ magnificent in painting. Put some vermillion on your palette, and warm up
+ those cheeks; touch in those little brown spots; come, butter it well in.
+ Do you pretend to have more sense than Nature?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Look here," said Fougeres, "take my place while I go and write that
+ note."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Vervelle rolled to the table and whispered in Grassou's ear:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Won't that country lout spoilt it?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If he would only paint the portrait of your Virginie it would be worth a
+ thousand times more than mine," replied Fougeres, vehemently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hearing that reply the bourgeois beat a quiet retreat to his wife, who was
+ stupefied by the invasion of this ferocious animal, and very uneasy at his
+ co-operation in her daughter's portrait.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Here, follow these indications," said Bridau, returning the palette, and
+ taking the note. "I won't thank you. I can go back now to d'Arthez'
+ chateau, where I am doing a dining-room, and Leon de Lora the tops of the
+ doors&mdash;masterpieces! Come and see us."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And off he went without taking leave, having had enough of looking at
+ Virginie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Who is that man?" asked Madame Vervelle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A great artist," answered Grassou.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was silence for a moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Are you quite sure," said Virginie, "that he has done no harm to my
+ portrait? He frightened me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He has only done it good," replied Grassou.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, if he is a great artist, I prefer a great artist like you," said
+ Madame Vervelle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ways of genius had ruffled up these orderly bourgeois.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The phase of autumn so pleasantly named "Saint Martin's summer" was just
+ beginning. With the timidity of a neophyte in presence of a man of genius,
+ Vervelle risked giving Fougeres an invitation to come out to his
+ country-house on the following Sunday. He knew, he said, how little
+ attraction a plain bourgeois family could offer to an artist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You artists," he continued, "want emotions, great scenes, and witty talk;
+ but you'll find good wines, and I rely on my collection of pictures to
+ compensate an artist like you for the bore of dining with mere merchants."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This form of idolatry, which stroked his innocent self-love, was charming
+ to our poor Pierre Grassou, so little accustomed to such compliments. The
+ honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity, that heart of gold, that loyal
+ soul, that stupid draughtsman, that worthy fellow, decorated by royalty
+ itself with the Legion of honor, put himself under arms to go out to Ville
+ d'Avray and enjoy the last fine days of the year. The painter went
+ modestly by public conveyance, and he could not but admire the beautiful
+ villa of the bottle-dealer, standing in a park of five acres at the summit
+ of Ville d'Avray, commanding a noble view of the landscape. Marry
+ Virginie, and have that beautiful villa some day for his own!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was received by the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a kindliness,
+ a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was indeed a day of
+ triumph. The prospective son-in-law was marched about the grounds on the
+ nankeen-colored paths, all raked as they should be for the steps of so
+ great a man. The trees themselves looked brushed and combed, and the lawns
+ had just been mown. The pure country air wafted to the nostrils a most
+ enticing smell of cooking. All things about the mansion seemed to say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We have a great artist among us."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Little old Vervelle himself rolled like an apple through his park, the
+ daughter meandered like an eel, the mother followed with dignified step.
+ These three beings never let go for one moment of Pierre Grassou for seven
+ hours. After dinner, the length of which equalled its magnificence,
+ Monsieur and Madame Vervelle reached the moment of their grand theatrical
+ effect,&mdash;the opening of the picture gallery illuminated by lamps, the
+ reflections of which were managed with the utmost care. Three neighbours,
+ also retired merchants, an old uncle (from whom were expectations), an
+ elderly Demoiselle Vervelle, and a number of other guests invited to be
+ present at this ovation to a great artist followed Grassou into the
+ picture gallery, all curious to hear his opinion of the famous collection
+ of pere Vervelle, who was fond of oppressing them with the fabulous value
+ of his paintings. The bottle-merchant seemed to have the idea of competing
+ with King Louis-Philippe and the galleries of Versailles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pictures, magnificently framed, each bore labels on which was read in
+ black letters on a gold ground:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Rubens
+ Dance of fauns and nymphs
+
+ Rembrandt
+ Interior of a dissecting room. The physician van Tromp
+ instructing his pupils.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In all, there were one hundred and fifty pictures, varnished and dusted.
+ Some were covered with green baize curtains which were not undrawn in
+ presence of young ladies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pierre Grassou stood with arms pendent, gaping mouth, and no word upon his
+ lips as he recognized half his own pictures in these works of art. He was
+ Rubens, he was Rembrandt, Mieris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Gerard Douw! He was
+ twenty great masters all by himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What is the matter? You've turned pale!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Daughter, a glass of water! quick!" cried Madame Vervelle. The painter
+ took pere Vervelle by the button of his coat and led him to a corner on
+ pretence of looking at a Murillo. Spanish pictures were then the rage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You bought your pictures from Elie Magus?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes, all originals."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Between ourselves, tell me what he made you pay for those I shall point
+ out to you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Together they walked round the gallery. The guests were amazed at the
+ gravity in which the artist proceeded, in company with the host, to
+ examine each picture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Three thousand francs," said Vervelle in a whisper, as they reached the
+ last, "but I tell everybody forty thousand."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Forty thousand for a Titian!" said the artist, aloud. "Why, it is nothing
+ at all!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Didn't I tell you," said Vervelle, "that I had three hundred thousand
+ francs' worth of pictures?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I painted those pictures," said Pierre Grassou in Vervelle's ear, "and I
+ sold them one by one to Elie Magus for less than ten thousand francs the
+ whole lot."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Prove it to me," said the bottle-dealer, "and I double my daughter's
+ 'dot,' for if it is so, you are Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Gerard Douw!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And Magus is a famous picture-dealer!" said the painter, who now saw the
+ meaning of the misty and aged look imparted to his pictures in Elie's
+ shop, and the utility of the subjects the picture-dealer had required of
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Far from losing the esteem of his admiring bottle-merchant, Monsieur de
+ Fougeres (for so the family persisted in calling Pierre Grassou) advanced
+ so much that when the portraits were finished he presented them
+ gratuitously to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and his wife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the
+ Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns
+ some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs' worth of
+ canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he lives
+ with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree
+ delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth.
+ Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he is
+ considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not a family
+ portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue du Temple
+ that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs less than five
+ hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois families have for
+ employing him is this:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year with
+ his notary."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Grassou took a creditable part on the occasion of the riots of May 12th
+ he was appointed an officer of the Legion of honor. He is a major in the
+ National Guard. The Museum of Versailles felt it incumbent to order a
+ battle-piece of so excellent a citizen, who thereupon walked about Paris
+ to meet his old comrades and have the happiness of saying to them:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The King has given me an order for the Museum of Versailles."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Madame de Fougeres adores her husband, to whom she has presented two
+ children. This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to
+ eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh at
+ his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and that the
+ feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still works on; he aims
+ for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter. And&mdash;oh!
+ vengeance which dilates his heart!&mdash;he buys the pictures of
+ celebrated artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these
+ true works of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the
+ collection at Ville d'Avray.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than that
+ of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and truly
+ obliging.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDENDUM
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Bridau, Joseph
+ The Purse
+ A Bachelor's Establishment
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+ A Start in Life
+ Modeste Mignon
+ Another Study of Woman
+ Letters of Two Brides
+ Cousin Betty
+ The Member for Arcis
+
+ Cardot (Parisian notary)
+ The Muse of the Department
+ A Man of Business
+ Jealousies of a Country Town
+ The Middle Classes
+ Cousin Pons
+
+ Grassou, Pierre
+ A Bachelor's Establishment
+ Cousin Betty
+ The Middle Classes
+ Cousin Pons
+
+ Lora, Leon de
+ The Unconscious Humorists
+ A Bachelor's Establishment
+ A Start in Life
+ Honorine
+ Cousin Betty
+ Beatrix
+
+ Magus, Elie
+ The Vendetta
+ A Marriage Settlement
+ A Bachelor's Establishment
+ Cousin Pons
+
+ Schinner, Hippolyte
+ The Purse
+ A Bachelor's Establishment
+ A Start in Life
+ Albert Savarus
+ The Government Clerks
+ Modeste Mignon
+ The Imaginary Mistress
+ The Unconscious Humorists
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pierre Grassou, by Honore de Balzac
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>