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diff --git a/42118.txt b/42118.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ff953dc..0000000 --- a/42118.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1843 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Fragonard, by Haldane Macfall - - -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: Fragonard - Masterpieces in Colour Series - - -Author: Haldane Macfall - - - -Release Date: February 17, 2013 [eBook #42118] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRAGONARD*** - - -E-text prepared by sp1nd and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (http://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 42118-h.htm or 42118-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42118/42118-h/42118-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42118/42118-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - http://archive.org/details/fragonardocad00macfuoft - - - - - -Masterpieces in Colour - -Edited by--T. Leman Hare - -FRAGONARD - - * * * * * * - -IN THE SAME SERIES - - ARTIST. AUTHOR. - VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. - REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. - TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. - ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. - GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. - BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. - ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. - BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. - FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. - REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. - LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. - RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. - HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. - TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. - MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. - CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. - GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. - TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. - LUINI. JAMES MASON. - FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. - VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. - FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. - - _In Preparation_ - - WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. - RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. - BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. - J. F. MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. - CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. - HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. - BOUCHER. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - VIGEE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. - MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. - AND OTHERS. - - * * * * * * - - -[Illustration: PLATE I.--CHIFFRE D'AMOUR. Frontispiece - -(In the Wallace Collection) - -Fragonard, like his master Boucher, soon found that the pompous, -historical, and religious pictures which the critics demanded of him, -pleased no one but the critics. It was a fortunate day for him when he -turned his back upon them, and employed his charming gifts upon the -statement of the life of his day. And in few paintings that created -his fame has he surpassed the fine handling of this scene, in which -the girl cuts her lover's initials on the trunk of a tree--the dainty -figure silhouetted against the dreamlike background of sky and tree -that he loved so well. There is over all the glamour of the poetic -statement supremely done.] - - -Fragonard - -by - -HALDANE MACFALL - -Illustrated with Eight Reproductions in Colour - - - - - - - - -[Illustration] - -London: T. C. & E. C. Jack -New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. - - - - -TO - -MY FRIEND - -WALTER EMANUEL - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Plate - I. Chiffre d'Amour Frontispiece - In the Wallace Collection - Page - II. The Music Lesson 14 - In the Louvre - - III. L'Etude 24 - In the Louvre - - IV. The Schoolmistress 34 - In the Wallace Collection - - V. Figure de Fantasie 40 - In the Louvre - - VI. Le Voeu a l'Amour 50 - In the Louvre (new acquisition) - - VII. The Fair-haired Boy 60 - In the Wallace Collection - - VIII. Le Billet Doux 70 - In the Collection of M. Wildenstein, Paris - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -I - -THE BEGINNINGS - - -High up, amongst the Sea-Alps that stretch along the southern edge of -France, where romantic Provence bathes her sunburnt feet in the blue -waters of the Mediterranean, high on the mountain's side hangs the -steep little town of Grasse, embowered midst grey-green olive-trees. -In as sombre a narrow street as there is in all her dark alleys, on -the fifth day of April in the much bewigged and powdered year of 1732, -there was born to a glovemaker of the town, worthy mercer Fragonard, a -boy-child, whom the priest in the gloomy church christened Jean Honore -Fragonard. - -As the glovemaker looked out of his sombre house over the sunlit -slopes of the grey-green olive-trees that stretched away to the deep -blue waters of the sea, he vowed his child to commerce and a thrifty -life in this far-away country place that was but little vexed with the -high ambitions of distant, fickle, laughing Paris, or her splendid -scandals; nay, scarce gave serious thought to her gadding fashions or -her feverish vogues--indeed, the attenuated ghosts of these once -frantic things wriggled southwards through the provinces on but -sluggish feet to the high promenades of Grasse--as the worthy mercer -was first in all the little town to know by his modest traffic in -them; and that, too, only long after the things they shadowed were -buried under new millineries and fopperies and fantastic riot in the -gay capital. As a fact, the dark-eyed, long-nosed folk that trudged -these steep and narrow thoroughfares were a sluggish people; and -sunlit Grasse snored away its day in drowsy fashion. - -But if the room where the child first saw the light were gloomy enough -within, the skies were wondrous blue without, and the violet-scented -slopes were robed in a tender garment of silvery green, decked with -the gold of orange-trees, and enriched with bright embroidery of -many-coloured flowers that were gay as the gayest ribbons of distant -Paris. And the glory of it bathed the lad's eyes and heart for sixteen -years, so that his hands got them itching to create the splendour of -it which sang within him; and the wizardry of the flower-garden of -France never left him, casting its spell over all his thinking, and -calling to him to utter it to the world. It stole into his colour-box, -and on to his palette, and so across the canvas into his master-work, -and was to lead him through the years to a blithe immortality. - -The small boy with the big head was born in the year after Francois -Boucher came back to Paris from his Italian wanderings on the eve of -his thirties and won to academic honour. The child grew up in his -Provencal home, whilst Boucher, turning his back upon academic art on -gaining his seat at the Academy, was creating the Pastorals, -Venus-pieces, and Cupid-pieces that changed the whole style of French -art from the pompous and mock-heroic manner of Louis Quatorze's -century of the sixteen hundreds to the gay and elegant pleasaunces -that fitted so aptly the elegant pleasure-seeking days of Louis the -Fifteenth's seventeen hundreds. - -Gossip of high politics came trickling down to Grasse as slowly as the -fashions, yet the eleven-year-old boy's ears heard of the death of the -minister, old Cardinal Fleury, and of the effort of Louis to become -king by act. Though Louis had small genius for the mighty business, -and fell thenceforth into the habit of ruling France from behind -petticoats, raising the youngest of the daughters of the historic and -noble house of De Nesle to be his accepted consort under the rank and -honours of Duchess of Chateauroux. All tongues tattled of the -business, the very soldiery singing mocking songs; when--Louis -strutting it as conqueror with the army, got the small-pox at Metz, -and sent the Chateauroux packing at the threat of death. He recovered, -to enter Paris soon after as the Well-Beloved, and to be reconciled -with the frail Chateauroux before she died in the sudden agony in -which she swore she had been poisoned. - -[Illustration: PLATE II.--THE MUSIC LESSON - -(In the Louvre) - -Fragonard had a profound admiration for the Dutch painters. Whether he -went to Holland shortly after his marriage is not known; but he seems -suddenly to have employed his brush as if he had come across fine -examples of the Dutch school. "The Music Lesson" at the Louvre is one -of these, and the Dutch influence is most marked both as to subject, -treatment, and handling of the paint, if we allow for Fragonard's own -strongly French personality.] - -At thirteen the boy listened to the vague rumours of a new scandal -that set folk's tongues wagging again throughout all France. The -king raised Madame Lenormant d'Etioles, a daughter of the rich -financier class, to be Marquise de Pompadour, and yielded up to her -the sceptre over his people. - -The nations, weary of war, agreed to sign the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle -in 1748. In this, our artist's sixteenth year, the Pompadour had been -the king's acknowledged mistress for three years. From this time, the -peace being signed, Louis the Fifteenth laid aside all effort to -fulfil the duties of the lord over a great people; gave himself up to -shameless and riotous living, and allowed the Pompadour to usurp the -splendour of his throne and to rule over the land. - -For the next sixteen years she was the most powerful person at court, -the greatest personality in the State--making and unmaking ministers -like a sovereign, and disposing of high offices, honours, titles, and -pensions. The king squandered upon her some seventy odd millions of -the public money as money is now valued. Her energy and her industry -must have been colossal. Her intelligence saved the king from the -boredom of decision in difficult affairs. She made herself a necessity -to his freedom from care. Every affair of State was discussed and -settled under her guidance. Ministers, ambassadors, generals, -transacted their business in her handsome boudoirs. She dispensed the -whole patronage of the sovereign with her pretty hands. The prizes of -the army, of the church, of the magistracy, could only be secured -through her good-will. As though these things were not load enough to -bow the shoulders of any one human being she kept a rein upon every -national activity. She created the porcelain factory of Sevres, -thereby adding a lucrative industry to France. She founded the great -military school of Saint Cyr. She mothered every industry. She was -possessed of a rare combination of talents and accomplishments, and of -astounding taste. But her deepest affection was for the arts. - -The Pompadour had gathered about her, as the beautiful Madame -d'Etioles, the supreme wits and artists and thinkers of her day; -Voltaire and Boucher and Latour and the rest were her friends, and the -new thought that was being born in France was nursed in her -drawing-rooms. As the Pompadour she kept up her friendships. She was -prodigal in her encouragement of the arts, in the furnishment of her -own and the king's palaces and castles. And it was in the exercise and -indulgence of her better qualities that she brought out the genius -and encouraged to fullest achievement the art of Boucher, and of the -great painters of her time. So Boucher brought to its full blossom the -art that Watteau had created--the picture of "Fetes galentes"--and -added to the artistic achievement of France the Pastorals wherein -Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses dally in pleasant landscapes, and -the Venus-pieces wherein Cupids flutter and romp--a world of elegance -and charm presided over by the Goddess of Love. - - - - -II - -ROME - - -All this was but Paris-gossip amidst the olive-trees and steep streets -of far-away Grasse, where the large-headed, small-bodied lad was -idling through his fifteen summers, living and breathing the beauty of -the pleasant land of romance that bred him, when, like bolt from the -blue, fell the news upon him that his father, tearing aside the fabric -of the lad's dreams, had articled him as junior clerk to a notary. - -But the French middle-class ideal of respectability meant no heaven -for this youth's goal, no ultimate aim for his ambition. He idled his -master into despair; "wasting his time" on paint-pots and -pencil-scribblings until that honest man himself advised that the lad -should be allowed to follow his bent. - -So it came about--'twas in that year of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, -the year that saw the Pompadour come to supreme power (she had been -for three years the king's acknowledged mistress)--the youth's mother, -with all a French mother's shrewdness and common-sense, gathered -together the sixteen-year-old lad's sketches, and bundled off with him -in a diligence to Paris. - -Arrived in Paris she sought out the greatest painter of the day, and -burst with the shy youth into the studio of the dandified favourite -artist of the king's majesty, Pompadour's Boucher--large-hearted, -generous, much-sinning, world-famed Boucher, then at the very -summit of his career--he was at that time living in the Rue -Grenelle-Saint-Honore, which he was about to leave, and in which -Fragonard in his old age was destined to end his days. - -The lad glanced with wonder, we may be sure, at the great "Rape of -Europa" that stood upon the master's easel, whilst his mother poured -out in the rough accent of Provence the tale of the genius of her -son--stole, too, a stealthy scrutiny of the Venus-pieces and Pastorals -that stood about the studio, and was filled with awed admiration. The -mother besought the genius of France to make a genius of her son; and -Boucher, with kindly smile upon his lips, glancing over the immature -work of the prodigy, told the lad that he might come back to him in -six months' time, pointing out to him, with all that large-hearted -friendliness and sympathy that made him the loved idol of the -art-students, that he lacked sufficient dexterity in the use of his -tools to enter his studio or to benefit by apprenticeship to him, and -advising the anxious mother to take him to Chardin as the supreme -master in France from whom to learn the mastery of his craft. - -To Chardin the youth went; and France's consummate master in the -painting of still-life, putting the palette on the youngster's thumb -straightway, from the very first day--as his custom was--and making -him use sienna upon it as his only pigment, advising him as he went, -set him to the copying of the prints from the masterpieces of his own -time, insisting on his painting large and broad and solid and true. - -Young Fragonard made so little progress that Chardin wrote to his -parents that he could get nothing out of him; and sent the lad, bag -and baggage, out of his studio. - -Thrown upon his own resources, the young fellow haunted the churches -of Paris, brooded over the masterpieces that hung therein, fixed them -in his mind's eye, and, returning to his lodging, painted them, day by -day, from memory. - -At the end of six months he called again upon Boucher, his sketches -under his arm; and this time he was not sent away. Astounded at the -youth's progress, struck by his enthusiasm, Boucher took him into his -studio, and set him to work to prepare the large decorative cartoons -that artists had to make from their paintings for use at the Gobelins -and Beauvais looms. The artist painted his picture "in little"; he was -also required to paint an "enlargement" of the size that the weavers -had to make into tapestry--this enlargement was mostly done by pupils, -the State demanding, however, that the artist should work over it -sufficiently to sign his name upon it--the head of the factory keeping -custody of the "painting in little" to guide him; the weavers working -from the enlargement. This work upon the enlargement of Boucher's -paintings was an ideal training for Fragonard. - -The Director-General of Buildings to the king (or, as we should -nowadays call him, Minister of Fine Arts), Lenormant de Tournehem, -kinsman to the Pompadour, died suddenly in the November of 1751; the -Pompadour promptly caused to be appointed in his place her brother -Abel Poisson de Vandieres--a shy, handsome youth, a gentleman, a man -of honour, who brought to his office an exquisite taste, a loyal -nature, and marked abilities. The king, who liked him well, and called -him "little brother," soon afterwards created him Marquis de -Marigny--and Fragonard, like many another artist of his day, was to be -beholden to him. - -After a couple of years' training under Boucher, Fragonard's master, -with that keen interest that he ever took in the efforts and welfare -of youth, and particularly of his own pupils, urged the young fellow -to compete for the Prix de Rome, pointing out to him the advantages of -winning it. At twenty, without preparation, and without being a pupil -of the Academy, Fragonard won the coveted prize with his "Jeroboam -Sacrificing to Idols." It was in this year that Boucher was given a -studio and apartments at the Louvre. - -For three years thereafter, Fragonard was in the king's school of six -_eleves proteges_ under Carle Van Loo. He continued to work in -Boucher's studio, as well as painting on his own account; and it is to -these years that belong his "Blind Man's Buff" and several pictures -in this style. - -Meanwhile the quarrels between priests and parliaments had grown very -bitter. The king took first one side, then the other. It was in 1756, -Louis having got foul of his Parliament, that the unfortunate and -foolish Damiens stabbed the king with a penknife slightly under the -fifth rib of his left side, as he was stepping into his carriage at -Versailles, and suffered by consequence the terrible tortures and -horrible death that were meted out to such as attempted the part of -regicide. - -This was the year when, at twenty-four, Fragonard was entitled to go -to Rome at the king's expense--the Italian tour being a necessary part -of an artist's training who desired to reach to academic distinction, -and honours in his calling. He started on his journey to Italy with -Boucher's now famous farewell advice ringing in his ears: "My dear -Frago, you go into Italy to see the works of Raphael and Michael -Angelo; but--I tell you in confidence, as a friend--if you take those -fellows seriously you are lost." ("Lost" was not the exact phrase, -Boucher being a Rabelaisian wag, but it will pass.) - -[Illustration: PLATE III.--L'ETUDE - -(In the Louvre) - -The picture of a young woman sometimes known as "L'Etude" (but perhaps -better known as "La Chanteuse" or "Song") at the Louvre is another of -those little canvases painted by Fragonard under the strong influence -of the Dutch school, as we may see not only in the handling of the -paint, and in the arrangement of the figure, but in the very ruffle -about the girl's neck, the lace cuffs to the sleeves, and the -treatment of the dress.] - -Arrived in Rome, Fragonard, like his master before him, was torn with -doubts and uncertainties and warring influences. For several months he -did no work, or little work; and though he stood before the -masterpieces of Michael Angelo and Raphael, stirred by the grandeur of -their design, and eager to be busy with his brush, he was too much of -a Frenchman, too much in sympathy with the French genius, too much -enamoured of the art of his master, to be affected creatively by them. -His hesitations saved him, and won France a master in her long roll of -fame. He escaped the taint of learning to see through the eyes of -others, evaded the swamping of his own genius in an endeavour to utter -his art in halting Italian. Rome was not his grave, as it has been the -grave of so many promising young sons of France; and he came out of -the danger a strong and healthy man. Tiepolo brought him back vision -and inspiration, and the solid earth of his own age to walk upon. And -the French utterance of his master Boucher called back his dazed wits -to the accents of France. At last the genius that was in him quickened -and strove to utter itself. - -The bright colours of Italy, the glamour of her landscapes, these -were the living lessons that bit deeper into his art than all the -works of her antique masters; and the effort to set them upon his -canvas gave to his hand's skill an ordered grace and dignity that were -of more vital effect upon his achievement than the paintings of the -great dead. - -So it came about that Natoire, then director of the royal school in -the Villa Mancini, having written his distress to Marigny at the young -fellow's beginnings, was soon writing enthusiastically about him, and -procured a lengthening of his stay in Rome. - -Here began that lifelong friendship with Hubert Robert, already making -his mark as an artist, and with the Abbe de Saint-Non, a charming -character, who was to engrave the work of the two young painters, and -greatly spread their names abroad thereby. Saint-Non's influential -relations procured him free residence in the Villa d'Este, where the -other two joined him, and a delightful good-fellowship between the -three men followed--the Abbe's artistic tastes adding to the bond of -comradeship. So two years passed pleasantly along at the Villa d'Este, -one of the most beautiful places in all Italy--the ancient ruins hard -by, and the running waters and majestic trees leaving an impression -upon Fragonard's imagination, which passed to his canvases, and never -left his art--developing a profound sense of style, and a knowledge of -light and air that bathed the scenes he was to paint with such rare -skill and insight. Here grew that love of stately gardens which are -the essence of his landscapes, and which won to the heart of a child -of Provence. - -In distant Paris the making of history was growing apace. Gossip of it -reached to Italy. A backstairs intrigue almost dislodged the Pompadour -from power. D'Argenson and the queen's party threw the beautiful and -youthful Madame de Choiseul-Romanet, not wholly unflattered at the -adventure, into the king's way to lure him from the favourite. The -king wrote her a letter of invitation. The girl consulted her noble -kinsman, the Comte de Stainville, of the Maurepas faction or queen's -party, a bitter enemy to the Pompadour. De Stainville, his pride of -race wounded that a kinswoman of his should be offered to the king, -went to the Pompadour, exposed the plot, and forthwith became her -ally--soon her guide in affairs of State. - -In the midst of disasters by sea and land the Pompadour persuaded the -king to send for De Stainville, and to make him his Prime Minister. -He was created Duc de Choiseul in December 1758. He had as ally one of -the most astute and subtle and daring minds in eighteenth-century -France--his sister Beatrice, the famous Duchesse de Grammont. The king -found a born leader of men. Choiseul brought back dignity to the -throne. He came near to saving France. Choiseul was the public opinion -of the nation. He founded his strength on Parliament and on the new -philosophy. He became a national hero. He could do no wrong. He rose -to power in 1758; and at once stemmed the tide of disaster to France. - -The Parliament men took courage. Philosophy, with one of its men in -power, spoke out with no uncertain voice. All France was listening. - -Fragonard had at last to turn his face homewards; and dawdling through -Italy with Saint-Non, staying his feet at Bologna and Venice awhile, -the two friends worked slowly towards Paris, Fragonard entering his -beloved city, after five wander-years, in the autumn of 1761, in his -twenty-ninth year, untainted and unspoiled by academic training, his -art founded upon that of Boucher, enhanced by his keen study of -nature. He reached Paris, rich in plans for pictures, filled with -ardour and enthusiasm for his art, ambitious to create masterpieces, -and burning to distinguish himself. - - - - -III - -THE DU BARRY - - -When Fragonard came back to Paris on the edge of his thirtieth year it -was to find that a great change had come over his master Boucher. The -old, light-hearted, genial painter was showing signs of the burning of -the candle of life at both ends. His art also was being bitterly -assailed by the new critics--the new philosophy was asking for -ennobling sentiments from the painted canvas, and the teaching of a -moral lesson from all the arts. Boucher stood frankly bewildered, -blinking questioning eyes at the frantic din. Old age had come upon -him, creeping over the shrewd kindly features, dulling the exquisite -sight. He could not wholly ignore the change that was taking place in -public taste. The ideas of the philosophers were penetrating public -opinion. The man of feeling had arisen and walked in the land. They -were beginning to speak of the great antique days of Greece and Rome. -Fickle fashion was about to turn her back upon Dresden shepherds and -shepherdesses and leafy groves, and to take up her abode awhile with -heroes and amongst picturesque ruins. - -Arrived in Paris, Fragonard at once set himself to the task of -painting the historic or mythologic Academy-piece expected from the -holder of the Prix de Rome on return from the Italian tour. He painted -"The High Priest Coresus slaying himself to save Callirhoe," which, -though badly hung at the Salon, and still to be seen at the Louvre, -was hailed with high praise by the academicians and critics. The only -adverse criticisms of coldness and timidity levelled against it sound -strange in the light of his after-career, which, whatever its -weaknesses, was not exactly marked with coldness nor eke with -timidity. - -For two years thereafter he essayed the academic style. - -But the praises of Diderot and Grimm failed to fill his pockets; and -he decided to paint no more academic pieces for the critics' praise. -He had indeed no taste for such things, no sympathy with ancient -thought nor with the dead past. He was, like his master, a very son -of France--a child of his own age, glorying in the love of life and -the beauty of his native land. - -Having done his duty by his school, he turned his back upon it -gleefully, as Boucher had also done before him, and set himself -joyously to the painting of the life about him. - -His great chance soon came, and in strange guise. - -It so happened that a young blood at the court, one Baron de -Saint-Julien, went to the painter Doyen with his flame, and asked him -to paint a picture of the pretty creature being swung by a bishop -whilst he himself watched the display of pretty ankles as the girl -went flying through the air. Doyen had scruples; but recommended -Fragonard for the naughty business. - -Fragonard seized the idea readily enough, except that he made the -frail girl's husband swing the beauty for her lover's eyes, using the -incident, as usual, but as the trivial theme for a splendid setting -amidst trees, glorying in the painting of the foliage--as you may see, -if you step into the Wallace galleries, where is the exquisite thing -that brought Fragonard fame--the world-famous "Les hazards heureux de -l'Escarpolette." - -The effect was prodigious. De Launay's brilliant engraving of it -popularised it throughout the land. Nobles and rich financiers, and -all the gay world of fashion besides, now strove to possess canvases -signed by Fragonard. Boucher was grown old and ailing; and just as -Boucher had been the painter of the France of fashion under the -Pompadour, so Fragonard was now to become the mirror of the court, of -the theatre, of the drawing-room, of the boudoir, of the age of Du -Barry. - -Finding a ready market for subjects of gallantry, he gave rein to his -natural bent, and straightway leaped into the vogue. Pictures were the -hobby of the nobility and the rich; and France under the Pompadour, -and particularly at this the end of her reign, was madly spendthrift -upon its hobbies and fickle fancies. The pretty house, delicately -tinted rooms, fine furniture, dainty decorations, and charming -pictures, were a necessity for such as would be in the fashion. - -[Illustration: PLATE IV.--THE SCHOOLMISTRESS - -(In the Wallace Collection) - -After his marriage Fragonard's brush turned to the glorification of -family life; and one of the most beautiful designs he conceived in -this exquisite series was the picture of the schoolmistress and her -small pupils--here chasteness of feeling has taken the place of -levity; and purity of statement is evidenced even in the half-nude -little fellow who is receiving his first lesson in culture.] - -You shall look in vain for the affected innocence, the naive -mawkishness, the chaste sentimentality of Greuze in the master-work of -Fragonard. He knew nothing of these things--cared less. His was an -ardent brush; and he used it ardently; but always you shall find him -using his subject, however naughty, as the mere excuse for a -glorious picture of trees. He is one of the great landscape-painters -of France. - -He had many qualities that go to make a decorative painter. Indeed, it -is to the Frenchmen of the seventeen-hundreds to whom we may safely go -for pictures that make the walls of a drawing-room a delight. Unlike -the Italians, they are pleasing to live with. His painting of "La Fete -de St. Cloud," in the dining-room of the Governor of the Bank of -France, is one of the decorative landscapes of the world. - -He was now producing works in considerable numbers--it is his first, -his detailed period, somewhat severe in arrangement and style as to -composition and handling--the years of "Love the Conqueror," the -"Bolt," the "Fountain of Love," of "Le Serment d'Amour," the -"Gimblette," "Les Baigneuses," the "Sleeping Bacchante," the "Debut du -modele," and the like. - -His master, Boucher, was grown old; he could not carry out the -commissions for the decoration of rooms and for paintings with which -he was overwhelmed; and it was in order to help forward his brilliant -pupil, his "Frago," that he now introduced him to his old friend and -patron the farmer-general Bergeret de Grandcour--a man of great -wealth, a lover of art, and an honorary member of the Royal -Academy--who became one of Fragonard's most lavish patrons and most -intimate friends. Bergeret de Grandcour commissioned several panels in -this, Fragonard's thirty-fifth year--the year of his painting the -superb "Fete de St. Cloud." This is towards the end of that period of -minute and detailed painting which he did with such consummate skill, -yet without bringing pettiness into his largeness of conception. - -Meantime, Choiseul's masterly mind, having secured peace abroad, saw -that France, if she were to keep her sovereign State, must be first -cleansed from the dangers that threatened from within. He turned to -the blotting out of the turbulent order of the Jesuits, whose -vindictive acts against, and quarrels with, the Parliaments, and whose -galling and oppressive tyranny, had roused the bitter hatred of the -magistracy and of the people throughout the land. Choiseul they -treated as their bitterest enemy. He decided to blot them out, root -and branch, from France. The popular party closed up its ranks. -Choiseul had not long to wait. The chance came in odd fashion enough. -An attempt by the Order to end the Pompadour's scandalous relations -with the king was the quaint thing--the match that started the -explosion. With all his skill of state-craft, Choiseul leaped to the -weapon. In secret concert with the king's powerful favourite he struck -at them through the bankruptcy of their banking concerns in the West -Indies, caused by their losses in the wars with England; and Louis -abolished the society out of the land, secularising its members, and -seizing its property. - -The Pompadour lived but a short while to enjoy her triumph. Worn-out -by her vast activities, and assailed by debt, she fell ill of a cough -that racked her shrunken body. She died, transacting the king's -business and affairs of State, on the 15th of April 1764, in her -forty-second year. - -Whatever may be said of this cold-blooded, calculating, grasping -woman, who crushed down every nice instinct of womanhood to win a -king's favour, who knew no scruple, who was without mercy, without -pardon or forgiveness, without remorse; bitter and adamant in revenge; -who turned a deaf ear to the cries from the Bastille; whose heart knew -no love but for self; it must be allowed that at least for Art she did -great and splendid service. She not only encouraged and brought out -the best achievement of her age; she did Art an even more handsome -benefit. She insisted on artists painting their age and not aping the -dead past. - -To Fragonard personally she rendered no particular service. His real -achievement began on the eve of her death, when she was a worn-out and -broken woman. Nor had Fragonard ever that close touch with the royal -house or its favourites during any part of his lifetime that meant so -much to the fortunes of his master, Boucher. - -There were two patrons for whom Fragonard was about to create a series -of masterpieces in the decoration of their splendid and luxurious -homes--works of Art which were to have strange adventures and -histories. They were both women. - -[Illustration: PLATE V.--FIGURE DE FANTASIE - -(In the Louvre) - -Here we have one of the rare examples of Fragonard's painting of a -man's portrait. It is in strange contrast to his more delicate -handling of domestic subjects.] - -For the prodigal and eccentric dancer, the notorious Mademoiselle -Guimard, he undertook the painting of a series of panels. The Guimard -was the rage of Paris--she of the orgic suppers and the naughty dances -with her comrade Vestris. Frago, who is said to have been more than a -friend of the reckless one of the nimble feet, undertook the -decoration of her house in the Chaussee d'Antin, known to the bloods -as the Temple of Terpsichore. He painted for the same room a portrait -of the frail beauty as an opera-shepherdess--the simple pastoral -life was the pose of this unsimple age. He was engaged upon the -business, off and on, for several years; and the many delays at last -fretted the light one. Fragonard, anything but energetic, liked always -to take his own time at his work. The Guimard got to pestering -him--she had a sharp tongue--and at last, one fine day, upbraided him -roundly, taunting him with a sneer that he would never get the work -finished. Fragonard lost patience and temper, goaded by her -ill-manners, her abuse, and her biting tongue. "It _is_ finished," -said he; and walked out of the house. The Guimard could never get him -back; but one day he slipped in alone, painted the set dancer's-smile -from the dancer's mouth, and placed there instead a snarl upon her -lips. - -Before this breach between them Fragonard had painted several -portraits of the Guimard. - -However, the work for the lady was to have far-reaching results little -dreamed of. For the completion of the room, Fragonard procured the -commission for David, then twenty-five; and David never forgot the -service rendered. He was to repay it tenfold when black days -threatened; and with rare courage, when even the courage of gratitude -was a deadly dangerous commodity. - -However, this was not as yet; the sun shone in the skies; and all was -gaiety and laughter still. - -The "Chiffre d'Amour," the picture of a pretty girl who cuts her -lover's monogram in the bark of a tree's trunk, the shadowed tree and -figure telling darkly against the glamorous half light beyond, was one -of Fragonard's happiest inspirations of these years, as any one may -see who steps into the Wallace galleries. Here also may be seen to-day -the exquisite "Fair-haired Boy." The boldly painted "L'Heure de -Berger" was wet upon the canvas about this year, though its boldness -of handling foretells his later manner, whilst the spirit of Boucher -is over all. - -Four years after the death of the Pompadour the patient neglected -queen, amiable dull Marie Leczinska, followed her supplanter to the -grave. The king's grief and contrition and his solemn vows to mend his -ways came somewhat over-late; they lasted little longer than the -drying of his floods of tears over the body of his dead consort. - -On the Eve of Candlemas, the first day of February 1769, at a -convivial party in Paris that was not wholly without political -significance, a Jesuit priest raised his glass _To the Presentation!_ -adding after the toast--"To that which has taken place to-day, or will -take place to-morrow, the presentation of the new Esther, who is to -replace Haman and release the Jewish nation from oppression!" - -He spoke figuratively--it was safer so. But 'twas understood. Indeed, -the pretty sentiment was well received by the old aristocrats and -young bloods about the table; and they drank a bumper to the pretty -Madame du Barry. For the Jesuits had no love for the king's minister -Choiseul--and the madcap girl was but the lure whereby the king was to -be drawn from his great minister. So religion rallied about the frail -beauty, and hid behind her extravagant skirts--one of which cost close -on L2000--and, with the old nobility, drank damnation to the king's -minister and To the devil with the new thought and with parliaments. -Long live the king and the divine right of kings! - -Our worthy priest seems to have had the ear of destiny, though he -dated his certainty near upon a couple of months too soon. - -So it came about that before a year was out the old king was become -the doting creature of a light-o'-love of Paris, the transfigured -milliner and street-pedlar, Jeanne, natural child of one Anne Bequs, -a low woman of Vaucouleurs. This Jeanne, of no surname and unknown -father, a pretty, kindly, vulgar child of the gutters, with fair hair -and of madcap habits, was some twenty-six years of age, when--being -reborn under a forged birth-certificate at the king's ordering, as -Anne de Vaubernier, and being married by the same orders to the Count -du Barry, an obliging nobleman of the court--she appeared at -Versailles as the immortally frail Countess du Barry. - -The remonstrances of Choiseul with the king against this new -degradation of the throne of France, and his unconcealed scorn and -disgust of the upstart countess, made a dangerous enemy for France's -great minister, and was to cost him and his France very dear. - -The king's infatuation brought royalty into utter contempt amongst the -people. It was to cost France a terrible price--and Fragonard not -least of all. - -One of the first gifts from the king to the Du Barry was the little -castle of Louveciennes; and she proceeded with reckless extravagance -to furnish her handsome home. Drouais, the artist, sold to her for -1200 livres (double florins), as overdoors for one of the rooms, four -panels that he had bought from Fragonard. They have vanished; but -they served Fragonard a good turn--he received an order to decorate Du -Barry's luxurious pavilion of Luciennes, which she had had built to -entertain the king at her "little suppers." - -Thus it chanced that for this wilful light-o'-love Fragonard painted -the great master-work of his life--the five world-famous canvases of -the series of "The Progress of Love in the Heart of Maidenhood," or, -as they are better known, "The Romance of Love and Youth"--the old -king masquerading therein as a young shepherd, and the Du Barry as a -shepherdess. In "The Ladder" ("L'Escalade" or "Le Rendezvous") the Du -Barry plays the part of a timid young girl who starts as she sees her -shepherd-lover to be the king; the "Pursuit" follows; then the -"Souvenirs" and "Love Crowned." The last of the five, the discarded -mistress in "Deserted," was only begun; and was not completed by -Fragonard until twenty years later at Grasse, to complete the set. - -What it was that struck a chill into the frail Du Barry's favour, so -that the masterpieces of Fragonard never entered within her doors, is -not fully known. Whatsoever the cause, these canvases were rejected by -her. It is said that the work was found to be disappointing, being -lacking as to the indecencies by the Du Barry and the king, who -preferred the more suggestive panels of Vien. It is true that -Fragonard's earlier four panels which she possessed were in -questionable taste, and that these five were pure; indeed, their -trivial story matters little amidst the massy foliage and the majestic -trees that spring into the swinging heavens. Fragonard suspected, and -somewhat resented the suspicion, that he was being made to paint in a -sort of artistic duel with Vien. At any rate, Vien was chosen. So it -came that the discarded pictures lay in Fragonard's studio for over -twenty years, when we shall see them, rolled up, making a chief part -of the strange baggage of Fragonard's flight from his beloved Paris. - -The fact was that the Du Barry was of the gutter. She had the crude -love of fineries of the girl promoted from the gutter. She loved -display. But into her home she brought the vulgar singers of the -lowest theatres, where the Pompadour had brought the wits and leading -artists of her time. The old culture was gone. Louis laughed now at -ribald songs, and was entertained by clowns. - -It is part of the irony of life that Fragonard, who never entered -into the favourite's friendship, should have become the recognised -artist of her day. It was a part of that grim irony that caused the Du -Barry, whose age he honours, to reject the most exquisite work of his -hands--in which his art is seen at its highest achievement, the tender -half-melancholy of the thing stated with a lyric beauty that displays -his genius in its supreme flight. - -A search through the Du Barry's bills--and there are four huge bound -volumes of them--reveals the list of pictures painted by Boucher, by -Vien, by Greuze, and by others, for the spendthrift woman; but of -transaction with Fragonard there is no slightest hint. - - - - -IV - -MARRIAGE - - -There lived in Grasse, with its rich harvests of flowers, and given to -the distilling of perfumes therefrom, a family that had come from -Avignon--its name, Gerard, and on friendly terms with the Fragonards. -It so chanced that a young woman of the family, the seventeen-year-old -Marie Anne Gerard, was sent to Paris, to the care of Fragonard, in -order to earn her living in the shop of a scent-seller, one Isnard. -The girl had artistic leanings, and fell a-painting of fans and -miniatures. She had need of a teacher; and who better qualified for -the business than her townsman, the famous Fragonard? What more -natural than that Fragonard should become her master? She was a jovial -girl. So they would talk of home, and the people amongst whom they had -been bred. She was no particular beauty, as her picture by Fragonard -proves; she had the rough accent of Provence; was thick-set and clumsy -of figure, and of heavy features, but she had the youth and freshness -and health of a young woman's teens, that hide the blemishes and full -significance of these coarsenesses. She and Fragonard fell a-kissing. -Fragonard, now thirty-seven, married Marie Anne Gerard in her -eighteenth year; and she bore him a much loved daughter, Rosalie--and -ten years later, in 1780, a son, Alexandre Evariste Fragonard. - -There came to live with the newly married couple his wife's younger -sister Marguerite and her young brother Henri Gerard, who was learning -engraving. - -[Illustration: PLATE VI.--LE VOEU A L'AMOUR - -(In the Louvre) - -This is an example of Fragonard in his grand-manner mood--a picture of -the large decorative years that produced such masterpieces as the -"Serment d'Amour," in which we see him ever interested above all -things in the painting of bosky leafage and the dignity of great trees -for background.] - -Fragonard's marriage at once affected his habits and his art. The wild -oats of his artistic career were near sown. The naughtinesses of -girls of pleasure gave place to the grace and tenderness of the -home-life--the cradle took the place of the bed of light adventures; -and children blossomed on to his canvases. He set aside the -make-believe shepherds and shepherdesses of the vogue; and henceforth -painted the "real thing" in rural surroundings. - -He brought to his homeliest pictures a beauty of arrangement, a sense -of style, and a dignity worthy of the most majestic subjects. He came -at this time under the influence of the Dutch landscapists, and stole -from them the solidity of their massing in foliage, the truth of their -character-drawing, the close observation of their cattle and -animal-life, their cloudy skies, and the finish and force of their -craftsmanship. Whether he went into Holland is disputed. He was too -keen an artist, his was too original a genius, to imitate their style -or take on their Dutch accent. He simply took from them such part of -their craftsmanship as could enter into the facile gracious genius of -France without clogging its grace. He is now content with his house -and garden for scenery, with his family for models. He realises that -an artist has no need to go abroad to find "paintable things." - -The "Heureuse Fecondite," the "Visit to the Nurse" (the second one), -the "Schoolmistress," the "Good Mother," the "Retour au logis," the -"L'Education fait tout," the "Dites donc, si'l vous plait," are of -this period. - -In all he did he proves himself an artist, incapable of mediocrity, -bringing distinction and style to all that he touches. - -Fragonard also excelled in the painting of miniatures. And there are -small portraits under fancy names to be seen at the Louvre, painted -with a breadth and force that prove him to have known the work of -Franz Hals. The figure of a man, known as "Figure de Fantaisie" or -"Inspiration," is stated with a directness and vividness worthy of the -great Dutch master. Indeed, there is much in the direct handling of -the paint and the life of the thing that recalls Franz Hals--the very -arrangement of the dress and the treatment of the hand being a -careless attempt to recall the habits and fashions of the Dutchman. -"La Musique" repeats the impression. And even the more pronouncedly -French style of the pretty woman in "La Chanteuse" does not disguise -the inspiration of Franz Hals in the painting of the bodice, the -cuffs, and the details--the high ruffle is "dragged in" from Hals's -day. The "Music Lesson" at the Louvre was painted about the same time. - -Fragonard's old master, Boucher, for some time had been "going about -like a shadow of himself." The year after Fragonard's marriage the old -painter was found dead, sitting at his easel before an unfinished -picture of Venus, the brush fallen out of his fingers--the light of -the "Glory of Paris" gone out. - -Boucher died a few months before that Christmas Eve of 1770 that saw -Choiseul driven from power by the trio of knaves who used the vulgar -but kindly woman Du Barry as their tool--indeed she refused to pull -the great minister down until she had made handsome terms on his -behalf; Choiseul was too astute a man not to recognise what lay beyond -the shadow of her pretty skirts--nay, does he not turn in the -courtyard as he leaves the palace to go into banishment, his _lettre -de cachet_ in his pocket, and, seeing a woman looking out from a -window at the end of an alley, bow and kiss his hand to the window -where gazes out of tear-filled eyes this strange doomed beauty who has -won to the sceptre of France? 'Twas four years before the small-pox -took the king--four years during which this same Du Barry, with her -precious trio, d'Aiguillon, Maupeou, and Terray, sent the members of -Parliament into banishment--years that launched royal France on its -downward rushing, with laughter and riot, to its doom, whilst the -apathetic Louis shrugged his now gross royal shoulders at all warnings -of catastrophe, which to give him due credit, he was scarce witless -enough or blind enough not to foresee. Nay, did he not even admit it -in his constantly affirmed, if cynical, creed that "things, as they -were, would last as long as he; and he that came after him must shift -for himself"? Ay; he came even nearer to the kernel of the -significance of things, when, shrugging his no longer well-beloved -shoulders, as the Pompadour had done, he repeated her cynical saying -of "_Apres nous le deluge_." It was to be a deluge indeed--scarlet -red. - -Wit and ruthless fatuity were the order of the day; these folk were -wondrous full of the neatly turned phrase and the polished epigram. -Most fatuous of them all, and as ruthless as any, was Terray--he who -tinkered with finance, with crown to his many infamies the scandalous -_Pacte de Famille_, that mercantile company that was to produce an -artificial rise in the price of corn by buying up the grain of France, -exporting it, and bringing it back for sale at vast profit--with -Louis of France as considerable shareholder. Had not the owners of the -land the right to do what they would with their own? 'Twas small -wonder that the well-beloved became the highly-detested of the -groaning people--he and his precious privileged class. - -Yet Louis of France spake prophecy--if unwitting of it. The guillotine -was not to have him. In 1774 he was stricken down with the small-pox, -and the sick-room in the palace saw the Du Barry and her party fight a -duel with Choiseul's party for his possession--never, surely, was a -more grim, more fantastic warfare than that bitter intrigue to get the -confessor to the king's bedside, that meant the dismissal of the -favourite before he should be allowed to receive the Absolution--in -which the strange blasphemy was enacted of the Eucharist being -hustled about the passages, whilst the bigots strove against its -administration, and the freethinkers demanded the last consolation of -the Church. On the 10th of May the small-pox took his distempered -body, "already a mass of corruption," that was hastily flung into a -coffin and hurried without pomp, or circumstance, or pretence of -honours to St. Denis--being rattled thereto at the trot, the crowd -that lined the way showering epigrams not wholly friendly upon its -passing; and was buried amongst the bones of the ancient kings of his -race, unattended by the Court, and amidst the contempt and loud curses -of his people. - -Even the poor weeping Du Barry was gone, hustled from the palace at -the wandering orders of the dying delirious king. D'Aiguillon also, -and Maupeou and Terray were gone. And the Court was hailing the new -king and his queen--ill-fated Louis the Sixteenth and tactless Marie -Antoinette. - -The scandalous levity of the privileged class of the day, and its -ruthless vindictiveness when thwarted, had near done their work. A -proud and gallant people touched bottom in humiliation. The pens of -the wits and thinkers sent the new opinion broadcast amongst a people -wholly scandalised and punished by the corruption of their governors. -These writings made astounding and alarming way. The "intellectuals" -were all on the side of the people--Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, -Rousseau, d'Alembert, Helvetius, Condillac, the Abbe Raynal. With wit -and sarcasm and invective and argument, they stirred passions, -appealing to self-respect and dignity and honour and the innate love -of freedom in the strong; they appealed to common-sense, to the -craving for liberty in man's being, to the rights of the individual; -and the printing-press scattered their wit and wisdom throughout the -land to the uttermost corners of France. They sneered away false -aristocracy, false religion. They wrought to overthrow the old order, -and brought it into contempt. And they needed to manufacture no -evidence. France had lain supine, a mighty people as they proved -themselves when their right arms were freed--lain in chains under the -heel of a king who had been capable of setting their necks under the -feet of a trivial and foolish woman, whose nursery had been the -gutter. - -Yet Du Barry, when all her faults are set against her, suffered undue -execration. She had no grain of ill-will in her nature. During her -reign the Bastille received no prisoner at her ordering--vengeance was -not in her. She was the tool of unscrupulous men; but she came between -them and their base vengeances, and kept the Court free from the -brutalities that the Pompadour meted out to her enemies without a pang -of remorse. During the whole of her reign, she visited her old mother -every fortnight, and lavished benefits on her kin--whom most women, -thus suddenly raised to the noblesse, would have avoided like a -plague. The scoundrels who made her their toy were responsible for -every evil deed that she was accused of committing. And even the new -king, whose sharp _lettre de cachet_, written two days after he came -to the throne, banished her to a convent, soon relented, and allowed -her to go back to her home at Luciennes. The Du Barry had striven to -abolish the _lettre de cachet_; the new king brought it back, -inaugurating his reign by having one sent to the woman whose -gentleness and kindliness had shrunk from the accursed thing. It was a -fit omen of the well-meaning but incompetent king's tragic reign which -was about to begin. - -To Fragonard these things were but tattle; yet the doing of them was -to reach to his hearth; the consequences of them were to strip him -bare and wreck him--he was to see his wife and womenkind dragging -through the streets of Paris to beg bread and meat at the gates of the -city. But the future was mercifully hidden from him. He was now at the -height of his career; and was to taste wider success. - -[Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE FAIR-HAIRED BOY - -(In the Wallace Collection) - -To the visitor to the Wallace collection the picture by Fragonard next -best known after the "Chiffre d'Amour" and the "Swing," is this -exquisite study of a fair-haired boy--the child is painted with a -subtle grace and consummate delicacy rarely combined with the -directness and impressionism here displayed by Fragonard.] - -Fragonard's name will always be linked with that of his friend and -patron, a wealthy man, the farmer-general Bergeret de Grandcour. -His family visited at the rich man's houses in town and country. - -Now the career of a rich man was incomplete without the making of the -Grand Tour. At the least the gentleman of means must have roamed -through Italy. And it was thus that, with Bergeret de Grandcour, -Fragonard now made his second journey into Italy in his forty-second -year. - -Fragonard was delighted at the prospect of seeing his loved Italy -again after twelve years. It was a family party--Fragonard and his -wife, with Bergeret de Grandcour and his son, to say nothing of -Bergeret's servants and cook and following. It was a happy, merry -journeying in extravagant luxury. - -Fragonard had aforetime gone into Italy as a penniless student and an -unknown man; he now travelled in the grand style as the guest of a man -of affairs, visiting palaces and churches, received in state by the -highest in the land, dining with the Ambassador of France, having -audience of the Pope, advising Bergeret de Grandcour in the buying of -art-treasures. He tasted all the delights of great wealth. He went to -a concert "chez le lord Hamilton," seeing and speaking with _la belle -Emma_--Nelson's Emma. He stood in Naples; he tramped up Vesuvius. It -was at Naples the news came that Louis the Fifteenth lay dying of the -small-pox--a few days later the old king died. - -The party at once turned their faces homewards, returning to Paris in -leisurely fashion by way of Venice, Vienna, and Germany, only to know, -at the journey's ending, one of those miserable and sordid quarrels -that seem to dog the friendships of men of genius. Going to Bergeret -de Grandcour's house in Paris to get his portfolios of sketches, made -throughout the journey, Fragonard found to his amazement and -consternation that Bergeret de Grandcour angrily refused to give them -up, claiming them as payment for his outlay upon him during the -Italian journey. The sorry business ended in the law-courts, and in -the loss of the lawsuit by Bergeret de Grandcour, who was condemned to -give up the drawings or to pay a 30,000 livres fine (L6000). The ugly -breach that threatened to open between them, however, was soon healed -by reconciliation; and Bergeret de Grandcour's son became one of -Fragonard's closest and most intimate friends. - - - - -V - -THE TERROR - - -Louis the Sixteenth, third son of the Dauphin who had been Louis the -Fifteenth's only lawful son, ascended the throne in his twentieth -year, a pure-minded young fellow, full of good intentions, sincerely -anxious for the well-being of his people; but of a diffident and timid -character, and under the influence of a young consort, the beautiful -Queen Marie Antoinette, of imperious temper and of light and frivolous -manners, who brought to her counsels a deplorable lack of judgment. - -The Du Barry sent a-packing, and d'Aiguillon and the rest of their -crew, the young king recalled the crafty old Maurepas who had been -banished by the Pompadour, an ill move--though the setting of Turgot -over the finances augured well. And when the great minister Turgot -fell, he gave way to as good a man, the worthy honest banker, Neckar. - -In a happy hour Fragonard was granted by the king the eagerly sought -haven of the artists of his time--a studio and apartments at the old -palace of the Louvre, as his master Boucher had been granted them -before him. - -Settling in with his wife, his girl Rosalie, his son Alexandre -Evariste, and his talented sister-in-law Marguerite Gerard, he lived -thereat a life almost opulent, making large sums of money, some eight -thousand pounds a year, at this time. He joyed in decorating his -rooms. He was the life and soul of a group of brilliant men who -gathered about him, having the deepest affection for him. - -His sister-in-law, Marguerite Gerard, was as gay and distinguished in -manners, and as beautiful, as his jovial wife was dull and vulgar and -coarse--the vile accent of Grasse, that made his wife's speech -horrible to the ear, becoming slurred into a shadow of itself on -Marguerite's tongue, and turned by the enchanting accents of the -younger sister's lips into seduction. This girl's friendship and -companionship became an ever-increasing delight to the aging painter. -Their correspondence, when apart, was passionately affectionate. Ugly -scandals got abroad--scandals difficult to prove or disprove. The man -and woman were of like tastes, of like temperaments; it was, likely -enough, little more than that. The girl was of a somewhat cold nature; -and we must read her last letters as censoriously as her first--when, -in reply to Fragonard, evil days having fallen upon him, and being -old and next to ruined, on his asking her for money to help him, she, -who owed everything to him, refused him with the trite sermon: "to -practise economy, to be reasonable, and to remember that in brooding -over fancies one only increases them without being any the happier." -But this was not as yet. - -Fragonard, happy in his home at the Louvre, free from cares, content -amongst devoted friends, reached his fifty-fifth year when he had -suddenly to gaze horrified at the first ugly hint that, in the years -to come, he must expect to hear the scythe of the Great Reaper--know -the passing of friends and loved ones. He was to reel under the first -serious blow of his life. His bright, witty, winsome girl Rosalie died -in her eighteenth year. It nearly killed him. - -But there was a blacker, a vaster shadow came looming over the land--a -threat that boded ill for such as took life too airily. - -In an unfortunate moment for the royal house, and against the will of -the king and of Neckar, the nation went mad with enthusiasm over -England's revolted American colonies; and the alliance was formed that -France swore not to sever until America was declared independent. It -started the war with England. The successes of the revolted colonies -made the coming of the Revolution in France a certainty. The fall of -Neckar and the rise of the new minister, Calonne, sent France rushing -to the brink. The distress of the people became unbearable. The royal -family and the Court sank in the people's respect, and the people were -no longer the people of the decade before--they had watched the -Revolution in America, and they had seen the Revolution victorious. -The fall of Calonne only led to the rise of the turbulent and stupid -Cardinal de Brienne; and the Court was completely foul of the people -when De Brienne threw up office in a panic and fled across the -frontier, leaving the Government in utter confusion. - -The king recalled Neckar. The calling of the States-General now became -assured. Paris rang with the exultation of the Third Estate. - -The States-General met at Versailles on the 5th of May 1789. The -monarchy was at an end. In little over a month the States-General -created itself the National Assembly. The Revolution was begun. The -14th of July saw the fall of the Bastille. On the 22nd the people -hanged Foulon to the street-lamp at the corner of the Place de -Greve--and _a la lanterne!_ became the cry of fashion. - -Fragonard was in his fifty-seventh year when he heard in his lodging -at the Louvre the thunderclap of this 14th of July 1789--saw the dawn -of the Revolution. - -The rose of the dawn was soon to turn to blood-red crimson. The storm -had been muttering and growling its curses for years before the death -of Louis the Fifteenth. It came up in threatening blackness darkly -behind the dawn, and was soon to break with a roar upon reckless -Paris. It came responsive to the rattle of musketry in the far West, -hard by Boston harbour. - -Fragonard and his friends were of the independents--they were liberals -whom love of elegance had not prevented from sympathising with the -sufferings of the people, and who had thrilled with the new thought. -Fragonard's intelligence drew him naturally towards the new ideas; -indeed he owed little to the Court; and when France was threatened by -the coalition of Europe against her, he, with Gerard, David, and -others, went on the 7th of September with the artist's womenfolk to -give up their jewelry to the National Assembly. - -But the storm burst, and soon affairs became tragic red. - -There came, for the ruin of the cause of a constitutional monarchy and -to end the last hope of the Court party, the unfortunate death of -Mirabeau--the hesitations of the king--his foolish flight to -Varennes--his arrest. - -The constitutional party in the Legislative Assembly, at first -dominant, became subordinate to the more violent but more able -_Girondists_, with their extreme wing of _Jacobins_ under Robespierre, -and _Cordeliers_ under Danton, Marat, Camille Desmoulins, and Fabre -d'Eglantine. The proscription of all emigrants quickly followed. It -was as unsafe to leave as to stay in Paris. The queen's insane enmity -towards Lafayette finished the king's business. On the night of the -9th of August the dread tocsin sounded the note of doom to the royal -cause--herald to the bloodshed of the morrow. Three days afterwards, -the king and the royal family were prisoners in the Temple. - -The National Convention met for the first time on the 21st of -September 1792; decreed the First Year of the Republic, abolished -Royalty and the titles of courtesy, decreed in their place _citoyen_ -and _citoyenne_, and the use of _tu_ and _toi_ for _vous_. - -[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--LE BILLET DOUX - -(In the Collection of M. Wildenstein, Paris) - -Here we see Fragonard in his phase of sentimental recorder of -love-scenes so typical of the art of Louis the Fifteenth's day.] - -The National Convention also displayed the antagonism of the two wings -of the now all-powerful Girondist party--the Girondists and the -Jacobins or Montagnards. The conflict began with the quarrel as to -whether the king could be tried. The 10th of January 1793 saw the -king's head fall to the guillotine--the Jacobins had triumphed. War -with Europe followed, and the deadly struggle between the Girondists -and Jacobins for supreme power. The 27th of May 1793 witnessed the -appointment of the terrible and secret Committee of Public Safety. By -June the Girondists had wholly fallen. Charlotte Corday's stabbing of -Marat in his bath left the way clear for Robespierre's ambition. The -Jacobins in power, the year of the Reign of Terror began--July 1793 to -July 1794--with Robespierre as the lord of the hellish business. The -scaffolds reeked with blood--from that of Marie Antoinette and Egalite -Orleans to that of the Girondist deputies and Madame Roland, and the -most insignificant beggar suspected of the vague charge of "hostility -to the Republic." In a mad moment the Du Barry, who had shown the -noblest side of her character in befriending the old allies of her -bygone days of greatness, published a notice of a theft from her -house. It drew all eyes to her wealth. And she went to the guillotine -shrieking with terror and betraying all who had protected her. Then -came strife amongst the Jacobins. Robespierre and Danton fought the -scoundrel Hebert for life, and overthrew him. The Hebertists went to -the guillotine, dying in abject terror. Danton, with his appeals for -cessation of the bloodshed of the Terror, alone stood between -Robespierre and supreme power. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Eglantine -and their humane fellows, were sent to the guillotine. Between the -10th of June and the 27th of July, in 1794, fourteen hundred people in -Paris alone died on the scaffold. - -Fragonard dreaded to fly from the tempest. It was as safe to remain in -Paris as to leave the city. Any day he might be taken. Sadness fell -upon him and ate into his heart. The old artist could not look without -uneasiness upon the ruin of the aristocracy, of the farmers-general, -and of the gentle class, now in exile or prison or under trial--his -means of livelihood utterly gone. Without hate for Royalty or for the -Republic, the artists, by birth plebeian and in manners bourgeois, -many of them old men, could but blink with fearful eyes at the vast -upheaval. Their art was completely put out of fashion--a new art, -solemn and severe, classical and heroic, was born. For half a century -the charming art of France of the eighteenth century lay wholly -buried--a thing of contempt wherever it showed above the ashes. - -Fragonard's powerful young friend David, the painter, now stood -sternly watchful over the old man's welfare; and David was at the -height of his popularity--he was a member of the Convention. He took -every opportunity to show his friendship publicly, visited Fragonard -regularly, secured him his lodgings at the Louvre, brought about his -election to the jury of the Arts created by the Convention to take the -place of the Royal Academy. - -But the old artist was bewildered. - -The national enthusiasm was not in him. The artists were ruined by the -destruction of their pensions. The buyers of Fragonard's pictures were -dispersed, their power and their money gone, their favour dissipated. -Fragonard worked on without conviction or truth. The new school -uprooted all his settled ideals. He struggled hard to catch the new -ideas, and failed. He helped to plant a tree of liberty in the court -of the Louvre, meditating the while how he could be gone from -Paris--it was a tragic farce, played with his soul. The glories of the -Revolution alarmed the old man. He saw the kinsfolk of his friends -dragged off to the guillotine. He had guarded against suspicion and -arrest by giving a certificate early in 1794, the year of the Terror, -stating that he had no intention of emigrating, adding a statement of -residence, and avowing his citizenship. He felt that even these acts -were not enough protection in these terrible years. No man knew when -or where the blow might fall--at what place or moment he might be -seized, or on what charge, and sent to the guillotine. Friends were -taken in the night. Hubert Robert was seized and flung into Saint -Lazare, escaping death but by an accident. The state of misery and -want amongst the artists and their wives and families at this time was -pitiable. - -Fragonard gladly snatched at the invitation of an old friend of his -family, Monsieur Maubert, to go to him at Grasse during these anxious -times of the travail that had come upon France. - -Shortly after that Sunday in December when the Du Barry went shrieking -to her hideous death at the guillotine, Fragonard, turning his face to -the South of his birth, was rolling up amongst his baggage the four -finished canvases of "The Romance of Love and Youth," and the -unfinished fifth canvas, "Deserted," ordered and repudiated by the Du -Barry. He bundled his family into a chaise, and lumbered out of -Paris, rumbling on clattering wheels through the guards at the gates, -and making southwards towards Provence for his friend's house at -Grasse. Here, far away from the din and strife, Fragonard set up his -world-famous decorative panels in the salon of his host, which they -admirably fitted, painting for the overdoors, "Love the Conqueror," -"Love-folly," "Love pursuing a Dove," "Love embracing the Universe," -and a panel over the fireplace, "Triumph of Love." He also painted -during his stay the portraits of the brothers Maubert; and, to keep -his host safe from ugly rumours and unfriendly eyes, he decorated the -vestibule with revolutionary emblems, phrygian bonnet, axes and -faggots, and the masks of Robespierre and the Abbe Gregoire, and the -like trickings of red republicanism.... His host was the maternal -grandfather of the Malvilan, at whose death in 1903, the room and its -decorations were sold to an American collector for a huge sum of -money. - -Meanwhile, able and resolute men had determined that Robespierre and -the Terror must end. Robespierre went to the guillotine. The -Revolution of the Ninth Thermidor put an end to the Terror in July -1794. - -All this time the armies of France were winning the respect of the -world by their gallantry and skill. The 23rd of September 1795, saw -France establish the Directory--the 5th of October, the Day of the -Sections, saw the stiff fight about the Church of St. Roch, and -Napoleon Bonaparte appointed second-in-command of the army. The young -general was soon Commander-in-Chief. And France thenceforth advanced, -spite of the many blunders of the Directory, with all the genius of -her race, to the splendid recovery of her fortunes, and to a greatness -which was to be the wonder and admiration and dread of the world. - -The Revolution of the 18th and 19th of Brumaire (9th and 10th of -November 1799) destroyed the Directory and set the people's idol, -Napoleon Bonaparte, at the helm of her mighty state. - - - - -VI - -THE END - - -To Paris Fragonard crept back, he and his family, to his old quarters -at the Louvre, when Napoleon was come to power, and the guillotine was -slaked with blood. He returned to Paris a poor old man. - -The enthusiasm was gone out of his invention, the volition out of his -hand's cunning, the breath out of his career. He was out of the -fashion; a man risen from the dead. His efforts to catch the spirit of -the time were pathetic. He painted rarely now. He won a passing -success with an historic canvas or so, done in the new manner. But -what did Fragonard know of political allegories? what enthusiasm had -he for the famous days of the Revolution? what were caricature or -satire to him, any more than the heroic splendour of Greece and Rome? -The gods of elegance were dead; a severe and frigid morality stood -upon their altars. - -We have a pen-picture of the old painter at this time--short, big of -head, stout, full-bodied, brisk, alert, ever gay; he has red cheeks, -sparkling eyes, grey hair very much frizzed out; he is to be seen -wandering about the Louvre dressed in a cloak or overcoat of a mixed -grey cloth, without hooks or eyes or buttons--a cloak which the old -man, when he is at work, ties at the waist with it does not matter -what--a piece of string, a crumpled chiffon. Every one loves "little -father Fragonard." Through every shock of good and evil fortune he -remains alert and cheerful. The old face smiles even through tears. - -Thus, walking with aging step towards the end, he saw Napoleon created -Emperor of the French, his triumphant career marred only at rare -intervals by such disasters as Trafalgar--heard perhaps of the suicide -of the unfortunate but gallant Villeneuve at the disgrace of trial by -court-martial for this very loss of Trafalgar. - -In the year of 1806, on the New Year's Day of which were abolished the -Republican reckonings of the years as established at the Revolution, -suddenly came the suppression of the artists' lodging at the Louvre by -decree of the Emperor. The Fragonards went to live hard by in the -house of the restaurant-keeper Very, in the Rue Grenelle Saint-Honore. -The move was for Fragonard but the prelude to a longer journey. - -The old artist walks now more sluggishly than of old, his -four-and-seventy years have taken the briskness out of his step. -Returning from the Champ de Mars on a sultry day in August he becomes -heated--enters a cafe to eat an ice; congestion of the brain sets in. -At five of the clock in the morning of the 22nd day of August 1806, -Fragonard enters into the eternal sleep--at the hour that his master -Boucher had gone to sleep. - -Thus passed away the last of the great painters of France's gaiety -and lightness of heart. - -Madame Fragonard lived to be seventy-seven, dying in 1824. Marguerite -Gerard had a happy career as an artist under the Empire and the -Restoration, but never married--dying at seventy-six, loaded with -honours and in comfortable circumstances in the year that Queen -Victoria came to the throne of England. Thus peacefully ended the days -of Fragonard and his immediate kin after the turmoil and fierce tragic -years of the Terror. - -Painting with prodigal hand a series of elegant masterpieces in a -century that made elegance its god, Fragonard disappeared, neglected -and well-nigh discredited for years, with Watteau and Boucher and -Greuze for goodly company; but with them, he is come into his own -again, lord of a very realm of beauty. - -To understand the atmosphere of the France of the seventeen-hundreds -before the Revolution it is necessary to understand the art of -Watteau, of Boucher, of Fragonard, and of Chardin. Of its pictured -romance, Watteau and Boucher and Fragonard hold the keys. To shut the -book of these is to be blind to the revelation of the greater part of -that romance. Watteau states the new France of light airs and gaiety -and pleasant prospects, tinged with sweet melancholy, that became the -dream of a France rid of the pomposity and mock-heroics of the Grand -Monarque; Boucher fulfils the century; Fragonard utters its swan's -note. The art of Fragonard embodies astoundingly the pulsing evening -of a century of the life of France, uttering its gay blithe note, -skimming over the dangerous deeps of its mighty significance, yet not -wholly disregarding the deeps as did the art of his two great -forerunners. His is the last word of that mock-heroic France that -Louis the Fourteenth built on stately and pompous pretence; that Louis -the Fifteenth still further corrupted by the worship of mere elegance; -that Louis the Sixteenth sent to its grave--a suffering people out of -which a real France arose, from mighty and awful travail, like a -giant, and stood bestriding the world, a superb reality. - - -The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London - -The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRAGONARD*** - - -******* This file should be named 42118.txt or 42118.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/2/1/1/42118 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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