THE VILLA MEDICI
As I had foreseen and gathered from the meaning looks which the
pensionnaires exchanged, another joke, the masterpiece of the hazing,
was arranged for us. We had hardly left the table when the pensionnaires
wrapped themselves in the huge capes that were fashionable in Rome at
the time and obliged us, before we went to rest in the rooms assigned to
us, to take a constitutional (Was it really necessary?) to the Forum,
the ancient Forum which all our memories of school recalled to us.
We knew nothing of Rome by night, or by day for that matter, but we
walked on surrounded by our new school fellows who acted as guides. It
was a January night and very dark, and favorable for the schemes of our
cicerones. When we got near the Capitol, we could scarcely distinguish
the outlines of the temples in the hollows of the famous Campo Vaccino.
Their reproductions in the Louvre are still one of the masterpieces of
Claude Lorrain.
In those days, under the rule of His Holiness Pope Pius IX, no official
excavations had been begun even in the Forum. The famous place was only
a heap of stones and shafts of columns buried in the weeds on which
herds of goats browsed. These pretty creatures were watched over by
goatherds in large hats and wrapped in great black cloaks with green
linings, the ordinary costume of the peasant of the Roman campagna. They
were armed with long pikes to drive off the wild cattle which splashed
about in the Ostian marshes.
Our companions made us cross the ruins of the basilica of Constantine.
We could just make out the immense coffered vaults. Our admiration
changed to fright when we found ourselves a moment later in a place
entirely surrounded by walls of indescribably colossal proportions. In
the middle of this place was a large cross on a pedestal formed by
steps--a sort of Calvary. When I reached this point, I could no longer
see my companions and on turning back I found that I was alone in the
middle of the gigantic amphitheater of the Colosseum in a silence which
seemed frightful to me.
I tried to find a way which would lead me back to the streets where
some late but complacent passerby might direct me to the Villa Medici.
But my search was in vain. I was so exasperated by my fruitless attempts
that I fell on one of the steps of the cross overcome by weariness. I
cried like a child. It was quite excusable, for I was worn out with
exhaustion.
Finally, daylight appeared. Its rays showed me that I had gone round and
round like a squirrel in a cage and had come across nothing save the
stairways to the upper tiers. When one thinks of the eighty tiers which
in the time of Imperial Rome held a hundred thousand spectators, this
round of mine could easily have been endless for me. But the sunrise was
my salvation. After a few steps I was happy to see that, like Little Tom
Thumb lost in the woods, I was following the path which would take me on
the right road.
I reached the Villa Medici at last and took possession of the room which
had been reserved for me. The window looked out on the Avenue du Pincio;
my horizon was the whole of Rome and ended in the outlines of the dome
of St. Peter's at the Vatican. The Director, M. Schnetz, a member of the
Institute, took me to my room. He was tall and he had willingly wrapped
himself in a capacious dressing gown and had put on a Greek cap
bedizened, like the gown, with magnificent gold tassels. M. Schnetz was
the last of that generation of great painters which had a special
reverence for the country about Rome. His studies and pictures were
conceived in the midst of the Sabine brigands. His strong, determined
appearance made his hosts in his adventurous wanderings respect and fear
him. He was a perfect father to all the children of the Academie de
France at Rome.
The bell for luncheon sounded. This time it was the real cook who rang
it and not I who had been so kindly given the duty the evening before.
The dining room had taken on its comfortable every-day appearance. Our
companions were positively affectionate. The servants were no longer the
pseudo monks we had seen at the first meal. I learned that I had not
been the only one to be hoaxed.
The Carnival festivities at Rome were just ending with their wild
bacchanalian revelries. While they were not so famous as those of
Venice, they had, nevertheless, just as much dash and life. Their
setting was altogether different--more majestic if not more
appropriate. We all participated in a large car built by our architects
and decorated by our sculptors. We spent the day in throwing confetti
and flowers at all the lovely Roman girls, who replied with bewitching
smiles from their palace balconies on the Corso. Surely when Michelet
wrote his brilliant and poetic study _La Femme_, the sequel to his
_L'Amour_, he must have had in his mind's eye, as we saw them in life,
these types of rare, sparkling and fascinating beauty.
What changes have taken place in Rome since such careless freedom and
gaiety were the usual thing! The superb Italian regiments march on this
same Corso to-day, and the rows of shops for the most part belong to
German shopkeepers.
Progress! How many are thy blows!
One day the Director told us that Hippolyte Flandrin, the famous leader
of the religious movement in Nineteenth Century Art, had reached Rome
the night before and wanted to meet the students.
I little thought that forty-six years later I should recall this visit
in the speech I would deliver as president of the Institute and the
Academie des Beaux Arts.
In this speech I said:
"On the Pincio, opposite the Academie de France, is a small bubbling
fountain shaped like an ancient vase, which, beneath a bower of green
oaks, stands out against the horizon with its fine lines. There, when
after thirty-two years he returned to Rome a great artist, Hippolyte
Flandrin, before he entered the temple, dipped his fingers as in a holy
font and crossed himself."
The sorrow stricken arts to which he had contributed so much went into
mourning at almost the very moment we were getting ready to go to thank
him officially for his consideration of us. He lived in the Piazza della
Spagna, near the Villa Medici where he wanted to be. In the church of
Santa Luigi della Francese we laid on his coffin wreaths of laurel from
the garden of the Villa, which, as a student, he had loved so well. He
was a comrade at the Villa of his beloved musician Ambroise Thomas, whom
he saw for the last time at the height of his glory....
Some days later Falguiere, Chaplain and I started for Naples, by
carriage as far as Palestrina, on foot to Terracina, at the southern end
of the Pontian marshes, then again by carriage to Naples!...