The boldness of her conceptions is sublime. As a Creative Artist
I place her first among women, living or dead. And if you ask me
why she thus towers above her fellows, by the majesty of her work
silencing every detractor, I will say it is because she listens
to God, and not to man. She is true to self.
--_Victor Hugo_
[Illustration: ROSA BONHEUR]
When I arrive in Paris I always go first to the Y.M.C.A. headquarters in
the Rue de Treville--that fine building erected and presented to the
Association by Banker Stokes of New York. There's a good table-d'hote
dinner there every day for a franc; then there tare bathrooms and
writing-rooms and reading-rooms, and all are yours if you are a stranger.
The polite Secretary does not look like a Christian: he has a very tight
hair-cut, a Vandyke beard and lists of lodgings that can be had for
twenty, fifteen or ten francs a week. Or, should you be an American
Millionaire and be willing to pay thirty francs a week, the secretary
knows a nice Protestant lady who will rent you her front parlor on the
first floor and serve you coffee each morning without extra charge.
Not being a millionaire, I decided, the last time I was there, on a room
at fifteen francs a week on the fourth floor. A bright young fellow was
called up, duly introduced, and we started out to inspect the quarters.
The house we wanted was in a little side street that leads off the
Boulevard Montmartre. It was a very narrow and plain little street, and I
was somewhat disappointed. Yet it was not a shabby street, for there are
none such in Paris; all was neat and clean, and as I caught sight of a
birdcage hanging in one of the windows and a basket of ferns in another I
was reassured and rang the bell.
The landlady wore a white cap, a winning smile and a big white apron. A
bunch of keys dangling at her belt gave the necessary look of authority.
She was delighted to see me--everybody is glad to see you in Paris--and
she would feel especially honored if I would consent to remain under her
roof. She only rented her rooms to those who were sent to her by her
friends, and among her few dear friends none was so dear as Monsieur ze
Secretaire of ze Young Men Christians.
And so I was shown the room--away up and up and up a dark winding stairway
of stone steps with an iron balustrade. It was a room about the size of a
large Jordan-Marsh drygoods-box.
The only thing that tempted me to stay was the fact that the one window
was made up of little diamond panes set in a leaden sash, and that this
window looked out on a little courtway where a dozen palms and as many
ferns grew lush and green in green tubs and where in the center a fountain
spurted. So a bargain was struck and the landlady went downstairs to find
her husband to send him to the Gare Saint Lazare after my luggage.
What a relief it is to get settled in your own room! It is home and this
is your castle. You can do as you please here; can I not take mine ease in
mine inn?
I took off my coat and hung it on the corner of the high bedpost of the
narrow, little bed and hung my collar and cuffs on the floor; and then
leaned out of the window indulging in a drowsy dream of sweet content.
'Twas a long, dusty ride from Dieppe, but who cares--I was now settled,
with rent paid for a week!
All around the courtway were flower-boxes in the windows; down below, the
fountain cheerfully bubbled and gurgled, and from clear off in the unseen
rumbled the traffic of the great city. And coming from somewhere, as I sat
there, was the shrill warble of a canary. I looked down and around, but
could not see the feathered songster, as the novelists always call a bird.
Then I followed the advice of the Epworth League and looked up, not down,
out, not in, and there directly over my head hung the cage all tied up in
chiffon (I think it was chiffon). I was surprised, for I felt sure it
could not be possible there was a room higher than mine--when I had come
up nine stairways! Then I was more surprised; for just as I looked up, a
woman looked down and our eyes met. We both smiled a foolish smile of
surprise; she dodged in her head and I gazed at the houses opposite with
an interest quite unnecessary.
She was not a very young woman, nor very pretty--in fact, she was rather
plain--but when she leaned out to feed her pet and found a man looking up
at her she proved her divine femininity beyond cavil. Was there ever a
more womanly action? And I said to myself, "She is not handsome--but God
bless her, she is human!"
Details are tiresome--so suffice it to say that next day the birdcage was
lowered that I might divide my apple with Dickie (for he was very fond of
apple). The second day, when the cage was lowered I not only fed Dickie
but wrote a message on the cuttlefish. The third day, there was a note
twisted in the wires of the cage inviting me up to tea.
And I went.
* * * * *
There were four girls living up there in one attic-room. Two of these
girls were Americans, one English and one French. One of the American
girls was round and pink and twenty; the other was older. It was the older
one that owned the bird, and invited me up to tea. She met me at the door,
and we shook hands like old-time friends. I was introduced to the trinity
in a dignified manner, and we were soon chatting in a way that made Dickie
envious, and he sang so loudly that one of the girls covered the cage with
a black apron.
With four girls I felt perfectly safe, and as for the girls there was not
a shadow of a doubt that they were safe, for I am a married man. I knew
they must be nice girls, for they had birds and flower-boxes. I knew they
had flower-boxes, for twice it so happened that they sprinkled the flowers
while I was leaning out of the window wrapped in reverie.
This attic was the most curious room I ever saw. It was large--running
clear across the house. It had four gable-windows, and the ceiling sloped
down on the sides, so there was danger of bumping your head if you played
pussy-wants-a-corner. Each girl had a window that she called her own, and
the chintz curtains, made of chiffon (I think it was chiffon), were tied
back with different-colored ribbons. This big room was divided in the
center by a curtain made of gunny-sack stuff, and this curtain was covered
with pictures such as were never seen on land or sea. The walls were
papered with brown wrapping-paper, tacked up with brass-headed nails, and
this paper was covered with pictures such as were never seen on sea or
land.
The girls were all art students, and when they had nothing else to do they
worked on the walls, I imagined, just as the Israelites did in Jerusalem
years ago. One half of the attic was studio, and this was where the table
was set. The other half of the attic had curious chairs and divans and
four little iron beds enameled in white and gold, and each bed was so
smoothly made up that I asked what they were for. White Pigeon said they
were bric-a-brac--that the Attic Philosophers rolled themselves up in the
rugs on the floor when they wished to sleep; but I have thought since that
White Pigeon was chaffing me.
White Pigeon was the one I saw that first afternoon when I looked up, not
down, out, not in. She was from White Pigeon, Michigan, and from the very
moment I told her I had a cousin living at Coldwater who was a conductor
on the Lake Shore, we were as brother and sister. White Pigeon was thirty
or thirty-five, mebbe; she had some gray hairs mixed in with the brown,
and at times there was a tinge of melancholy in her laugh and a sort of
half-minor key in her voice. I think she had had a Past, but I don't know
for sure.
Women under thirty seldom know much, unless Fate has been kind and cuffed
them thoroughly, so the little peachblow Americaine did not interest me.
The peachblow was all gone from White Pigeon's cheek, but she was fairly
wise and reasonably good--I'm certain of that. She called herself a
student and spoke of her pictures as "studies," but she had lived in Paris
ten years. Peachblow was her pupil--sent over from Bradford, Pennsylvania,
where her father was a "producer." White Pigeon told me this after I had
drunk five cups of tea and the Anglaise and the Soubrette were doing the
dishes. Peachblow the while was petulantly taking the color out of a
canvas that was a false alarm.
White Pigeon had copied a Correggio in the Louvre nine years before, and
sold the canvas to a rich wagon-maker from South Bend. Then orders came
from South Bend for six more Louvre masterpieces. It took a year to
complete the order and brought White Pigeon a thousand dollars. She kept
on copying and occasionally receiving orders from America; and when no
orders came, potboilers were duly done and sent to worthy Hebrews in Saint
Louis who hold annual Art Receptions and sell at auction paintings painted
by distinguished artists with unpronounceable names, who send a little of
their choice work to Saint Louis, because the people in Saint Louis
appreciate really choice things.
"And the mural decorations--which one of you did those?" I remarked, as a
long pause came stealing in.
"Did you hear what Mr. Littlejourneys asked?" called White Pigeon to the
others.
"No; what was it?"
"He wants to know which one of us decorated the walls!"
"Mr. Littlejourneys meant illumined the walls," jerked Peachblow, over her
shoulder.
Then Anglaise gravely brought a battered box of crayon and told me I must
make a picture somewhere on the wall or ceiling: all the pictures were
made by visitors--no visitor was ever exempt.
I took the crayons and made a picture such as was never seen on land or
sea. Having thus placed myself on record, I began to examine the other
decorations. There were heads and faces, and architectural scraps, trees
and animals, and bits of landscape and ships that pass in the night. Most
of the work was decidedly sketchy, but some of the faces were very good.
Suddenly my eye spied the form of a sleeping dog, a great shaggy Saint
Bernard with head outstretched on his paws, sound asleep. I stopped and
whistled.
The girls laughed.
"It is only the picture of a dog," said Soubrette.
"I know; but you should pay dog-tax on such a picture--did you draw it?" I
asked White Pigeon.
"Did I! If I could draw like that, would I copy pictures in the Louvre?"
"Well, who drew it?"
"Can't you guess?"
"Of course I can guess. I am a Yankee--I guess Rosa Bonheur."
"Well, you have guessed right."
"Stop joking and tell me who drew the Saint Bernard."
"Madame Rosalie, or Rosa Bonheur, as you call her."
"But she never came here!"
"Yes, she did--once. Soubrette is her great-grandniece, or something."
"Yes, and Madame Bonheur pays my way and keeps me in the Ecole des Beaux
Arts. I'm not ashamed for Monsieur Littlejourneys to know!" said Soubrette
with a pretty pout; "I'm from Lyons, and my mother and Madame Rosalie used
to know each other years ago."
"Will Madame Rosalie, as you call her, ever come here again?"
"Perhaps."
"Then I'll camp right here till she comes!"
"You might stay a year and then be disappointed."
"Then can't we go to see her?"
"Never; she does not see visitors."
"We might go visit her home," mused Soubrette, after a pause.
"Yes, if she is away," said Anglaise.
"She's away now," said Soubrette; "she went to Rouen yesterday."
"Well, when shall we go?"
"Tomorrow."
* * * * *
And so Soubrette could not think of going when it looked so much like
rain, and Anglaise could not think of going without Soubrette, and
Peachblow was getting nervous about the coming examinations, and must
study, as she knew she would just die if she failed to pass.
"You will anyway--sometime!" said White Pigeon.
"Don't urge her; she may change her mind and go with you," dryly remarked
Anglaise with back towards us as she dusted the mantel.
Then I expressed my regret that the trinity could not go, and White Pigeon
expressed her regret because they had to stay at home. And as we went down
the stairs together we chanted the Kyrie eleison for our small sins,
easing conscience by the mutual confession that we were arrant hypocrites.
"But still," mused White Pigeon, not quite satisfied, "we really did not
tell an untruth--that is, we did not deceive them--they understood--I
wouldn't tell a real whopper, would you?"
"I don't know--I think I did once."
"Tell me about it," said White Pigeon.
But I was saved, for just as we reached the bottom stair there was a
slight jingling of keys, and the landlady came up through the floor with a
big lunch-basket. She pushed the basket into my hands and showering us
with Lombardy French pushed us out of the door, and away we went into the
morning gray, the basket carried between us. The basket had a hinged
cover, and out of one corner emerged the telltale neck of a bottle. It did
not look just right; suppose we should meet some one from Coldwater?
But we did not meet any one from Coldwater. And when we reached the
railway-station we were quite lost in the crowd, for there were dozens of
picnickers all carrying baskets, and from the cover of each basket emerged
the neck of a bottle. We felt quite at home packed away in a Classe Trois
carriage with a chattering party of six High-School botanizing youngsters.
When the guard came to the window, touched his cap, addressing me as Le
Professeur, and asked for the tickets for my family, they all laughed.
Fontainebleau was the fourth stop from Paris. My family scampered out and
away and we followed leisurely after. Fontainebleau is quite smug. There
is a fashionable hotel near the station, before which a fine tall fellow
in uniform parades. He looked at our basket with contempt, and we looked
at him in pity. Just beyond the hotel are smart shops with windows filled
with many-colored trifles to tempt the tourist. The shops gradually grew
smaller and less gay, and residences with high stone walls in front took
their places, and over these walls roses nodded. Then there came a wide
stretch of pasture, and the town of Fontainebleau was left behind.
The sun came out and came out and came out; birds chirruped in the
hedgerows and the daws in the high poplars called and scolded. The mist
still lingered on the distant hills, and we could hear the tinkle of
sheep-bells and the barking of a dog coming out of the nothingness.
White Pigeon wore flat-soled shoes and measured off the paces with an easy
swing. We walked in silence, filled with the rich quiet of country sounds
and country sights. What a relief to get away from noisy, bustling, busy
Paris! God made the country!
All at once the mists seemed to lift from the long range of hills on the
right and revealed the dark background of forest, broken here and there
with jutting rocks and beetling crags. We stopped and sat down on the
bank-side to view the scene. Close up under the shadow of the dark forest
nestled a little white village. Near it was the red-tile roof of an old
mansion, half-lost in the foliage. All around this old mansion I could
make out a string of small buildings or additions to the original chateau.