Curtius leaves Berne for Paris--The Hôtel d’Aligre--The Court
of Louis XV--Madame arrives in Paris.
In response to the Prince de Conti’s invitation, Curtius left Berne for
Paris a few months later, and for once the time-honoured adage proffering
a warning to those prone to rely upon the promises of princes had no
bearing, for this Prince kept his word.
On his arrival at Paris, Curtius found a handsome suite of apartments
awaiting him at the Hôtel d’Aligre, hard by the Croix du Trahoir in the
Rue St. Honoré. They were spacious and well furnished, and in style and
comfort far exceeded his expectation. The Rue St. Honoré on the north,
the Rue Bailleul on the south, the Rue de l’Arbre Sec on the east, and
the Rue des Poulies on the west, outline to this day the ground on which
the hotel, with its gardens, then stood.
The Hôtel d’Aligre was a place that had seen better days. It had, like
so many of the great family dwellings that existed in Paris towards
the end of the eighteenth century, demanded of its owners a longer and
more speedily replenished purse than they possessed. The sheltering of
a stately and magnificent household had long been unknown to this once
famous residence, and its handsome rooms had been divided up and let as
separate tenements.
The building contained a fine _salon_, which at one time was placed by a
Chancellor d’Aligre at the service of the Grand Council, and so late as
the year of Curtius’s arrival in Paris we hear of it being used for an
exhibition of pictures displayed under the ægis of the Académie de Saint
Luc. Of this académie Curtius was soon elected a member, and it may be
presumed that some of his own works were shown in the exhibition.
During its latter days the hotel figured under a dual appellation,
the ancient name of d’Aligre being prefaced by that of the renowned
Schomberg. Finally it was known to the good citizens of Paris, shortly
before its total disappearance, as the Old Hôtel Schomberg d’Aligre.
This building occupied a position that could hardly have been better
chosen for Curtius’s purpose, for it stood in the very heart and throng
of the busy capital--that is to say, close to the Louvre and at no great
distance from the Tuileries--and was surrounded by the houses of the
wealthiest and most influential inhabitants of the city.
We should like to follow the footsteps of Curtius, and enter with him
into his new home in Paris; but with the meagre information we have
concerning these early days in his career we can only picture him as
settling down to his work and drawing around him many famous patrons, to
some of whom we shall have to refer as we make progress with our story.
Doubtless the ideals he had conceived of the French capital as a citizen
in far-off Berne would not have squared with the actual state in which he
found the city when he took up his domicile within it.
Report had carried the splendours of Versailles far beyond the frontiers
of France, and might well have enlivened the imagination of an artist
like Curtius, who, doubtless, would have hoped to enjoy the pleasure of
witnessing them for himself; but on his arrival in the capital he found
the glories of the palaces had set, and that the Court of Louis XV had
not only grown dull, but had even gone out of fashion.
The King himself had become weary of the great Court functions and
sumptuous entertainments, and now preferred to indulge in complete
seclusion the appetites that still remained to him. The military exploits
of his reign had not brought him any great renown, and in recent years he
had suffered reverses that had cast a gloom over these closing days of
his life.
He had also been reminded more than once that the levelling hand of
Death took no heed of rank and power. That dread visitor had already
unceremoniously claimed the King’s son (the Dauphin) and his wife, and
his own neglected Queen, Marie Leczinska, was fast failing in health.
The temper of the people towards the King had undergone a great change,
and the days of “Well-Beloved”-ness had long since departed. During the
reign of his predecessor, Louis XIV, the excessive taxation and the state
of semi-serfdom had been borne by the lower classes with something like
resignation, for they had received some compensation through the glory
of his military achievements and the extension of his power. But small
reason had they for so patiently bearing the ever-increasing burdens
that had signalised the reign of his successor, Louis XV, whose military
exploits had brought the country little by way of glory, and whose career
had naught to show but a long life of wanton extravagance, combined with
a painful disregard for the welfare of his people.
What Curtius did in the four years that succeeded his arrival in Paris
one cannot say for certain; but there is little doubt that he was busily
engaged in executing commissions for his numerous and ever-increasing
list of patrons, whose liberality and kindness not only equalled, but far
surpassed, the Prince de Conti’s promises.
It is quite evident that soon after his arrival Curtius tried his deft
hands upon a model of the Queen of Louis XV, and it is this comparatively
early work that constitutes one piece among a mere half-dozen examples
that have been handed down to us. Probably the influence of his friend,
the Prince de Conti, aided him in obtaining this commission.
It was after having practised his profession as artist for some years
that Curtius repaired to Berne for the purpose of fetching his sister and
her little daughter.
That was in the year 1766, and Madame Tussaud was then about six years
old. On the authority of her _Memoirs_, published in 1838, it would
appear that she was born at Berne in the year 1760; but documentary
evidence exists which appears to indicate that her birth actually took
place a year later. Be that as it may, we first hear of her when she
accompanied her mother to Paris as the guest of her uncle.
This brief review will not permit us to dwell long on the early days of
the young girl in Paris, nor on those events that prefaced the outbreak
of the Revolution. Truth to say, between 1766 and 1789--a matter of
twenty-three years--the details concerning the lives of Curtius and
his niece are neither very full nor very clearly defined. This seems
to be all of a piece with the nature of the work they produced, for it
is astonishing, having regard to the considerable output, how small a
quantity of it has been handed down to us.
One has, therefore, little material to assist him in gaining an insight
into the artists’ careers, or to guide in the forming of a just opinion
either as to the exact character of their work or the nature of their
subjects. Miniatures in coloured wax, modelled in fairly high relief
and framed and glazed in the ordinary way as pictures, seem to offer a
general idea and the best conception of the work that emanated from the
studio during these momentous years, so pregnant with meaning for the
near future.
[Illustration: LOUIS XVI AND THE DUKE OF ORLEANS
Specimens of the few existing examples of Curtius’s miniature work.
Modeled from life shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution.]
The pity of the loss is that the work, taken direct from life, afforded
a faithful record of important personages. Of this there is ample proof,
and that the models should have been of so ephemeral a character is a
matter of great regret, extending far beyond the feelings of the artists’
descendants. Yet, when one remembers the hatred of the populace towards
the aristocrats and those holding authority under the Old Régime, it is
not to be wondered at that many portraits should have shared, with their
originals, the destructive effects of the antipathy that was shown both
to patrons of art and to the art itself. It goes without saying that
during the Reign of Terror people would be disposed to hide, or even to
destroy, any art subject in their possession indicating their attachment
to the Royalists.