MY FIRST COMMISSION
I well remember how I got my first commission and earned the first money
in the exercise of my profession. It came about in this way.
I was down by the Quais of old Paris, close to the Pont des Aveugles,
drawing the Parisian workman as he took his midday rest. The Quais had
not yet got as strait-laced as they are now, and the river flowed its
pleasant course without much police supervision. There was the loveliest
of buildings, the Louvre, but it had not made more than a start towards
the Tuileries, with which it was in but a few years to join stones.
I was often down there sketching, and I always found willing models
amongst the friendly natives in blouses. The Parisian has an
ever-varying way of asking you to take his likeness. "Tirez ma binette,"
"Fixez moi cette frimousse," or, "Relevez moi le plan de mon image," are
amongst those I recollect. "Draw my mug," we might say, although
translation does not go far to render that sort of colloquialism.--"Fix
my phiz," and "Just you give me the map of my image."
I never accepted coppers on the occasions when I presented my models
with a sketch, but such ready-money payment was often proffered. It was
not till a man had insisted on my accompanying him to his home with a
view to artistic business, that I was led to accept my first commission.
He lived near the Temple, quite a little distance from the Quai
Voltaire, and as we went along, my companion became very communicative.
He began about himself, then gave me a bird's-eye view of the family
history, and soon came to "Ma mère," a theme he stuck to as only a
Frenchman can. "She was," he said, "une maîtresse femme," and he would
just like to see the man "qui pourrait lui tirer une carotte" (who could
extract a carrot from her). This was not an allusion to the fruit and
vegetable shop she kept, but meant that she was not an easy one to get
over in money matters. I found the old lady as my friend had described
her. She was stout and determined, and she kept her money jingling in
the two or three capacious pockets of her apron. She could see I was an
artist; why, _she_ could recognise one within a radius of a league; and
if I would draw her the portraits of her two granddaughters for five
francs, I might set to work at once; they both had the eyes of _her_
family, the Roufflards,--not a trace of the Tusserand look--an advantage
I was not to overlook. The girls were about fourteen or fifteen, and I
thought I could make rather a telling picture of the two heads together
in medallion shape. But the old lady was after me at once. She didn't
believe in pinching and cheeseparing, and didn't want the thing rounded
off in any of those circular frames. "No," she said. "_Allez-y
franchement_; you just draw them as they are, hands and feet and all,
_comme qui dirait_: there they are, those two girls, _les fillettes à la
mère Tusserand_."
To this I answered that we hadn't bargained for all that, and I was
right from a strictly professional point of view, but I wouldn't have
lost the five francs for the world, and I daresay she guessed as much,
and stuck to her guns. She, as an old materfamilias, knew that people
were not born in bust shape; then why should they be thus represented?
_She_ always gave good measure, and if she didn't, her customers would
soon keep her up to the mark; so why shouldn't she have her money's
worth? I felt that I ought to insist on better terms, if only for the
dignity of my profession, but I was no match for the old lady, so I
started work on her conditions, only, to save appearances, bargaining
for a plentiful supply of _reineclaudes_ during the sittings.
A sort of staircase, that had just missed being a ladder, led up in a
straight line to the room that was to serve as a studio. A bed of
imposing dimensions took up the greater part of the room; the bedstead
of polished mahogany was an old-fashioned structure, that you could see
at once had been handed down from one generation of fruiterers to
another; similarly suggestive was a queer old roccoco looking-glass, and
a faded portrait of a tomcat sitting on a middle-aged spinster's lap.
"Who are you, young man?" these worthy relics seemed to say; "have _you_
got a pedigree?"
The latest offshoots from the genealogical tree of the
Roufflard-Tusserand family had to be enthroned on the bed. I could
otherwise not get sufficiently far away from them to overlook my group.
It was desired that their arms should be interlaced with a view to
emphasising their sisterly affection, and this gave rise to a new
difficulty as to the presentment of one of the hands, which, being in
perspective, did not show the full complement of fingers. When Madame
Tusserand came to inspect my work, she particularly insisted that no
part of the thumb should be concealed. She had noticed such
imperfections in other pictures, and had always looked upon them as
instances of the artful way in which painters sought to scamp their
work. But here I struck. I swore by the holy Raphael that I could and
would not alter it, and gave the old lady a lecture on the glorious
Madonnas, who, even with incomplete thumbs, had been the means of
regenerating the world. She was so pleased with the mention of the
Madonna, and more especially with that part of my argument which she did
not understand, that she gave in, and so perspective scored a victory.
The two girls, my models, were neat little types of the bourgeois class.
I did not think much of them or the type; in fact I thought the
generality of Parisian girls plain; but experienced friends told me I
knew nothing about it, and taught me that if I wanted to judge of a
woman (that unripe fruit, a girl, to be sure was not worth mentioning),
I must study not her face or her figure, but her general appearance and
one or two essential parts of her toilette. "What is the use of
features," they asked, "to a woman who can't dress, or who is _gantée_
and _chaussée_ as if she _revenait de l'autre monde_." Which other world
they meant, and how they wear their gloves and shoes there, they didn't
explain. "And why should you give undue importance," they wound up, "to
beauty where there is the _tournure_ to observe and the _chic_. No, _mon
cher_, if you want to form a correct estimate of a woman, study her
ankles and her _bottines_."
Whilst I was taking stock of my models, and arriving at the conclusion
that they were plain, pert, and precocious, they had evidently lost no
time in deciding that I was green, and that it would take a good deal of
teaching to give me the more attractive tinges of ripeness. They told me
all about the Bouzibon, a familiar name by which they designated their
favourite Bal de Barrière. They took it for granted I couldn't dance,
but I might come and learn there next Sunday evening. It was a most
respectable place, and nothing was ever lost or stolen there. La mère
Bouze was a widow; to be sure I had noticed that elegant place in the
Faubourg St. Denis, the fried-fish shop; well, that had originally been
started by the late Monsieur Bouze years ago.
In return I told them my old yarn about Prince Poniatowski being drowned
in the river Pleisse, just at the bottom of our garden in Leipsic; but I
let out the point too quickly, and once they knew the Prince was
drowned, they did not care for the rest. They behaved very well on the
whole, and, as far as I am aware, did not make ugly faces at me when I
was looking the other way. I am sure they did not like me though; their
fancy men were two _garçons coiffeurs_ in a barber's shop close by, and
so I hadn't a fair start.
That was my first experience as a portrait-painter. From that day to
this I have truly loved my profession, undeterred by the fact that the
course of true love does not always run smooth. At any rate that
five-franc piece which Madame Roufflard-Tusserand took from the depths
of her apron pocket and handed to me, gave me more satisfaction than
many a "Pay to F. Moscheles, Esq.," that has since followed.
I wonder whether my drawing still exists, and, if so, whether it is
going down as an heirloom from generation to generation with the
bedstead, the looking-glass, and the middle-aged tomcat lady.
[Illustration]