I was for some time a consistent Barbizonian; _et ego in Arcadia vixi_,
it was a pleasant season; and that noiseless hamlet lying close among the
borders of the wood is for me, as for so many others, a green spot in
memory. The great Millet was just dead, the green shutters of his modest
house were closed; his daughters were in mourning. The date of my first
visit was thus an epoch in the history of art: in a lesser way, it was an
epoch in the history of the Latin Quarter. The _Petit Cénacle_ was dead
and buried; Murger and his crew of sponging vagabonds were all at rest
from their expedients; the tradition of their real life was nearly lost;
and the petrified legend of the _Vie de Bohéme_ had become a sort of
gospel, and still gave the cue to zealous imitators. But if the book be
written in rose-water, the imitation was still farther expurgated;
honesty was the rule; the innkeepers gave, as I have said, almost
unlimited credit; they suffered the seediest painter to depart, to take
all his belongings, and to leave his bill unpaid; and if they sometimes
lost, it was by English and Americans alone. At the same time, the great
influx of Anglo-Saxons had begun to affect the life of the studious.
There had been disputes; and, in one instance at least, the English and
the Americans had made common cause to prevent a cruel pleasantry. It
would be well if nations and races could communicate their qualities; but
in practice when they look upon each other, they have an eye to nothing
but defects. The Anglo-Saxon is essentially dishonest; the French is
devoid by nature of the principle that we call “Fair Play.” The
Frenchman marvelled at the scruples of his guest, and, when that defender
of innocence retired over-seas and left his bills unpaid, he marvelled
once again; the good and evil were, in his eyes, part and parcel of the
same eccentricity; a shrug expressed his judgment upon both.
At Barbizon there was no master, no pontiff in the arts. Palizzi bore
rule at Gretz—urbane, superior rule—his memory rich in anecdotes of the
great men of yore, his mind fertile in theories; sceptical, composed, and
venerable to the eye; and yet beneath these outworks, all twittering with
Italian superstition, his eye scouting for omens, and the whole fabric of
his manners giving way on the appearance of a hunchback. Cernay had
Pelouse, the admirable, placid Pelouse, smilingly critical of youth, who,
when a full-blown commercial traveller, suddenly threw down his samples,
bought a colour-box, and became the master whom we have all admired.
Marlotte, for a central figure, boasted Olivier de Penne. Only Barbizon,
since the death of Millet, was a headless commonwealth. Even its
secondary lights, and those who in my day made the stranger welcome, have
since deserted it. The good Lachèvre has departed, carrying his
household gods; and long before that Gaston Lafenestre was taken from our
midst by an untimely death. He died before he had deserved success; it
may be, he would never have deserved it; but his kind, comely, modest
countenance still haunts the memory of all who knew him. Another—whom I
will not name—has moved farther on, pursuing the strange Odyssey of his
decadence. His days of royal favour had departed even then; but he still
retained, in his narrower life at Barbizon, a certain stamp of conscious
importance, hearty, friendly, filling the room, the occupant of several
chairs; nor had he yet ceased his losing battle, still labouring upon
great canvases that none would buy, still waiting the return of fortune.
But these days also were too good to last; and the former favourite of
two sovereigns fled, if I heard the truth, by night. There was a time
when he was counted a great man, and Millet but a dauber; behold, how the
whirligig of time brings in his revenges! To pity Millet is a piece of
arrogance; if life be hard for such resolute and pious spirits, it is
harder still for us, had we the wit to understand it; but we may pity his
unhappier rival, who, for no apparent merit, was raised to opulence and
momentary fame, and, through no apparent fault was suffered step by step
to sink again to nothing. No misfortune can exceed the bitterness of
such back-foremost progress, even bravely supported as it was; but to
those also who were taken early from the easel, a regret is due. From
all the young men of this period, one stood out by the vigour of his
promise; he was in the age of fermentation, enamoured of eccentricities.
“Il faut faire de la peinture nouvelle,” was his watchword; but if time
and experience had continued his education, if he had been granted health
to return from these excursions to the steady and the central, I must
believe that the name of Hills had become famous.
Siron’s inn, that excellent artists’ barrack, was managed upon easy
principles. At any hour of the night, when you returned from wandering
in the forest, you went to the billiard-room and helped yourself to
liquors, or descended to the cellar and returned laden with beer or wine.
The Sirons were all locked in slumber; there was none to check your
inroads; only at the week’s end a computation was made, the gross sum was
divided, and a varying share set down to every lodger’s name under the
rubric: _estrats_. Upon the more long-suffering the larger tax was
levied; and your bill lengthened in a direct proportion to the easiness
of your disposition. At any hour of the morning, again, you could get
your coffee or cold milk, and set forth into the forest. The doves had
perhaps wakened you, fluttering into your chamber; and on the threshold
of the inn you were met by the aroma of the forest. Close by were the
great aisles, the mossy boulders, the interminable field of forest
shadow. There you were free to dream and wander. And at noon, and again
at six o’clock, a good meal awaited you on Siron’s table. The whole of
your accommodation, set aside that varying item of the _estrals_, cost
you five francs a day; your bill was never offered you until you asked
it; and if you were out of luck’s way, you might depart for where you
pleased and leave it pending.