Chapter 41

The story of a celebrated sculptor and his model -- David d'Angers at the funeral of Cortot, the sculptor -- How I became acquainted with him -- The sculptor leaves the funeral procession to speak to a woman -- He tells me the story -- David d'Angers' sympathy with Greece in her struggle for independence -- When Botzaris falls at Missolonghi, he makes up his mind to carve his monument -- Wishes to do something original -- He finds his idea in the cemetery of Père-la-Chaise -- In search of a model -- Comes unexpectedly upon her in the Rue du Montparnasse, while in company of Victor Hugo -- The model and her mother -- The bronze Christ on the studio wall -- David gives it to his model -- The latter dismissed -- A plot against the sculptor's life -- His model saves him -- He tries to find her and fails -- Only meets with her when walking behind the hearse of Cortot -- She appears utterly destitute -- Loses sight of her again -- Meets her on the outer boulevards with a nondescript of the worst character -- He endeavours to rescue her, but fails -- Canler, of the Paris police, reveals the tactics pursued with regard to "unfortunates" -- David's exile and death -- The Botzaris Monument is brought back to Paris to be restored -- The model at the door of the exhibition -- Her death.

In connection with the treatment of "fallen women" in Paris, I may give the following story, which becomes interesting in virtue of the personality of one of the actors. In 1843 the sculptor Cortot died, and I followed his funeral on foot, as was the custom in those days. I walked by the side of one of the greatest artists France, or, for that matter, the world, has ever produced--David d'Angers. The name of his native town was adopted to distinguish him from his celebrated namesake, the painter. I had become acquainted with the great sculptor a twelvemonth previously, in Delacroix's studio. All at once, as the procession went along the Quai Malaquais, I saw him start violently, and break through what, for want of a more appropriate term, I must call the ranks of mourners. For a moment only; the next, he was back by my side: but I noticed that he was frightfully agitated. He probably saw my concern for him in my face, for, though I asked him no questions, he said of his own accord, "It is all right. I just caught sight of a woman who saved my life, and, by the looks of her, she is in great straits, but, by the time I got out of the crowd, she had disappeared. I have an idea of the errand she was bent upon, and will inquire to-morrow, but I am afraid it will be of very little use."

I kept silent for a moment or two, but my curiosity was aroused, for, I repeat, at that time, the artistic world was ringing with the name of David d'Angers.

"I did not know you had been in such great danger," I said at last.

"Very few people do know it," he replied sadly; "besides, it happened a good many years ago, when you were very young. The next time we meet I will tell you all about it."

A week or so afterwards, as I was leaving the Café de Paris one evening, and going to the tobacconist at the corner of the Rue Laffite, I ran against the celebrated sculptor. The weather was mild, and we sat outside Tortoni's, where he told me the story, part of which I give in his own words, as far as I can remember them after the lapse of more than forty years.

"If there were any need," he began, "to apologize to an Englishman for my sympathy with the Philhellenism which shortened the life of Byron, I might say that I sucked the principle of the independence of nations with the mother's milk, for I was born in 1789. Be that as it may, when Marcos Botzaris fell at Missolonghi I felt determined that he should have a monument worthy of his heroism and patriotism, as far as my talents could contribute to it. I was sufficiently young to be enthusiastic, and, at the same time, sufficiently presumptuous to imagine that I could do something which had never been done before. You have seen the engraving of the monument; you may judge for yourself how far I succeeded. But the idea of the composition, however out of the common, was, I am bound to admit, not the offspring of my own imagination. I was, perhaps, clever enough to see the poesy of it when presented to me, and to appropriate it; but the young, fragile girl lying on the tombstone and tracing the name of Marcos Botzaris was suggested to me by a scene I witnessed one day at Père-la-Chaise. I saw a child stooping over a gravestone, and trying to spell out the words carved on it. It was all I wanted. I own, from that moment, my composition took shape in my mind. I was, however, still at a loss where to find the ideal child. The little girl of whom I had caught a glimpse would not have done at all for my purpose, even if her parents would have consented to let her sit, which was not at all likely--she was the prosperous-looking demoiselle of a probably prosperous bourgeoise family, well-fed, plump, and not above seven or eight. I, on the contrary, wanted a girl double that age just budding into womanhood, but with the travail of the transition expressed in every feature, in every limb. She was to represent to the most casual observer the sufferings engendered by the struggle against tutelage for freedom. She was to bend over the tomb of Botzaris to drag the secret of that freedom from him. Dawning life was to drag the secret from the dead.

"That was my idea, and for several days I cudgelled my brain to find among my models one that would, physically and morally, represent all this. In vain; the grisettes of the Rue Fleurus and the Quartier-Latin, in spite of all that has been said of them by the poets and novelists of that time, were not at all the visible incarnations of lofty sentiment; whatever pain and grief an unrequited romantic passion might entail, they left no appreciable traces on their complexions or in their outline; they were saucy madams, and looked it. I had communicated my wants to some of my friends, and one of them sent me what he thought would suit. The face was certainly a very beautiful one, as an absolutely perfect ensemble of classical features I have never seen the like; but there was about as much expression in it as in my hand, and, as for the body, it was simply bursting out of its dress. I told her she would not do, and the reason why. 'Monsieur can't expect me to go into a consumption for two francs fifty an hour,' she remarked, bouncing out of the room.

"I was fast becoming a nuisance to all my cronies, when, one day, going to dine with Victor Hugo at La Mère Saget's, which was at the Barrière du Maine, I came unexpectedly, in the Rue du Montparnasse, upon the very girl for which I had been looking out for months. Notwithstanding her rags, she was simply charming. She was not above fourteen or fifteen, and, although very tall for her age, she had scarcely any flesh on her bones. I only knew her Christian name--Clémentine: I doubt whether she had any other. Next morning she came with her mother, an old hag, dissipation and drunkenness written in every line of her face. But the child herself was perfectly innocent--at any rate, as innocent as she could be with such a parent, and tractable to a degree. After a little while the old woman, tired of twirling her thumbs, disgusted, perhaps, at my want of hospitality in not offering her refreshments, left off accompanying her, Clémentine came henceforth alone.

"My studio was in the Rue de Fleurus in those days, and on the wall hung a very handsome bronze Christ on a velvet panel and in a dark satin frame. Curiously enough, I often caught the mother watching it; it seemed to have an irresistible fascination for her: and, one day, while the child was dressing, after two or three hours of hard work, she suddenly exclaimed, 'That's why my mother will not come here; she says she'd commit a robbery. She never leaves off talking about it. I wonder whether you'd like to part with it, M. David? A Christ like that would be beautiful in our attic. It would comfort and cheer me. If you like, I'll buy it of you. Of course, I have no money, but you can deduct it from my sittings. You can have as many as you like, not only for this statue, but for any other you may want later on.'

"We democrats, professed republicans, and more than suspected revolutionaries, are not credited by the majority with a great reverence for religious dogma; we are generally branded as absolute freethinkers, not to say atheists. This is frequently a mistake.[73] I have no occasion to recite my _credo_ to you, but a great many of the republicans of '89 and of to-day were and are believers. At any rate, I fondly imagined that the Christ for which the mother and child were longing might exercise some salutary influence on their lives, so I simply took down the frame and its contents and handed them to her. She staggered under the weight. 'You want that Christ,' I said; 'here it is: and when you are tempted to do evil look at it, and think of me, who gave it you as a present.'

[Footnote 73: It is a mistake. Not to mention Camille Desmoulins, who, when asked his age by his judge, replied, "The age of another _sans-culotte_, Jesus." Esquiros frequently spoke of "that good patriot, Christ;" Lammenais began the draft of his constitution with "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and by the will of the French people."--EDITOR.]

"'As a present?' she shrieked for joy; and hurried away as fast as her legs would carry her.

"In about six months from that day the statue was finished. I had no further need of Clémentine's services, and gradually all thought of her slipped from my mind. You may have heard that some time after my work was despatched to Greece, I was assaulted one night in the Rue Childebert, on my way to Gérard de Nerval's. My skull was split open in two places, I was left for dead in the street, and but for a workman who stumbled over me, took me home, and sat up with me until morning, I might not have lived to tell the tale. From the very first I suspected the identity of my assailant, though I have never breathed his name to any one. I am glad to say I never had many enemies, nor have I now, as far as I am aware; but I had offended the man by withholding my vote in a prize competition. He was, however, not responsible for his actions; for even at that time he must have been mad. A few years afterwards, the suspicion both of his madness and his attempt upon my life became a certainty, for he repeated the latter. You are very young, and youth is either very credulous or very sceptical. We should be neither. If what I am going to tell you now were to be represented to you at the Ambigu or Porte Saint-Martin, you, as an educated man, would shrug your shoulders, and look with a kind of good-natured contempt upon the grisette or workman or bourgeois who would sit spellbound and take it all in as so much gospel. Providence, fate, call it what you will, concocts more striking dramatic situations and a greater number of them than M. Scribe and all his compeers have constructed in the course of their professional careers. Listen, and you shall judge for yourself.

"About seven years after the attack in the Rue Childebert, I received a