CHAPTER XI

Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix had exhibited in the Salon of 1831 his _Tigres_, his _Liberté_, his _Mort de l'Évêque de Liége._ Notice how well the grave and misanthropie face of Delaroche is framed between Horace Vernet, who is life and movement, and Delacroix, who is feeling, imagination and fantasy. Here is a painter in the full sense of the term, _à la bonne heure!_ Full of faults impossible to defend, full of qualities impossible to dispute, for which friends and enemies, admirers and detractors can cut one another's throats in all conscience. And all will have right on their side: those who love him and those who hate him; those who admire, those who run him down. To battle, then! For Delacroix is equally a _fait de guerre_ and a _cas de guerre._

We will try to draw this great and strange artistic figure, which is like nothing that has been and probably like nothing that ever will be; we will try to give, by the analysis of his temperament, an idea of the productions of this great painter, who bore a likeness to both Michael Angelo and Rubens; not so good at drawing as the first, nor as good at composition as the second, but more original in his fancies than either. Temperament is the tree; works are but its flowers and fruit.

Eugène Delacroix was born at Charenton near Paris,--at Charenton-les-Fous; nobody, perhaps, has painted such fools as did he: witness the stupid fool, the timid fool and the angry fool of the _Prison du Tasse._ He was born in 1798, in the full tide of the Directory. His father was first a Minister during the Revolution, then préfet at Bordeaux, and was later to become préfet at Marseilles. Eugène was the last of his family, the _culot_--the nestling, as bird-nest robbers say; his brother was twenty-five years old when he was born, and his sister was married before he was born. It would be difficult to find a childhood fuller of events than that of Delacroix. At three, he had been hung, burned, drowned, poisoned and strangled! He must have been made very tough by Fate to escape all this alive. One day his father, who was a soldier, took him up in his arms, and raised him to the level of his mouth; meantime the child amused itself by twisting the cord of the cavalryman's forage cap round his neck; the soldier, instead of putting him down on the ground, let him fall, and behold there was Delacroix hung. Happily, they loosened the cord of the cap in time, and Delacroix was saved. One night, his nurse left the candle too near his mosquito net, the wind set the net waving and it caught fire; the fire spread to the bedding, sheets and child's nightshirt, and behold Delacroix was on fire! Happily he cries; and, at his cries people come in, and Delacroix is extinguished. It was high time, the man's back is to this day marked all over with the burns which scarred the child's skin. His father passed from the prefecture of Bordeaux to that of Marseilles, and they gave an inaugural fête to the new préfet in the harbour; while passing from one boat to another, the serving lad who carried the child made a false step, dropped him and there was Delacroix drowning! Luckily, a sailor jumped into the sea and fished him out just when the serving lad, thinking of his own salvation, was about to drop him. A little later, in his father's study, he found some _vert-de-gris_ which was used to clean geographical maps; the colour pleased his fancy,--Delacroix has always been a colourist;--he swallowed the _vert-de-gris_, and there he was poisoned! Happily, his father came back, found the bowl empty, suspected what had happened and called in a doctor; the doctor ordered an emetic and freed the child from the poison. Once, when he had been very good, his mother gave him a bunch of dried grapes; Delacroix was greedy; instead of eating his grapes one by one, he swallowed the whole bunch; it stuck in his throat, and he was being suffocated in exactly the same way as was Paul Huet with the fish bone! Fortunately, his mother stuffed her hand into his mouth up to the wrist, caught hold of the bunch by its stalk, managed to draw it up, and Delacroix, who was choking, breathed again. These various events no doubt caused one of his biographers to say that he had an _unhappy_ childhood. As we see, it should rather have been said _exciting._ Delacroix was adored by his father and mother, and it is not an unhappy childhood to grow up and develop surrounded by the love of father and mother. They sent him to school at eight,--to the Lycée Impérial. There he stayed till he was seventeen, making good progress with his studies, spending his holidays sometimes with his father and sometimes with his uncle Riesener, the portrait-painter. At his uncle's house he met Guérin. The craze to be a painter had always stuck to him: at six years old, in 1804, when in the camp at Boulogne, he had made a drawing with white chalk on a black plank, representing the _Descente des Français en Angleterre_; only, France figured as a mountain and England as a valley; and a company of soldiers was descending the mountain into the valley: this was the _descent_ into England. Of the sea itself there was no question. We see that, at six years of age, Delacroix's geographical ideas were not very clearly defined. It was agreed upon between Riesener and the composer of _Clymnestre_ and _Pyrrhus_ that, when Delacroix left college, he should enter the studio of the latter. There were, indeed, some difficulties raised by the family, the father inclining to law, the mother to the diplomatic service; but, at eighteen, Delacroix lost his fortune and his father; he had only forty thousand francs left, and liberty to make himself a painter. He then went to Guérin, as soon as it could be arranged, and, working like a negro, dreamed, composed and executed his picture of _Dante._ This picture, not the worst of those he has painted,--strong men sometimes put as much or even more into their first work as into any afterwards,--came under the notice of Géricault. The gaze of the young master when in process of painting his _Naufrage de la Méduse_ was like the rays of a hot sun. Géricault often came to see the work of Delacroix; the rapidity and original fancy of the brush of his young rival, or, rather, of his young disciple, amused him. He looked over his shoulder--Delacroix is of short and Géricault of tall stature,--or he looked on seated astride a chair. Géricault was so fond of horses that he always sat astride something. When the last stroke of the brush was put to the dark crossing of hell, it was shown to M. Guérin. M. Guérin bit his lips, frowned and uttered a little growl of disapprobation accompanied by a negative shake of the head. And that was all Delacroix could extract from him. The picture was exhibited. Gérard saw it as he was passing by, stopped short, looked at it a long time and that night, when dining with Thiers,--who was making his first campaign in literature, as was Delacroix in painting,--he said to the future Minister--

"We have a new painter!"

"What is his name?"

"Eugène Delacroix!"

"What has he done?"

"_A Dante passant l'Acheron avec Virgile._ Go and see his picture."

Next day Thiers goes to the Louvre, seeks for the picture, finds it, gazes at it and goes out entranced.

Intellectually, Thiers possessed genuine artistic feeling, even if it did not spring from the heart. He did what he could for art; and when he displeased, wounded and discouraged an artist, the fault has lain with his environment, his family, or some salon coterie, and, even when causing pain to an artist, and in failing to keep his promises, he did his utmost to spare the artist any pain he may have had to cause him, at the cost of pain to himself. He was lucky, also, in his dealings, if not always just; it was his idea to send Sigalon to Rome. True, Sigalon died there of cholera; but not till after he had sent from Rome his beautiful copy of the _Jugement dernier._ So Thiers went back delighted with Delacroix's picture; he was then working on the staff of the _Constitutionnel_, and he wrote a splendid article on the new painter. In short, the _Dante_ did not raise too much envy. It was not suspected what a family of reprobates the exile from Florence dragged in his wake! The Government bought the picture for two thousand francs, upon the recommendation of Gérard and Gros, and had it taken to the Luxembourg, where it still is. You can see it there, one of the finest pictures in the palace.

Two years flew by. At that time exhibitions were only held every two or three years. The salon of 1824 then opened. All eyes were turned towards Greece. The memories of our young days formed a kind of propaganda, recruiting under its banner, men, money, poems, painting and concerts. People sang, painted, made verses, begged for the Greeks. Whoever pronounced himself a Turkophile ran the risk of being stoned like Saint Stephen. Delacroix exhibited his famous _Massacre de Scio._

Good Heavens! Have you who belonged to that time forgotten the clamour that picture roused, with its rough and violent style of composition, yet full of poetry and grace? Do you remember the young girl tied to the tail of a horse? How frail and fragile she looked! How easily one could see that her whole body would shed its fragments like the petals of a rose, and be scattered like flakes of snow, when it came in contact with pebbles and boulders and bramble thorns!

Now, this time, the Rubicon was passed, the lance thrown down, and war declared. The young painter had just broken with the whole of the Imperial School. When clearing the precipice which divided the past from the future, his foot had pushed the plank into the abyss below, and had he wished to retrace his steps it was henceforth an impossibility. From that moment--a rare thing at twenty-six years of age!--Delacroix was proclaimed a master, started a school of his own, and had not only pupils but disciples, admirers and fanatical worshippers. They hunted out someone to stand in opposition to him; they exhumed the man who was least like him in all points, and rallied round him; they discovered Ingres, exalted him, proclaimed him and crowned him in their hatred of Delacroix. As in the age of the invasion of the Huns, the Burgundians and the Visigoths, they called upon the savages to help them, they invoked St. Geneviève, they adjured the king, they implored the pope! Ingres, certainly, did not owe his revived reputation to the love and admiration which his grey monochromes inspired, but to the fear and hatred which were inspired by the flashing brush of Delacroix. All men above the age of fifty were for Ingres; all young people below the age of thirty were for Delacroix.

We will study and examine and appreciate Ingres in his turn, never fear! His name, flung down in passing, shall not remain in obscurity; although we warn our readers beforehand--and let them now take note and only regard our judgment for what it is worth--that we are not in sympathy with either the man or his talents.

Thiers did not fail the painter of the _Massacre de Scio_, any more than he had failed the creator of _Dante._ Quite as eulogistic an article as the first, and a surprising one to find in the columns of the classic _Constitutionnel_, came to the aid of Delacroix in the battle where, as in the times of the _Iliad_, the gods of art were not above fighting like ordinary mortals. The Government had its hands forced, in some measure, by Gérard, Gros and M. de Forbin. The latter bought the _Massacre de Scio_ in the name of the king for six thousand francs for the Luxembourg Museum.

Géricault died just when Delacroix received his six thousand francs. Six thousand francs! It was a fortune. The fortune was spent in buying sketches at the sale of the famous dead painter's works, and in making a journey to England. England is the land of fine private collections, the immense fortunes of certain gentlemen permitting them--either because it is the fashion or from true love of art--to satisfy their taste for painting.

Delacroix bethought himself once more of the Old Museum Napoléon, the museum which the conquest had overthrown in 1818; it abounded in Flemish and Italian art. That old museum was a wonderful place, with its collection of masterpieces from all over Europe, and in the midst of which the English cooked their raw meat after Waterloo.

It was during this period of prosperity--public talk about art always signifies prosperity; if it does not lead to fortune, it gratifies pride, and gratified pride assuredly brings keener joy than the acquiring of a fortune;--it was during this period of prosperity, we repeat, that Delacroix painted his first _Hamlet_, his _Giaour_, his _Tasse dans la prison des fous_, his _Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi_ and _Marino Faliero._ I bought the first three pictures; they are even now the most beautiful Delacroix painted. The _Grèce_ was bought by a provincial museum. _Marino Faliero_ had a singular fate. Criticism was furious against this picture. Delacroix would have sold it, at the time, for fifteen or eighteen hundred francs; but nobody wanted it. Lawrence saw it, appreciated it, wished to have it and was about to purchase it when he died. The picture remained in Delacroix's studio. In 1836, I was with the Prince Royal when he was going to send Victor Hugo a snuff-box or a diamond ring or something or other, I forget what, in thanks for a volume of poetry addressed by the great poet to Madame la duchesse d'Orléans. He showed me the object in question, and told me of its destination, letting me understand that I was threatened with a similar present.

"Oh! Monseigneur, for pity's sake!" I said to him, "do not send Hugo either a ring or snuff-box."

"Why not?"

"Because that is what every prince does, and Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans, my own particular Duc d'Orléans, is not like other princes; he is himself a man of intellect, a sincere man and an artist."

"What would you have me send him, then?"

"Take down some picture from your gallery, no matter how unimportant a one, provided it has belonged to your Highness. Put underneath it, 'Given by the Prince Royal to Victor Hugo,' and send him that."

"Very well, I will. Better still, hunt out for me among your artist friends a picture which will please Hugo; buy it, have it sent to me, I will give it him. Then two people will be pleased instead of one; the painter from whom I buy it, and the poet to whom I give it."

"I will do what you wish, Monseigneur," I said to the prince.

I took my hat and ran out. I thought of Delacroix's _Marino Faliero._ I crossed bridges, I climbed the one hundred and seventeen steps to Delacroix's studio, who then lived on the quai Voltaire, and I fell into his studio utterly breathless.

"Hullo!" he said to me. "Why the deuce do you come upstairs so fast?"

"I have good news to give you."

"Good!" exclaimed Delacroix; "what is it?"

"I have come to buy your _Marino Faliero._"

"Ah!" he said, sounding more vexed than pleased.

"What! Are you not delighted!"

"Do you want to buy it for yourself?"

"If it were for myself, what would the price be?"

"Whatever you like to give me: two thousand francs, fifteen hundred francs, one thousand francs."

"No, it is not for myself; it is for the Duc d'Orléans. How much for him?"

"Four, five, six thousand francs, according to the gallery in which he will place it."

"It is not for himself."

"For whom?"

"It is for a present."

"To whom?"

_"I_ am not authorised to tell you; I am only authorised to offer you six thousand francs."

"My _Marino Faliero_ is not for sale."

"Why is it not for sale? Just now you would have given it me for a thousand francs."

"To you, yes."

"To the prince for four thousand!"

"To the prince, yes; but only to the prince or you."

"Why this choice?"

"To you, because you are my friend; to the prince, because it is an honour to have a place in the gallery of a royal artist as intelligent as he is; but to any one else save you two, no."

"Oh! what an extraordinary notion!"

"As you like! It is my own."

"But, really, you must have a better reason."

"Very likely."

"Would you sell any other picture for which you could get the same price?"

"Any other, but not that one."

"And why not this one?"

"Because I have been told so often that it is bad that I have taken an affection for it, as a mother loves her poor, weakly, sickly deformed child. In my studio, poor pariah that it is! it stands for me to look it in the face when people look askance at it; to comfort it when people humiliate it; to defend it when it is attacked. With you, it would have at all events a guardian, if not a father; for, if you were to buy it, it would be because you love it, as you are not a rich man. In the case of the prince, in place of sincere praise there would be that of courtiers: 'The painting is good, because Monseigneur has bought it. Monseigneur is too much of an artist and a connoisseur to make a mistake. Criticism must be at fault, the old witch! Detestable old Sibyl!' But in the hands of a stranger, an indifferent person, whom it cost nothing and who had no reason for taking its part, no, no, no. My poor _Marino Faliero_, do not be anxious, thou shalt not go!"

And it was in vain that I begged and prayed and urged him; Delacroix stuck to his word. Certain that the Duc d'Orléans should not think my action wrong, I went as far as eight thousand francs. Delacroix obstinately refused. The picture is still in his studio. That was just like the man, or, rather, the artist!

At the Salon of 1826, which lasted six months, and was three times replenished, Delacroix exhibited a _Justinien_ and _Christ au jardin des Oliviers_, wonderful for their pain and sadness; they can now be seen in the rue Saint-Antoine and the Church of St. Paul on the right as you enter. I never miss going into the church when I pass that way, to make my oblation as a Christian and an artist should before the picture. All these subjects were wisely chosen; and as they were beautiful and not bizarre they did not raise a stir. People indeed said that _Justinien_ looked like a bird, and the _Christ_, like.... some thing or other; but they were harking back more to the past than the present. But, suddenly, at the final replenishing, arrived ... what? Guess ... Do you not remember?--No--The _Sardanapale._ Ah! so it did! This time there was a general hue-and-cry.

The King of Assyria, his head wrapped round with a turban, clad in royal robes, sitting surrounded with silver vases and golden water-jugs, pearl collars and diamond bracelets, bronze tripods with his favourite, the beautiful Mirrha, upon a pile of faggots, which seemed like slipping down and falling on the public. All round the pile, the wives of the Oriental monarch were killing themselves, whilst the slaves were leading away and killing his horses. The attack was so violent, criticism had so many things to find fault with in that enormous canvas--one of the largest if not the largest in the Salon--that the attack drowned defence: his fanatical admirers tried indeed to rally in square of battle about their chief; but the Academy itself, the Old Guard of _Classicism_, charged determinedly; the unlucky partizans of _Sardanapale_ were routed, scattered and cut to pieces! They disappeared like a water-spout, vanished like smoke, and, like Augustus, Delacroix called in vain for his legions! Thiers had hidden himself, nobody knew where. The creator of _Sardanapale_,--it goes without saying that Delacroix was no longer remembered as the painter of _Dante_, of the _Massacre de Scio_ or of _Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi_, or of _Christ au jardin des Oliviers_, no, he was the creator of _Sardanapale_ and of no other work whatever!--was for five years without an order. Finally, in 1831, as we have already said, he exhibited his _Tigres_, his _Liberté_ and his _Assassinat de l'Évêque de Liège_, and, round these three most remarkable works, those who had survived the last defeat began to rally. The Duc d'Orléans bought the _Assassinat de l'Évêque de Liège_, and the government, the _Liberté._ The _Tigres_ remained with its creator.