CHAPTER III

Clément Boulanger

The whisper dies away and the shade disappears. Another shade comes out of the ground and advances as silently as the first, but with a more rapid step. One felt that, in this case, to some extent, the life had been more bright and that death had suddenly taken this being into its naked embrace without giving notice beforehand, as it had done in the case of poor Alfred.

This shade was the painter of the picture entitled _Mort d'Henri II._ and of the _Procession du Corpus Domini._ Short chestnut hair, a rather narrow but intelligent forehead, blue eyes, long nose, fair moustaches and beard, complexion fresh and clear, dead lips smiling at life as in life they had smiled at death: this was the shade of Clément Boulanger. He bowed his tall figure towards me and I felt his breath touch my brow, like the kiss of a friend after a long journey. He kissed me on his return from death.

Poor Clément! He was so bright, so witty, while he was painting in great washes the scene from the _Tour de Nesle_ representing Buridan "flung into the Seine," as Villon says, and borrowed from the _Écolier de Cluny_ by Roger de Beauvoir.

"Friend," I say to him, "I knew but little of your life and still less of your death. You lived and died far away from me. You rest beneath the cypresses of Scutari, with the sky of the Bosphorus stretched above your head and the Sea of Marmora breaking at your feet; the blue doves come in at the half-opened windows of your chapel and circle round your tomb like loved friends! Tell me what I do not know, so that I may relate it to the generation which never knew you."

I seemed to see a spark light up in the hollow eyes of the phantom, and a kind of smile pass over the pale lips. Life is so good a thing, whatever people say about it, that the dead tremble every time a living being pronounces their names.

He spoke and I, in my turn, trembled in astonishment to hear merry words coming from the mouth of a phantom.

He died without knowing he was going to die; his last convulsion was a laugh and his last words a song.

* * * * *

Clément Boulanger was born in 1812. His mother during pregnancy was possessed by a singular desire: no matter what happened, she wanted to take lessons in painting. They procured her a master and she indulged in the pleasure of daubing away at five or six canvases. Although the craving was satisfied, the child was _marqué_ (stamped) as midwives call it: as soon as he could talk, he asked for a pencil; at the age of four, everything sat for him, cats, dogs, parrots, chimney-sweeps, errand-boys and water-carriers. At eight, he was sent to a seminary. From that time, everything in uniform pleased him, all ecclesiastical pomp delighted him; when he was a choir-boy and whilst attending and serving at the altar, he sketched the beadle, the chanter, the officiating priest, in a mass book with a pencil which he hid in the palm of his hand. His first idea was not to leave the seminary, but to become both priest and painter; his mother, deeming the studies he would be obliged to pursue as an artist not very compatible with the duties of a priest, took him away from the seminary. The child then asked to go into a studio. His mother was alarmed at this desire: so many things are learnt in a studio that painting is sometimes the last thing one learns there; nevertheless, her maternal pride urged her to agree; with his inclinations, the boy could not fail to become a great artist. But where place him, until he grew up?--Good! the very thing!--with a chemist; it would be a middle course; he would learn there the constituents of colours. Soon he had a laboratory and a mechanical workshop at his mother's house. In the laboratory he studied chemistry: in the workshop he made machines, especially hydraulic machines; he had the tastes of Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus. One night his mother heard a slight, but queer, noise in his room: something between a whisper, a wail and a murmur. She rose and stepped forward, and, when she had reached the middle of her room, she felt herself being damped by a fine rain; she started back, lit a candle and, having felt the effect, discovered the cause. The child had made experiments concerning the physical truth that water tends to find its own level; he had set a basin in the centre over his mother's room and a reservoir in his own. The reservoir was six feet above the basin; a tin pipe, perfectly soldered together and ended by a water-spout, served as communication between the reservoir and the basin. During the night the valve had got out of order and the stream of water was working its way through into Madame Boulanger's bedroom!

In other matters, there was no play going and no money was allowed: money offers temptation, the theatre prompts the budding of desire. Every Sunday, vespers and mass! This was the ordinary life of the boy who, just as he sketched all alone and did his mechanical work by himself, so did he begin painting by himself.

At fourteen he was attacked by smallpox, and, after being dangerously ill, remained shut up in his room for a month during his convalescence. For diversion he painted his courtyard with the porter sweeping. The picture still exists and it is charming; quite like a little Van Ostade. A little later, whilst playing, he rediscovered the secret of painting on glass. After his mother had hesitated between all the celebrated painters in Paris, she decided on M. Ingres; the morality of all the others seemed to her to be insufficient or dubious.

At nineteen, he saw his cousin, Marie Elisabeth Monchablon, and immediately fell in love with her. She was fifteen years old. The very day he saw her he begged his mother to let him marry her. His mother was willing enough, but she thought the two children only old enough to be betrothed and not husband and wife. She imposed two years of noviciate on Clément. Marie Monchablon painted, also. You will recollect Madame Clément Boulanger's exquisite water-colour paintings? You remember Madame Cavé's fine work concerning painting without the aid of a master? Madame Clément Boulanger and Madame Cavé are one and the same charming woman, and the same ethereal artist as Marie Monchablon. The children painted together. Marie began by being Clément's master; Clément ended by being Marie's. Meanwhile, great progress was made at Ingres', and great friendship sprang up between Ingres and his pupil, who was now twenty-one and free, at last, to marry his cousin. The day after their marriage, the young couple ran away to Holland. They were in haste to be free and, above all, to convince themselves of their freedom. For three months nobody knew what had become of them. They re-appeared at the end of that time. The turtle-doves returned of their own accord to their dovecot. During this escapade, Clément had become possessed of the rage for work. The very day of his return he sketched a _Suzanne au bain,_ which he finished in three weeks. It is pale and, perhaps, rather monotonous in colouring, but picturesque in composition. Clément admired two very opposite artists: Ingres and Delacroix. He showed his picture to the two masters. Strange to say, they both praised the painter. The colour pleased M. Ingres; but he blamed the disordered composition. This was what Delacroix liked, but he blamed the colouring. In short, each said to the young man, "You will be a painter!" Clément did not let the grass grow after this twofold promise; he sent for a fourteen feet canvas and drew upon it the life-size figures of the _Martyre des Macchabées._ This time, he did not trouble himself much as to what M. Ingres would say; it was Delacroix he wished to please most of all; for, whilst admiring the two painters in, perhaps, an equal degree, his sympathies inclined towards Delacroix. The picture was to glow with colour. Seven months sufficed for its execution. As in the case of _Suzanne,_ when the picture was done he called in the two masters. Delacroix was the first to come this time. He was enchanted; and had no critical remarks to make to the young man, whom he overwhelmed with congratulations. Next day, M. Ingres arrived in his turn, uttered a kind of growl, recoiled as though a reflection in a mirror had struck his eyes; gradually his growls change to reproaches: it was ingratitude, heresy, apostasy! M. Ingres went out furious, cursing the renegade. Crushed by this malediction Clément prepared to set out for Rome. This had been the ambition of the two young people for a long time; but their grandparents would never consent to let these young folk of twenty-one and seventeen, thirty-eight years of age all told, travel; and without the leave of their grandparents, who held the purse-strings, how could they travel? There is a Providence who looks after travellers! A connoisseur visited Clément's studio. As in the case of Delacroix, the picturesque setting of _Suzanne_ pleased him; he wanted to put _Suzanne_ in his bedroom alcove. But Clément, who did not dare to ask 6000 francs for the picture, declared that he did not wish to sell it by itself and asked 4500 francs for the _Macchabées_ and 1500 francs for the _Suzanne._ The connoisseur wished only to buy the _Suzanne,_ but Clément pointed out to him that the pictures were inseparable. The connoisseur did not understand the reason for this indissoluble bond between the _Suzanne_ and the _Macchabées,_ and he offered 2000 francs, then 2500, for the _Suzanne_ alone. Clément was inflexible; the only reduction he made was to offer the two pictures for 5000 francs. The connoisseur bought the _Macchabées_ in order to get the _Suzanne,_ and he put the latter in his bedroom and the former in his garret; and behold the two young people found themselves in control of the vast sum of 5000 francs! They could go round the world five times with that! So they ran off to Italy as they had run away to Holland, taking a travelling carriage to Lyons, crossing Mont Cenis and reaching Rome in twenty-one days. In visiting Italy, Clément, with that devouring imagination of his, wanted to see everything. His wife only desired to see three things: Madame Lætitia, whom they then called Madame Mère, Vesuvius in eruption and Venice at Carnival time. The two latter desires arose from simple curiosity; the first from sentiment: Marie Monchablon was a cousin of General Leclerc, first husband of the Princess Borghese. There was, therefore, relationship with the Napoleon family, although obviously very distant; but relationships go much further back than that in Corsica!

Horace Vernet was director of the school of painting in Rome. The first visit of the two artists was naturally to Horace Vernet; but, on leaving his house, there was only the Monte Pincio to cross, the gate del Popolo to pass and they were in the villa Borghese. Now, at the villa Borghese lived Madame Mère, whom Madame Clément Boulanger was very anxious to see. Chance aided the young enthusiast: during Madame Mère's walk she passed by her. Madame Clément longed to fling herself on her knees;--I can understand this, for it is just what I did, and I am not a fanatic, when I had the honour of being received by Madame Lætitia at Rome, and when she gave me her hand to kiss. Oh! it is impossible to imagine what antique proportions exile seemed to give to that woman! I seemed to see the mother of Alexander, of Cæsar or of Charlemagne. Madame Lætitia looked at the two young people and smiled upon them as age smiles on youth, as the setting sun smiles on the East, as benevolence smiles on beauty. Madame Clément returned to her lodgings intoxicated with joy. She was invited to the palace Ruspoli that night by Madame Lacroix; still full of delight and not conscious that she was speaking to the secretary of Madame Mère--

"Ah!" she said, "I can leave Rome to-night."

"Why? You only arrived this morning!"

"I have seen what I came to see."

"Ah! What did you want to see?"

"Madame Mère."

She then related the three desires which brought her to Italy: to see Madame Mère, an eruption of Vesuvius and the Carnival at Venice.

The secretary listened to this great enthusiasm without making any comment; but that same evening he related what he had heard to the mother of Cæsar. She smiled, called to mind the two good-looking young people she had bowed to in the garden of the villa Borghese and asked that they should be presented to her on the following day. Next day they were both introduced to Madame Mère's bedchamber, in which the famous old lady usually dwelt.

"Come here, my child," said Madame Lætitia, beckoning to the young wife to come near, "and tell me why you were so anxious to see me."

"Because people say that sons resemble their mother." Madame Lætitia smiled at that delicious flattery, more than ever charming from the lips of seventeen.

"Then," she replied, "I hope you will have a son of your own, madame!"

"An unfortunate wish, Princess, for I should prefer a daughter."

"Why so?"

"Why should you wish me to bring forth a boy, since the Emperor is no longer here to give him his epaulettes?"

"All the same, have a son and there may, perhaps, be a Napoleon on the throne when he is of age for service."

This strange prophecy was realised! Madame Clément Boulanger has had a son; that son is now twenty-two, and he is employed under a Napoleon in the Government offices.

Some days later, invited to the soirées of Queen Hortense, Madame Clément Boulanger valsed for the first time,--as a young girl, she had never been allowed; as a young wife, she had not yet had time to do so;--she valsed, we say, for the first time, and with Prince Louis. After this they began seriously to set to work. Madame Clément Boulanger had seen all she desired in seeing Madame Mère, but she would have been very disappointed had she been prevented from seeing the rest!

Meanwhile, Clément had finished a companion picture to the _Macchabées_ and had sketched out the tournament of the Tournelles: the subject was _Henri II., tué, à travers sa visière, par l'Éclat de lance de Gabriel de Montgomery._ This picture appeared at the Exhibition of 1831, and is now at the château de Saint-Germain.

From Rome the lovers started for Naples. Madame Clément was _enceinte,_ and in order to produce a happy pregnancy Providence arranged the eruption of 1832. From Naples they returned to Florence. There Clément completed and exhibited in a church his picture of the _Corpus Domini._ This picture was a great success, so great, that the Contadini from the environs of Florence, who came to see the picture in processions, hearing it constantly said that it was a representation of the _Corpus Domini_ and, not knowing what _Corpus Domini_ meant, believing that it was the painter's name, openly called Clément Boulanger and his wife M. and Mme. Corpus Domini. Meanwhile, the young couple took hasty excursions into the country and, as the parents could not leave little Albert behind, they put him in a basket which a man carried on his head. This was the son of Corpus Domini, and bearing this title, no goat-herd but would give him of her milk.

In his spare moments Clément remembered his chemical studies: he invented a kind of paper which concealed ink. You only had to dip the pen in the water-jug, stream or river, or simply in your mouth, to write with water or with saliva, and the writing became black as fast as the nib of the pen formed the letters. It was such a wonderful invention that they decided to start a paper factory under illustrious patronage. This patronage was granted and a sheet of the chemical paper was taken to Madame Clément. Unluckily or luckily, Madame Clément had a cold; she sneezed; the damped paper became black all over where it had been wetted. This gave the spectators much food for reflection. It would be impossible to use the paper on a rainy day or days when one had a cold or on days when one was tearful. The factory idea was renounced.

Clément Boulanger returned to Paris in the month of February 1832; and from the 10th to the 15th March of the same year, so far as I can recollect, he covered with his broad and easy style of painting a panel twelve feet by ten in my house.

* * * * *

In 1840 Clément Boulanger set out for Constantinople. For a year and a half he had been at Toulouse, where he painted the _Procession,_ which is now at Saint Étienne-du-Mont. This work in the provinces had wearied him: he wanted the open air, change of scene, the stir of life, in short, instead of a sedentary life, he accepted the suggestion made him by the traveller Tessier, who was going to make excavations in Asia-Minor; and, commissioned by the department of Fine Arts to paint a picture of excavations, Clément, as we have said, set out in 1840. They reached Magnesia near the Mendere river and began to dig in the ground. This preliminary work appeared to Clément to be the most exciting, animated part of the business; he felt that it, at any rate, ought to be reproduced. He made a sketch in the full heat of the midday sun and, during his work, got one of those attacks of sunstroke that are so dangerous in the East. Brain fever ensued: he was far from all aid; there were only bad Greek doctors near him, of the type that killed Byron. They hung à hammock inside a mosque and laid the poor invalid in it. Delirium set in by the third day; on the fifth, he died laughing and singing, unconscious that he was dying. All the Greek clergy in Constantinople came to pay respect to the body of the poor traveller, who had died at twenty-eight years of age, far away from his friends, his family and his country! Twenty-eight years of age! do you realise? Compare that age with what he had done! The body was carried away on the back of a camel.

There, as here, everybody loved him. People of all lands and in every kind of costume followed the procession. All the French ships in the roadstead carried their flags at half-mast and their ensigns of mourning. The whole staff of the embassy came out to meet the body at the gate of Constantinople, and a procession of over three thousand persons followed it to the French church. There he lies, sleeping, like Ophelia, still smiling and singing!