Lives of Girls Who Became Famous Part 13

She wore his picture on her person as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, and then she imagined it might console her daughter in her illness. Giving it to her, she said, "Gaze upon it, gaze upon it, when you are in pain."

She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beautiful descriptions for her _Corinne_, and finally returning to Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was published in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, "its success was instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a poem, the romance of _Corinne_ is an immortal monument." Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_, called the author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused a scathing criticism on _Corinne_ to appear; indeed, it was declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise of Napoleon in _Corinne_, and she would be welcomed back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France.

Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi.

So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: "The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, 'Your adorers quite suffocate me.'"

While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his mother. "Your mother," said Napoleon, "could not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to Bicetre or the Temple. I should regret this necessity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will have the world about her."

On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writing her _Allemagne_, for which she had been making researches for four years.

She wished it published in Paris, as _Corinne_ had been, and submitted it to the censors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime removing to France, within her proscribed limits, that she might correct the proof-sheets.

What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great but egotistical Emperor.

Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and n.o.ble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. She sympathized with his misfortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. When discouraged by his friends, he replied, "I will love her so much that I will finish by making her marry me."

They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a pa.s.sing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a gifted mind and n.o.ble heart,--such a marriage stands the test of time.

The marriage was kept secret from all save a few intimate friends, Madame de Stael fearing that if the news reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to France. Her fears were only too well founded.

Schlegel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or entering any region annexed to France.

She was advised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be imprisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death.

The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She longed to reach England, but there was an edict against any French subject entering that country without special permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt it. She pa.s.sed an hour in prayer by her parent's tomb, kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap herself in should death come.

May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her children, began their flight by carriage, not telling the servants at the chateau, but that they should return for the next meal.

They reached Vienna June 6, and were at once put under surveillance.

Everywhere she saw placards admonis.h.i.+ng the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours in any place. Once Madame de Stael was so overcome by this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and death.

Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cordial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became king. Afterward she spent four months in England, bringing out _Allemagne._ Here she received a perfect ovation. At Lord Lansdowne's the first ladies in the kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: "The whole fas.h.i.+onable and literary world is occupied with Madame de Stael, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age." Very rare must be the case where a woman of fine mind does not have many admirers among gentlemen.

Her _Allemagne_ was published in 1813, the ma.n.u.script having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon translated into all the princ.i.p.al tongues of Europe. Lamartine said: "Her style, without losing any of its youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it adores.... Her name will live as long as literature, as long as the history of her country."

Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had abdicated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately returned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile under "Napoleon the Little." Again to her _salon_ came kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, and others.

But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beautiful, married to the Duc de Broglie, a leading statesman, and was happy in her happiness. Rocca's health was failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time.

In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de Stael was broken with her trials.

She seemed to grow more and more frail, till the end came. She said frequently, "My father awaits me on the other sh.o.r.e." To Chateaubriand she said, "I have loved G.o.d, my father, and my country." She could not and would not go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would awaken her often. "Good night," she said, and it was forever. She never wakened.

They buried her beside her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. "I hoped," he said, "to have died in her arms."

Her little son, and Rocca's, five years old, was cared for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Madame de Stael's death, her _Considerations on the French Revolution_ and _Ten Years of Exile_ were published. Of the former, Sainte-Beuve says: "Its publication was an event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the auth.o.r.ess.

Its politics were destined to long and pa.s.sionate discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her tomb."

Chateaubriand said, "Her death made one of those breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces once in an age, and which can never be closed."

As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva.

ROSA BONHEUR

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROSA BONHEUR.]

In a simple home in Paris could have been seen, in 1829, Raymond Bonheur and his little family,--Rosa, seven years old, August, Isadore, and Juliette. He was a man of fine talent in painting, but obliged to spend his time in giving drawing-lessons to support his children. His wife, Sophie, gave lessons on the piano, going from house to house all day long, and sometimes sewing half the night, to earn a little more for the necessities of life.

Hard work and poverty soon bore its usual fruit, and the tired young mother died in 1833. The three oldest children were sent to board with a plain woman, "La mere Catherine," in the Champs Elysees, and the youngest was placed with relatives. For two years this good woman cared for the children, sending them to school, though she was greatly troubled because Rosa persisted in playing in the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, gathering her arms full of daisies and marigolds, rather than to be shut up in a schoolroom. "I never spent an hour of fine weather indoors during the whole of the two years," she has often said since those days.

Finally the father married again and brought the children home. The two boys were placed in school, and M. Bonheur paid their way by giving drawing lessons three times a week in the inst.i.tution. If Rosa did not love school, she must be taught something useful, and she was accordingly placed in a sewing establishment to become a seamstress.

The child hated sewing, ran the needle into her fingers at every st.i.tch, cried for the fresh air and suns.h.i.+ne, and finally, becoming pale and sickly, was taken back to the Bonheur home. The anxious painter would try his child once more in school; so he arranged that she should attend, with compensation met in the same way as for his boys. Rosa soon became a favorite with the girls in the Fauborg St. Antoine School, especially because she could draw such witty caricatures of the teachers, which she pasted against the wall, with bread chewed into the consistency of putty. The teachers were not pleased, but so struck were they with the vigor and originality of the drawings, that they carefully preserved the sketches in an alb.u.m.

The girl was far from happy. Naturally sensitive--as what poet or painter was ever born otherwise?--she could not bear to wear a calico dress and coa.r.s.e shoes, and eat with an iron spoon from a tin cup, when the other girls wore handsome dresses, and had silver mugs and spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected her books, and finally became so ill that she was obliged to be taken home.

And now Raymond Bonheur very wisely decided not to make plans for his child for a time, but see what was her natural tendency. It was well that he made this decision in time, before she had been spoiled by his well-meant but poor intentions.

Left to herself, she constantly hung about her father's studio, now drawing, now modeling, copying whatever she saw him do. She seemed never to be tired, but sang at her work all the day long.

Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to the fact that his daughter had great talent. He began to teach her carefully, to make her accurate in drawing, and correct in perspective. Then he sent her to the Louvre to copy the works of the old masters. Here she worked with the greatest industry and enthusiasm, not observing anything that was going on around her. Said the director of the Louvre, "I have never seen an example of such application and such ardor for work."

One day an elderly English gentleman stopped beside her easel, and said: "Your copy, my child, is superb, faultless. Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist." How glad those few words made her! She went home thinking over to herself the determination she had made in the school when she ate with her iron spoon, that sometime she would be as famous as her schoolmates, and have some of the comforts of life.

Her copies of the old masters were soon sold, and though they brought small prices, she gladly gave the money to her father, who needed it now more than ever. His second wife had two sons when he married her, and now they had a third, Germain, and every cent that Rosa could earn was needed to help support seven children. "La mamiche," as they called the new mother, was an excellent manager of the meagre finances, and filled her place well.

Rosa was now seventeen, loving landscape, historical, and genre painting, perhaps equally; but happening to paint a goat, she was so pleased in the work, that she determined to make animal painting a specialty. Having no money to procure models, she must needs make long walks into the country on foot to the farms. She would take a piece of bread in her pocket, and generally forget to eat it. After working all day, she would come home tired, often drenched with rain, and her shoes covered with mud.

She took other means to study animals. In the outskirts of Paris were great _abattoirs_, or slaughter-pens. Though the girl tenderly loved animals, and shrank from the sight of suffering, she forced herself to see the killing, that she might know how to depict the death agony on canvas. Though obliged to mingle more or less with drovers and butchers, no indignity was ever offered her. As she sat on a bundle of hay, with her colors about her, they would crowd around to look at the pictures, and regard her with honest pride. The world soon learns whether a girl is in earnest about her work, and treats her accordingly.

The Bonheur family had moved to the sixth story of a tenement house in the Rue Rumfort, now the Rue Malesherbes. The sons, Auguste and Isadore, had both become artists; the former a painter, the latter a sculptor. Even little Juliette was learning to paint. Rosa was working hard all day at her easel, and at night was ill.u.s.trating books, or molding little groups of animals for the figure-dealers. All the family were happy despite their poverty, because they had congenial work.

On the roof, Rosa improvised a sort of garden, with honeysuckles, sweet-peas, and nasturtiums, and here they kept a sheep, with long, silky wool, for a model. Very often Isadore would take him on his back and carry him down the six flights of stairs,--the day of elevators had not dawned,--and after he had enjoyed grazing, would bring him back to his garden home. It was a docile creature, and much loved by the whole family. For Rosa's birds, the brothers constructed a net, which they hung outside the window, and then opened the cage into it.

At nineteen Rosa was to test the world, and see what the critics would say. She sent to the Fine Arts Exhibition two pictures, "Goats and Sheep" and "Two Rabbits." The public was pleased, and the press gave kind notices. The next year "Animals in a Pasture," a "Cow lying in a Meadow," and a "Horse for sale," attracted still more attention. Two years later she exhibited twelve pictures, some from her father and brother being hung on either side of hers, the first time they had been admitted. More and more the critics praised, and the pathway of the Bonheur family grew less th.o.r.n.y.

Then, in 1849, when she was twenty-seven, came the triumph. Her magnificent picture, "Cantal Oxen," took the gold medal, and was purchased by England. Horace Vernet, the president of the commission of awards, in the midst of a brilliant a.s.sembly, proclaimed the new laureate, and gave her, in behalf of the government, a superb Sevres vase.

Raymond Bonheur seemed to become young again at this fame of his child. It brought honors to him also, for he was at once made director of the government school of design for girls. But the release from poverty and anxiety came too late, and he died the same year, greatly lamented by his family. "He had grand ideas," said his daughter, "and had he not been obliged to give lessons for our support, he would have been more known, and to-day acknowledged with other masters."

Rosa was made director in his place, and Juliette became a professor in the school. This same year appeared her "Plowing Scene in the Nivernais," now in the Luxembourg Gallery, thought to be her most important work after her "Horse Fair." Orders now poured in upon her, so that she could not accede to half the requests for work. A rich Hollander offered her one thousand crowns for a painting which she could have wrought in two hours; but she refused.

Four years later, after eighteen long months of preparatory studies, her "Horse Fair" was painted. This created the greatest enthusiasm both in England and America. It was sold to a gentleman in England for eight thousand dollars, and was finally purchased by A. T. Stewart, of New York, for his famous collection. No one who has seen this picture will ever forget the action and vigor of these Normandy horses. In painting it, a petted horse, it is said, stepped back upon the canvas, putting his hoof through it, thus spoiling the work of months.

So greatly was this picture admired, that Napoleon III. was urged to bestow upon her the Cross of the Legion of Honor, ent.i.tled her from French usage. Though she was invited to the state dinner at the Tuileries, always given to artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts has awarded its highest honors, Napoleon had not the courage to give it to her, lest public opinion might not agree with him in conferring it upon a woman. Possibly he felt, more than the world knew, the insecurity of his throne.

Henry Bacon, in the _Century_, thus describes the way in which Rosa Bonheur finally received the badge of distinction. "The Emperor, leaving Paris for a short summer excursion in 1865, left the Empress as Regent. From the imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a short drive to By (the home of Mademoiselle Bonheur). The countersign at the gate was forced, and unannounced, the Empress entered the studio where Mademoiselle Rosa was at work. She rose to receive the visitor, who threw her arms about her neck and kissed her. It was only a short interview. The imperial vision had departed, the rumble of the carriage and the crack of the outriders' whips were lost in the distance. Then, and not till then, did the artist discover that as the Empress had given the kiss, she had pinned upon her blouse the Cross of the Legion of Honor." Since then she has received the Leopold Cross of Honor from the King of Belgium, said to be the first ever conferred upon a woman; also a decoration from the King of Spain. Her brother Auguste, now dead, received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1867, two years after Rosa.

In preparing to paint the "Horse Fair" and other similar pictures, which have brought her much into the company of men, she has found it wise to dress in male costume. A laughable incident is related of this mode of dress. One day when she returned from the country, she found a messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness of one of her young friends. Rosa did not wait to change her male attire, but hastened to the bedside of the young lady. In a few minutes after her arrival, the doctor, who had been sent for, entered, and seeing a young man, as he supposed, seated on the side of the bed, with his arm round the neck of the sick girl, thought he was an intruder, and retreated with all possible speed. "Oh! run after him! He thinks you are my lover, and has gone and left me to die!" cried the sick girl.

Rosa flew down stairs, and soon returned with the modest doctor.