ecdotes 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 Lachevre 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 l