Honoré de Balzac

“ After two years of marriage what man would ever care about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty fades,—but ugliness remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That night when he went to bed the painter had come to think Virginie Vervelle charming.
When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the artist received them with smiles. ”

“ Grassou could not help coloring, for Virginie was sitting.
"Take Nature as you find her," said the great painter, going on with his lecture. "Mademoiselle is red-haired. Well, is that a sin? All things are magnificent in painting. Put some vermillion on your palette, and warm up those cheeks; touch in those little brown spots; come, butter it well in. Do you pretend to have more sense than Nature?"
"Look here," said Fougeres, "take my place while I go and write that note."
Vervelle rolled to the table and whispered in Grassou's ear:—
"Won't that country lout spoilt it?" ”

“ Now, instead of a tournament, we have a mob; instead of a noble exhibition, we have a tumultuous bazaar; instead of a choice selection we have a chaotic mass. What is the result? A great artist is swamped. Decamps' "Turkish Cafe," "Children at a Fountain," "Joseph," and "The Torture," would have redounded far more to his credit if the four pictures had been exhibited in the great Salon with the hundred good pictures of that year, than his twenty pictures could, among three thousand others, jumbled together in six galleries. ”

“ With the timidity of a neophyte in presence of a man of genius, Vervelle risked giving Fougeres an invitation to come out to his country-house on the following Sunday. He knew, he said, how little attraction a plain bourgeois family could offer to an artist.
"You artists," he continued, "want emotions, great scenes, and witty talk; but you'll find good wines, and I rely on my collection of pictures to compensate an artist like you for the bore of dining with mere merchants." ”

“ At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at which the bourgeois of Paris conceive, periodically, the burlesque idea of perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in themselves, Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette, and lighted his stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting till the frost on his windows had melted sufficiently to let the full light in. ”

“ The minister of the Interior ordered two church pictures of Fougeres.
This Salon of 1829 was to Pierre Grassou his whole fortune, fame, future, and life. Be original, invent, and you die by inches; copy, imitate, and you'll live. After this discovery of a gold mine, Grassou de Fougeres obtained his benefit of the fatal principle to which society owes the wretched mediocrities to whom are intrusted in these days the election of leaders in all social classes; who proceed, naturally, to elect themselves and who wage a bitter war against all true talent. ”

“ These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which Fougeres employed what painters call studio fun.
"Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for nothing."
"Oh! oh!"
"I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest man."
"Come, out with it!"
"Well, I'm prepared to bring you a father, mother, and only daughter."
"All for me?"
"Yes—they want their portraits taken. These bourgeois—they are crazy about art—have never dared to enter a studio. The girl has a 'dot' of a hundred thousand francs. ”

“ At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs' worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. ”

“ Fougeres quietly fetched his canvas, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and brought it home, vowing in his heart that he would still make himself a great painter. He placed his picture on the easel, and went to one of his former masters, a man of immense talent,—to Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and criticise the rejected work. The great painter left everything and went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before him Schinner, after a glance, pressed Fougeres' hand.
"You are a fine fellow," he said ”

“ The next moment Elie Magus entered and found the painter in the act of beginning his work in the tidy studio.
"How are you, old rascal?" said the painter.
Fougeres had the cross of the Legion of honor, and Elie Magus bought his pictures at two and three hundred francs apiece, so he gave himself the airs of a fine artist.
"Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six sous' worth of color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll say that. You are steady ”

“ Coming last from Bordeaux, he was just starting in Paris, selling old pictures and living on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. Fougeres, who relied on his palette to go to the baker's, bravely ate bread and nuts, or bread and milk, or bread and cherries, or bread and cheese, according to the seasons. Elie Magus, to whom Pierre offered his first picture, eyed it for some time and then gave him fifteen francs.
"With fifteen francs a year coming in, and a thousand francs for expenses," said Fougeres, smiling, "a man will go fast and far." ”

“ Another man, one of those distrustful, surly artists, would have noticed the diabolical look on Elie's face and seen the twitching of the hairs of his beard, the irony of his moustache, and the movement of his shoulders which betrayed the satisfaction of Walter Scott's Jew in swindling a Christian. ”

“ Fougeres, being merely a genre painter, does not need the immense machinery and outfit which ruin historical painters; he has never recognized within himself sufficient faculty to attempt high-art, and he therefore clings to easel painting. ”

“ Madame de Fougeres! not a bad name—doesn't look like a bad man either! One might prefer a merchant; but before a merchant retires from business one can never know what one's daughter may come to; whereas an economical artist—and then you know we love Art—Well, we'll see!"
While the Vervelle family discussed Pierre Grassou, Pierre Grassou discussed in his own mind the Vervelle family. He found it impossible to stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard, and looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. ”

“ By some strange contradiction, ever since the doors are open to every one there has been much talk of unknown and unrecognized genius. When, twelve years earlier, Ingres' "Courtesan," and that of Sigalon, the "Medusa" of Gericault, the "Massacre of Scio" by Delacroix, the "Baptism of Henri IV." by Eugene Deveria, admitted by celebrated artists accused of jealousy, showed the world, in spite of the denials of criticism, that young and vigorous palettes existed, no such complaint was made. ”

“ During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate with the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As they went away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite of this separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally awakened her curiosity.
"Decorated—thirty-seven years old—an artist who gets orders—puts his money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! ”