Claude Lorrain

“ If Poussin reproduces the Roman Campagna, even when the scene of his landscapes is set elsewhere, Claude Lorraine reproduces the skies of Rome, even when he paints ships and a sunset at sea.
Why was I not the contemporary of certain privileged creatures to whom I feel attracted in the different centuries? But I should have had to rise from the dead too often. Poussin and Claude Lorraine have trodden the Capitol; kings have come there and not been worth so much as they. ”

“ CLAUDE’S “LIBRO DI VERITA.” It was thus Claude Lorraine denominated a book in which he made drawings of all the pictures he had ever executed. Since even in his own day his works had obtained a great reputation, it was found that many inferior artists had painted pictures in his style, and sold them as genuine Claudes; so that it was found necessary to prove the authenticity of his paintings by a reference to his “Book of Truth.”
This renowned record of genius is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. ”

“ Guido. Substituted for Claude Lorraine, upon whom, in The Morning Chronicle, Hazlitt has the following note: ‘In speaking thus of Claude, we yield rather to common opinion than to our own. However inferior the style of his best landscapes may be, there is something in the execution that redeems all defects. In taste and grace nothing can ever go beyond them. He might be called, if not the perfect, the faultless painter. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another Raphael, before there was another Claude. ”

“ One would think that perfection required at least a whole life to attain it. Lady Morgan has described this divine artist very prettily and poetically; but her description of Gaspar Poussin is as fine, and might in some places be mistaken for that of his rival. This is not as it should be; since the distance is immeasurable between the productions of Claude Lorraine and all other landscapes whatever—with the single exception of Titian’s backgrounds. ”

“ The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's hands.
They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel, flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the walls from north, south, west, and east.
"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life. We shall all live. France will be reborn."
"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the brow. ”

“ In the room above, Madame de Morteyn sat with Jack's hand in hers, smiling through her tears. The old vicomte stood beside her, one arm clasping Lorraine's slender waist.
"Children! children! wicked ones!" he repeated, "how dare you marry each other like two little heathen?"
"It comes, my dear, from your having married an American wife," said Madame de Morteyn, brushing away the tears; "they do those things in America."
"America!" grumbled the vicomte, perfectly delighted—"a nice country for young savages. Lorraine, you at least should have known better." ”

“ Mademoiselle de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour of France."
"Yes," said Lorraine.
Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon; this cannot go on. ”

“ The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that evening in the great dining-room. The Château, patrolled by doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the old house-keeper.
Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled trample of cavalry. ”

“ Lorraine’s father had been a gentleman by birth, breeding, and nature. If she inherited from her mother an ambitious, calculating spirit, she also inherited from her father refinement, and tone, and a certain fineness character, that showed itself chiefly in unorthodox ways, for the simple reason that her life and conditions were entirely removed from a conventional atmosphere.
As a man she might merely have lived a double life, conforming to the conventions when advisable, and following her own ambitions and bent in secret, without ever apparently stepping over the line. ”

“ On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the marquis—for Lorraine's sake.
He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working for France."
He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long as she lived. ”

“ Sir Roland Lorraine, in his little book-room, after that long talk with his mother, had fallen back into the chair of reflection, now growing more and more dear to him. He hoped for at least a good hour of peace to think of things, and to compare them with affairs that he had read of. It was all a trifle, of course, and not to be seriously dwelt upon. No man could have less belief in star, or comet, or even sun, as glancing out of their proper sphere, or orbit, at the dust of earth. ”

“ Well, don’t forget he has the reputation for being rather a dangerous man, old girl.”
Hal laughed again.
“I’ll tell him so, and go armed with a revolver next time.” She noticed an inquiring look in Lorraine’s eyes, and added: “Don’t look so serious, Lorry; he is old enough to be my father. He likes a little amusement, the same as you and Baby Hermon.”
She turned away as she spoke, and did not see the swift deepening of the look of inquiry, nor a certain strange expression that flitted across Lorraine’s face; and almost immediately the door opened, and Alymer Hermon walked in unannounced. ”

“ The confessions, to which are prefixed abstracts of Lorrain's ‘funeral sermons,’ are generally headed ‘The Ordinary of Newgate, his Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and last Speech of X.,’ &c. They were issued at eight o'clock on the morning following the execution, and signed Paul Lorrain, the public being warned against counterfeits and unauthorised accounts. Among the most notorious felons whom Lorrain attended to the scaffold were Captain Kidd, Captain T. Smith, James Sheppard, Deborah Churchill, and Jack Hill (Ashton, Social Life in Reign of Anne, 1883, p. 416) . ”

“ The Sister started a little.
"I will stay," she murmured. "Send this despatch when you go out. Can he live?"
They whispered together a moment, stepping softly to the door of the room where Lorraine lay.
"It can't be helped now," said the surgeon, looking at Lorraine; "she'll be well enough by to-morrow; she must stay with you. The chances are that he will die." [Pg 330]
The trample of the White Cuirassiers in the street outside filled the room; the serried squadrons thundered past, steel ringing on steel, horses neighing, trumpets sounding the "Royal March." Lorraine's eyes unclosed.
"Jack!" ”

“ And so they drove away in their dog-cart, down the flat, poplar-bordered road, silent, deeply moved, wondering what the end might be.
The repeated shocks, the dreadful experiences and encounters, the indelible impressions of desolation and grief and suffering had deadened in Lorraine all sense of personal suffering or grief. For her land and her people her heart had bled, drop by drop—her sensitive soul lay crushed within her. Nothing of selfish despair came over her, because France still stood. She had suffered too much to remember herself. ”

“ Sir Roland Lorraine sighed gently here; and even his brother-in-law had not the least idea why he did so. It was that Sir Roland, like all the more able Lorraines for several centuries, was at heart a fatalist. And this family taint had perhaps been deepened by the infusion of Eastern blood. This was the bar so often fixed between them and the rest of the world—a barrier which must hold good, while every man cares for his neighbour’s soul, so much more than his own for ever. ”

“ The sun glided behind the woods as he reached the bridge that crosses the Lisse, and the evening glow on feathery willow and dusty alder turned stem and leaf to shimmering rose.
It was seven o'clock, and he knew that he could keep his word to Lorraine. And now, too, he began to feel the fatigue of the day and the strain of the last two hours. In his excitement he had not noticed that two bullets had passed through his jacket, one close to the pocket, one ripping the gun-pads at the collar. ”

“ Lorraine cried out and followed him into the darkness, where the crashing of tiles and thunder of the exploding shells dazed and stunned her; but the soldier ran on across the garden, calling to her, and she followed, stumbling to his side.
"To the trees—yonder—the forest—" he gasped. [Pg 268]
They were already among the trees. Then Lorraine seized the man by the arm, her eyes wide with despair.
"Give me my dead!" she panted. "He is mine! mine! mine!"
"He is not dead," faltered the soldier, laying Jack down against a tree. ”

“ You keep all your coquetries for your own old father, I do believe.”
“Then tell me that I am worth a thousand, father—a thousand acres of good rich land with trees and hedges, and cows and sheep—surely I never can be worth all that: or at any rate not to you, papa.”
“You are worth to me,” said Sir Roland Lorraine—as she fell into his arms, and sobbed, and kissed him, and stroked his white beard, and then sobbed again—“not a thousand acres, but ten thousand—land, and hearth, and home, and heart!”
“Then after all you do love me, father. I call nothing love that loves anything else. ”

“ It is always most amazing, when we like a person exceedingly ourselves, to find that somebody else has formed a different opinion. With all his shortcomings, Lorraine appreciated Morland. He often missed his appointments, and was generally late for everything, but when he turned up he played her accompaniments as no one else ever played them. Moreover, he was a very pleasant companion, and full of fun in a mild artistic sort of fashion of his own. He was certainly one of the central figures in the beautiful, shiftless, Bohemian household on the hill. ”

“ The proper thing for him to do became all at once quite manifest; for a young girl suddenly sprang into the hall, like a hunted butterfly darting.
“They cannot catch me,” she exclaimed in Spanish—“they are too slow, the intoxicated men. I may always laugh at them. Here I will let them have another chase.”
Flitting in and out the shadows, as softly as if she were one of them, she stopped by the side of Hilary Lorraine, in a dark place, without seeing him. ”

“ There were so many doubtful episodes in connection with her—the cut telephone wire; her meeting on the shore with the man arrested only yesterday as a spy, who had claimed her portrait at the Academy as that of his wife.
"It looks bad!" thought Lorraine. "Oh, why didn't we persuade Morland to give that wretched case back at once to his captain? What will he do when he gets Claudia's telegram?" ”

“ Lorrain is, above all, the painter of light, and his works might be called the history of light and all its combinations, in small and great, when it is poured out over large plains or breaks in the most varied accidents, on land, on waters, in the heavens, in its eternal source. The human scenes thrown into one corner have no other object{197} than to relieve and make appear to advantage the scenes of nature by harmony or contrast. In the Village Fête, life, noise, movement are in front,—peace and grandeur are at the foundation of the landscape, and that is truly the picture. ”

“ Sir Roland Lorraine, being struck by her quite unwonted voice and manner, rose from his chair of meditation, left his thoughts about things which can never be thought out by mankind, and came to meet what a man should think of foremost—his child, his woman child. ”

“ Those who are proud, and glory in their variance from the common type, seldom vary much from it. So that in the year of grace 1811, the mighty comet that scared the world, spreading its tail over good and bad, overhung no house less conscious of anything under its roof peculiar, than the house of Coombe Lorraine.
With these Lorraines there had been a tradition (ripened, as traditions ripen, into a small religion) , that a certain sequence of Christian names must be observed, whenever allowed by Providence, in the heritage. These names in right order were Roland, Hilary, and Roger ”

“ I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch. Can you give me a mount, Jack?"
"There isn't a horse in the stable that can carry you to Metz," said Lorraine, quietly; "Diable is lame and Porthos is not shod. I can give you my pony." [Pg 131]
"Can't you get a train?" asked Jack, astonished.
"No, the Uhlans are in our rear, everywhere. The railroad is torn up, the viaducts smashed, the wires cut, and general deuce to pay. I ran into an Uhlan or two—you notice it perhaps," he added, with a grim smile. "Could you drive me to Morteyn? Do you think the vicomte would lend me a horse?" ”