An Artist in her Own Right Read online

  An Artist in Her

  Own Right

  Ann Marti Friedman

  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2018

  Octavo House

  West Bute Street

  Cardiff

  CF10 5LJ

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  Copyright © Ann Marti Friedman 2018

  The right of Ann Marti Friedman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Accent Press Ltd.

  ISBN 9781786154125

  eISBN 9781786154118

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A

  In loving memory

  Mary Sebastian

  Marilyn Stokstad

  Chapter 1

  Paris and Toulouse

  July-September 1840

  Paris July 1840

  They are bringing back the body of Bonaparte, a name I had hoped not to hear again in this house. For months Paris has buzzed with news of nothing else, and I am sick of it. The former emperor will be exhumed from his ignominious grave in St Helena and brought “home” – albeit to Paris, not Corsica. A splendid catafalque has been ordered for the funeral cortège, a funeral mass commissioned from Hector Berlioz, fulsome speeches written, invitation lists drawn up.

  The artists, too, want to play their part in this fanfare. Was not Bonaparte a generous patron of the arts? My late husband, Antoine-Jean Gros, spent twenty years depicting his accomplishments. Horace Vernet, who makes a virtual industry of scenes glorifying Bonaparte, calls a meeting. Though I have little patience with this nonsense, it is good to get out of the house. When I arrive at his studio, I have several minutes’ pleasant conversation with Antoine’s contemporaries, while one of Vernet’s pupils hands round cups of tea. But when I tell him my name, Augustine Dufresne, I see him struggle to place me. Though I, too, am an artist and exhibited paintings at three Salons, those art exhibitions at the Louvre that were the ultimate mark of prestige for an artist, these were probably before he was born. There is an awkward silence. Finally someone explains, “She is Baroness Gros.”

  I inwardly cringe, knowing what will come next.

  “Oh, Baroness Gros!” breathes the young man reverently. “Your husband painted Jaffa!” His voice rises in his excitement, conversations stop, heads turn in our direction.

  Again, I think, clicking down my teacup in disgust. I loathe being introduced like that, known only for my husband’s famous picture of Bonaparte visiting the French soldiers’ plague hospital at Jaffa during the Egyptian campaign. That painting brought Antoine so much joy in 1804 and so much grief in the years that followed. He was never able to escape from the shadow of its fame or its subject matter. Nor have I. It has followed us like – well – like the plague. I suddenly decide I must leave Paris, lest I be faced with still more of this. Where could I go to be well away?

  My dissatisfied mood persists as I return home to the apartment in the rue des Saints Pères and walk through the rooms in the gathering dusk. I had been so delighted to decorate it in the modern fashion as a new bride in 1809, but now it seems more like a museum of Empire taste – so much mahogany, so many Egyptian heads, eagles, sylphs, and griffins. There is even a carpet strewn with N’s and bees, made for Bonaparte while he was emperor but discarded by his successors. Once, too, these rooms had voices in them.

  “Bonsoir, chèèèrrre Maman! Ça va?” Antoine loved to draw out that word, rolling the r. I heard two kisses, as boisterous as his greeting, planted on her withered cheeks.

  “Bonsoir, mon fils. I hope you are hungry – I asked Cook to make boeuf bourguignon, your favorite.”

  “Merci, Maman – but you know such rich dishes don’t agree with Augustine.”

  “That one has been painting all day. She should poke her nose out of her room and attend to the menus herself!”

  I emerge from my studio. “No need to shout, Maman Madeleine. I’m here now.”

  “Bonsoir, Augustine.” A quieter greeting for me, with more decorous kisses. “Maman says you’ve been keeping busy.”

  Keeping busy. In the Gros household I was not Augustine Dufresne, artist, practicing my art, but Madame Gros, wife, keeping busy.

  No use fuming about the past. I shut the door on that memory.

  I go to the bedroom and sit on the bed Antoine and I shared. Too restless to sleep, I begin to sort through my clothes to decide what to pack. There are only a few things besides the half-dozen mourning dresses made for me as a new widow five years ago. They are shabby now, but I have grown indifferent to clothes. For whom should I dress?

  Then, in the back of the armoire, I notice a crumpled bit of pink and reach to bring it out into the light. It is the red fabric rose that Antoine bought for me during our wedding trip to Toulouse. A vendor had a basket of them on her arm, and on a whim he purchased it and gave it to me, telling me that it and I should never fade but stay as fresh and blooming as we were at that moment. He could be charming, my Antoine. No, I think sadly, this flower and I have faded together, and I have been too long soured by life.

  Toulouse. Why did I not think of it before? I will go to Toulouse. I will walk again in its streets of brick buildings; enjoy again the majesty of Saint-Sernin; be cheered by the singsong cadence of the native speech; walk along the river and canal, breathe the air that is both invigorating and relaxing.

  I sleep very little that night, reliving memories of the city, making practical plans for the trip, mentally packing my trunk. My determination grows stronger the more I think about it. I will flee from the forthcoming funeral. I will relive the happiness and hopeful beginning of our married life before the bitterness set in.

  When my maid Marie-Louise (named after Bonaparte’s second empress) brings my morning coffee, I tell her of my plans. She is dismayed. “Leave Paris? Travel now? When all Paris is preparing for the Emperor’s return?”

  I reply tartly, “Oh, but the Emperor is traveling now – he has inspired me!”

  The more I think of it, the more the idea grows on me. How long has it been since I did something on impulse? That in itself has the pleasure of novelty. Why should I not please myself?

  Two days later I tell my sister Ange-Pauline my plans. She objects, “Antoine would have wanted to be here.”

  “I’m not so sure of it. He would have wanted to pay his respects, but seeing the actual casket and the proof of his hero’s death, he’d have had another nervous breakdown. The last one was bad enough.”

  My comment brought a shrill note into the conversation that felt out of place. Ange replied softly, “I think it would have broken his heart all over again.” We were both silent for a moment. “Tine, haven’t you forgiven him yet?”

  I am startled. She is right. Disdain of Antoine has become an engrained habit. I think again of the rose from our honeymoon and feel a fresh stab of regret. It is time I left bad memories behind.

  Toulouse, September 1840

  I stir in an unfamiliar bed in a comfortable hotel. How delicious to not need to get ready for another day of riding in a coach! The church on the corner chimes seven. Rays of sunlight are already making their way across the building across the street, softening its worn red brick to pink, earning th
e city its nickname of “la ville rose.” The sounds of the street waking up below have become familiar and comforting. I am glad I decided to come here. I made the right choice, breaking out of the routine of Paris. Breathing the warm air, rejoicing in the beauty of the place and the memories of our honeymoon, I feel liberated.

  For a week I simply wander where my fancy takes me. The buildings and the light are enchanting. Why did I not remember this? I purchase a sketchbook and pencils so that I can capture the effects. It is a pleasure to have new subject matter.

  Toulouse, three weeks later

  The month does not end as well as it began. For ten days it has rained steadily, and I have had to remain indoors and distract myself with reading novels and the latest papers from Paris, but there is nothing in them that holds my interest for very long. I am pleased to note that Bonaparte’s return, so prominent a farce upon their pages is, in Toulouse, no more than a distant rumbling.

  At the next break in the weather I go back to the bookseller’s. He assures me a local worthy’s memoirs are of interest, but I find them very dull. And his treatment of his wife, as though she had no importance, no inner life of her own aside from him, makes me shut the book in disgust. I feel great sympathy for her. I, too, have been a great man’s wife. Monsieur Delestre has been very persistent in having me share Antoine’s papers with him for the biography he is writing. Twenty-five years of Antoine’s life were mine also, but my portion of the thick volume of his life will be an occasional fleeting mention. Privately, his biographers will say what a bad wife I was, how unhappy I made the great man. The causes of my own unhappiness will never be taken into account.

  Why should I let an account of my days rest in the hands of these men? Why should I not write down my own story for the world to read and make its own judgment? I too have lived through tumultuous times for France, from the depths of the Revolution to the pinnacle of the Empire. I have seen the Bourbon kings regain the throne only to lose it again. I have met Napoleon and Joséphine. I have known the greatest painters of our time and am proud to be an artist myself. Surely I have things to say that are of interest not only to myself?

  The next morning I return to the shop and purchase a ream of creamy white sheets smooth to the touch, watermarked laid paper to ease the flow of the pen over its surface and lend importance to the words it carries. I request quills, but the bookseller urges me to try instead the new steel nib pens from England favored by several customers. I select several pens, good black ink, a clever traveling case for ink and sander and pens, and a fine leather portfolio for carrying a quantity of sheets at a time.

  “Allow me to present these as a gift, Madame –” and he holds out a pair of cotton sleeve protectors such as he wears, to keep my dress safe from wayward splashes and blots of ink.

  “Thank you!” I exclaim, startled out of my usual formality, feeling as pleased as a little girl being given a birthday present. I haven’t felt that way in years. He offers to have my purchases delivered to the hotel, but I am too impatient to wait for it.

  I hug the parcel to myself as I hurry back to my room. I clear the table by the window, arrange my new purchases on it, and ring for a pot of tea. Momentarily I am daunted by the task before me, but the hot drink revives me. I smile. It is really very simple. I will begin at the beginning, 1789, the year of my birth, when the world as my parents had known it was swept away.

  Chapter 2

  Paris, 1789-1806

  I grew up in the shadow of the guillotine. My mother was six months pregnant at the fall of the Bastille. She had felt the heat and closeness of the July day all the more keenly because of her condition. Rumors and unrest had been building for weeks, even in our neighborhood of the Bourse, at some remove from the old fortress. Throngs of people were out in the streets and along the river, seeking a breath of fresh air but finding only the smells of packed bodies and sweating horses. They had been slaking their thirst with wine but were made sullen by it instead of cheerful, and open to the urging of rabble-rousers. Now there were shouts, voices, and the angry murmur of crowds. Few people in Paris slept that night. My father and his friend Monsieur Robin, the notary in whose house we lived on the rue Neuve Saint-Augustin, went out to investigate, much to the consternation of Maman. She told me how she grew chill with fear despite the stifling heat, and how this fear seems to have transmitted itself to me: that was the first time she felt me kick. It was, she told me, the one good thing to come out of that evening.

  The men stayed out for several hours. Papa had seen enough to frighten him. He would never give us any details, no matter how often we asked – things not fit for the ears of children, he said. He, too, stayed in after that. It seemed, at first, to be just another riot, perhaps powerful enough, for once, to get the sluggish government to act. By the date of my birth, 10 October, it was clear that it was something far more serious, though few predicted the bloodbath it would become, with so many people being guillotined in the Place de la Révolution.

  The political situation did not diminish my parents’ joy. Maman was thirty-seven, Papa even older, and they often told me how eagerly they had awaited their first child. I was named Augustine after Maman’s mother, one of the few times my grandmother was proud of me. Papa purchased a fine cradle with a gauze canopy. A teething coral on a silver handle hung on its side. Visitors came bearing cornets of sugared almonds. I lay in the christening gown that had been Maman’s, surrounded by several dolls which were then carefully put aside for when I was older. The cradle and gown were used two years later for my sister Ange-Pauline and three years after for my brother Baudouin-Henri. The cradle was then sold, and the gown and coral were put aside and later used by Pauline’s boy and girl. I wish I could have used them for a child of my own.

  Papa, in particular, showed his delight in me. Rather than send me to a wet nurse in the wholesome countryside, as was the custom, he brought in a nurse so that I could remain as home. Papa worked as an agent de change, buying and selling bills on the exchange. Honoré de Balzac has depicted the profession in an unflattering way in his novel César Birotteau, but Papa was known to be scrupulously honest. Every evening, however weary he was from his day at the Bourse, he nonetheless had the energy to climb to the nursery in the attic to spend time with me. As careworn as he became in the years of turmoil, he always had time for a smile, a kiss, and a story for me.

  Papa and Maman were very devout. As long as it was safe they went regularly to mass. When the Faith was outlawed, the family prayed in private behind closed doors, out of earshot of the servants. They had been with us a long time and would not have betrayed us, Papa carefully explained, but he did not want to give them anything they would need to lie about if questioned. I learned early to be worried and suspicious; in this way the Terror left its mark on me for life.

  Maman was equally devout in her support of Louis XVI. Every night she prayed for the safety of the King and Queen, their son Louis and daughter Marie-Thérèse, and the King’s sister Madame Elisabeth. After the King and Queen were sent to the guillotine and the young Louis XVII died in prison, she prayed for their souls. I named my three dolls Marie-Antoinette, Elisabeth, and Marie-Thérèse after the women of the royal family and played endless games helping them escape first from imprisonment in the Conciergerie and then from Paris. When Marie-Thérèse was released just before my sixth birthday, Maman gave a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for this sole survivor of the royal family. “I told you not to worry,” I said to my doll. Years later I met the Princess when she had become the Duchesse d’Angoulême. Her bearing was far too formal to permit mention of my doll, but I told her about our family prayers. She remarked, with one of her rare smiles, that she wished half her supposed supporters at court could claim to have done the same.

  They were fearful years. No one knew when his or her life might be forfeit. Papa was careful to follow all the outward signs of obedience to the new régime. He brought home red, white and blue cockades for all of us to wear on our
coats. I protested at first, saying it was dishonest. “We do what we must in order to survive,” he told me quietly but firmly, “until times change and the country returns to its senses.” Like many, he was a pragmatist in the face of disaster. Even baby Henri had a cockade that he was always putting in his mouth. My sister and I often had to wipe red, white and blue saliva off his chin, while he giggled happily at our disgusted faces.

  One day, two soldiers paused to watch us, and I froze inwardly, wondering whether Henri had transgressed some ruling of the Tribunal. Surely they would not drag an infant to the guillotine?

  “He eats the Tricolor,” remarked one, amused. “Yes, he’ll be a good son of the Revolution,” replied his companion. They laughed and continued on their way, to my profound relief.

  When I was old enough, I was sent to the local lycée for my education. The convent schools had closed, the nuns fled or in hiding, but the government believed in educating us all to be good citizens of the new Republic. I learned to read, to write in an elegant hand (no longer, I fear, much in evidence on these pages), to do mathematics well enough to enable me to keep household accounts, to play the pianoforte, and to draw. It was the drawing master at the school who first discovered my ability.

  On the long days when Papa was at work and Maman was fretful and wanted to lie down and my friends were not free to play, I discovered the solace that drawing and painting could bring. I was wholly absorbed when I struggled to capture an image on paper. The hours flew by without my noticing, until an ache in my back and neck told me I had bent over the paper for too long. Sometimes I would be startled by my father’s return or the maid’s entry with a lamp in the gathering dusk. Maman was more worried that I would ruin my eyes and my posture than she was appreciative of my efforts, but then Papa showed them to Monsieur Denon.

  Dominique Vivant-Denon had been Papa’s friend since before he met Maman. In the years of which I write, Denon had the acumen to attach himself to the staff of the young general who was working such miracles in Italy. The name Bonaparte was on everyone’s lips, and I remember the thrill we felt at being able to claim acquaintance with someone who actually knew him.