The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

by David McCullough

  215 “the great, joyous”: Ibid.

  215 Like Shakespeare: Ibid., 163.

  216 “glorious enough”: Ibid., 160.

  216 “painted with dry eyes”: Ibid.

  216 “driest imitation”: Ibid., 165.

  216 that passion for the outward: Ibid., 167.

  217 I gazed until all surrounding: Ibid., 152.

  217 “who had not seen human life”: Ibid., 166.

  217 “With all New England’s earnestness”: Ibid., 392.

  218 “One in whom”: Ibid.

  218 “The splendor of Paris”: Hawthorne, The French and Italian Notebooks, ed. Woodson, 13.

  218 The emperor deserved great credit: Ibid., 15.

  219 “Perhaps never before”: New York Times, October 29, 1855.

  219 When Queen Victoria: Ibid., September 14, 1855.

  220 American visitors, however, were delighted: New York Tribune, August 23, 1855.

  220 Of the 796 French artists: The Crayon, September 12, 1855.

  220 Among them were William Morris Hunt: Ibid., November 5, 1855.

  220 William B. Ogden: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 57.

  220 I had often thought of returning: Ibid., 57–88.

  221 He was small: Walker, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 24.

  221 Much of his boyhood: Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, 4–10.

  221 At sixteen, like his father: Ibid., 16.

  221 The only course: Ibid., 17, 19.

  221 “Had silicon been a gas”: Ibid., 24.

  221 Nor would his “peculiar” hat: Pennell and Pennell, Life of James McNeill Whistler, Vol. I, 5.

  222 He did, however, take up with: Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, 52.

  222 “the universal harmonizer”: Walker, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 95.

  222 “I don’t think he stayed long”: Pennell and Pennell, Life of James McNeill Whistler, Vol. I, 51.

  222 “His genius, however”: Ibid., 52.

  222 “Everything he enjoyed”: Ibid., 69.

  222 He left owing Monsieur Lalouette: Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, 58.

  223 “For heaven’s sake”: Thomas Appleton to his father, October 31, 1846, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  223 “I think slavery a sin”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 112.

  223 The first news of the savage physical attack: Galignani’s Messenger, June 9, 1856.

  223 The assault had taken place: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 292–97.

  223 “The Crime against Kansas”: Ibid., 283.

  223 Like Webster’s reply to Hayne: Ibid.

  224 “harlot slavery”: Ibid., 285.

  224 An incensed congressman: Ibid., 289–90.

  224 He chose the cane: Ibid., 291.

  224 “wrest”: Ibid.

  224 It was early afternoon: Ibid., 291–97.

  224 “Mr. Sumner”: Ibid., 294.

  224 Sumner’s desk: Ibid., 294–95. The fact that the desk would have been screwed to the floor was verified by the Senate Curator’s Office in Washington, D.C.

  225 “thirty first-rate”: Ibid., 295.

  225 “I wore my cane out”: Ibid.

  225 “an oppressive sense of weight”: White, “Was Charles Sumner Shamming, 1856–1869?” New England Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3 (September 1960), 307.

  225 Sumner departed New York: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 520.

  226 To look at Mr. Sumner now: New York Tribune, April 11 and 13, 1857.

  226 “The sea air, or seasickness”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 530.

  226 “Civilization seemed to abound”: Ibid., 530.

  226 “sallied forth”: Ibid.

  226 “The improvements are prodigious”: Ibid.

  227 From his “beautiful apartment”: Ibid.

  227 “He did not disguise”: Ibid., 531.

  227 “With a people so changeable”: Ibid., 538.

  227 “He speaks of the emperor”: Ibid., 535.

  228 “they call it la grippe ”: Ibid., 525.

  228 “very gay and beautiful”: Ibid., 526.

  228 “I tremble for Kansas”: Ibid.

  228 Young Henry James: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 347.

  228 At one evening affair: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 539.

  228 At two other gatherings: Ibid., 538–39.

  228 He visited the Imperial Library: Ibid., 539.

  228 He made a return visit: Ibid., 540.

  228 “I dine out very often”: Thomas Appleton to his father, December 22, 1852, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  229 One evening it was an American naval officer: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 540.

  229 “although apparently functionally sound”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 275.

  229 “vileness and vulgarity”: Ibid., 276.

  230 When several doctors advised: Ibid., 561.

  230 Charles Edward Brown-Séquard: Ibid., 336–37.

  230 “a bold experimenter”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 563.

  230 The cure the doctor recommended: Ibid., 338.

  230 “The doctor is clear”: Ibid., 565.

  231 “baseless theory”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 340.

  231 From what is known: See ibid., 336–42.

  231 “cruel treatment”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 565.

  231 When in August: Galignani’s Messenger, August 22, 1858.

  231 “At this moment my system”: Prime, The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse, 600.

  232 “the utmost enthusiasm”: New York Times, September 9, 1858.

  232 Of the eighty gentlemen: Galignani’s Messenger, August 22, 1858.

  232 “Every figure of rhetoric”: Silverman, Lightning Man, 376.

  232 “benefactor of mankind”: Report on the Dinner Given by Americans in Paris, August 17th at the “Trois Frères” to Professor S. F. B. Morse in Honor of His Invention of the Telegraph and on the Occasion of Its Completion Under the Atlantic Ocean, 40.

  232 He was to be awarded: Silverman, Lightning Man, 376.

  233 I seize the moment: Sumner, Works of Charles Sumner, Vol. IV, 410.

  233 “no great cause for despondency”: Galignani’s Messenger, September 11, 1858.

  233 He was determined: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. III, 570.

  233 “If anybody cares to know”: Ibid., 591.

  233 In the last few days: Ibid., 592.

  234 “dear old Sumner”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 288.

  234 He walks on those great long legs: Ibid.

  234 “sat to the artist”: Eliot, Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography, 99.

  234 “She complains of my ugliness”: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 69.

  234 “to hide my horrible”: Ibid., 70.

  235 “a Northern man”: Ibid., 68.

  235 “heart and soul”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, 323.

  235 In Paris the April weather: Galignani’s Messenger, April 5, April 20, April 23, 1861.

  235 Wagner’s Tannhäuser: Galignani’s Messenger, March 15 and 27, 1861.

  235 Longfellow’s Hiawatha: New York Tribune, April 1, 1861.

  236 With great military pageantry: Galignani’s Messenger, April 4, 1861.

  236 “deep mourning”: Ibid.

  236 Demolition for the “prolongation”: Ibid., April 16, 1861.

  236 “telegraphic dispatches”: Ibid., April 27, 1862.

  236 “The Civil War in the States”: Ibid., April 28, 1861.

  236 “in a frantic state of excitement”: Ibid.

  236 We who are residing: New York World, April 28, 1861.

  8. Bound to Succeed

  The most valuable accoun
t of the life of Augustus Saint-Gaudens is his own autobiography, his Reminiscences in two volumes, compiled in the last years of his life with the help of his son Homer. Virtually all that he had to relate was either dictated to Homer or recorded by phonograph. Much that he did not cover, or that needed editorial explanation, Homer supplied. There is admirable candor and absence of pretension throughout, as characteristic of the man, and much that is particularly appealing concerns his student years in New York and Paris, along with generous samplings from the reminiscences of such lifelong friends as Alfred Garnier and Paul Bion.

  Two subsequent biographies are Saint-Gaudens and the Gilded Era by Louise Hall Tharp (1969) and Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus SaintGaudens by Burke Wilkinson (1985).

  As an illustrated guide to the life and works, nothing surpasses August SaintGaudens, 1848–1907, A Master of American Sculpture, published by the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, and the Musée National de la Coopération Franco-Américain, Château de Blérancourt. Its detailed chronology is a resource to be found nowhere else.

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  239 I was chiefly impressed: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus SaintGaudens, Vol. I, 87.

  239 Augustus Saint-Gaudens came to Paris: Ibid., 52.

  239 He was nineteen years old: Ibid., 61.

  239 I walked with my heavy carpet bag: Ibid., 62.

  240 His French father: Ibid., 37.

  240 “sicker than a regiment”: Ibid., 61–62.

  240 Gus, as he was known: Ibid., 9.

  240 In New York, after a struggle: Ibid., 12.

  240 The sign read french ladies’ boots: Ibid., 16.

  240 At home the father addressed: Ibid.

  240 “sweet Irish brogue”: Ibid., 18.

  240 “picturesque personality”: Ibid., 16.

  240 “typical long”: Ibid., 11.

  241 “heroic charges”: Ibid., 20.

  241 “through my fault”: Ibid.

  241 “one long imprisonment”: Ibid., 22.

  241 “the delights” of Robinson Crusoe: Ibid., 24.

  241 His father apprenticed him: Ibid., 32, 38.

  241 “a miserable slavery”: Ibid., 28–39.

  241 “When he was not scolding me”: Ibid., 38.

  241 “Sculptured heads”: Scientific American, November 6, 1847.

  242 The success of a cameo: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus SaintGaudens, Vol. I, 37.

  242 The apprenticeship with Avet: Ibid., 43.

  242 The boy refused: Ibid.

  242 He later spoke: Ibid.

  242 He went to work for another: Ibid., 44.

  242 “I became a terrific worker”: Ibid., 45.

  242 Indeed, I became so exhausted: Ibid., 45–46.

  243 Once, from an open window: Ibid., 41.

  243 “Grant himself”: Ibid., 42.

  243 “entirely out of proportion”: Ibid.

  243 One day during the Draft Riots: Ibid., 50.

  243 Like many parents, Eakins’s father: Kirkpatrick, Revenge of Thomas Eakins, 49.

  244 an “interminable” line: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus SaintGaudens, Vol. I, 51.

  244 “full sympathy with the Rebellion”: Washburne, Recollections of a Minister to France, Vol. II, 248.

  244 That was well known: Ibid.

  244 A Confederate mission: Carson, The Dentist and the Empress: The Adventures of Dr. Tom Evans in Gas-Lit Paris, 83.

  244 The one time when the “excitement”: Galignani’s Messenger, June 21, 1864.

  245 The painter Édouard Manet: See Sloane, “Manet and History,” Art Quarterly, Vol. XIV, no. 2 (Summer 1951), 93–95.

  245 According to one journal: Galignani’s Messenger, June 23, 1864.

  245 “In his spare but strong-knit”: Wilkinson, Uncommon Clay: The Life and Works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 373.

  245 “took long walks”: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus SaintGaudens, Vol. I, 60–61.

  246 “always the triste undertone”: Ibid., 129.

  246 Before leaving for Paris: Ibid., 361.

  246 He considered a pencil portrait: Ibid., 25.

  246 “bad straits”: Ibid., 62.

  246 “cheaper to cheaper”: Ibid., 63.

  246 “miserably poor”: Ibid.

  246 “dwell on the ugly side”: Ibid., 62.

  246 We worked in a stuffy: Ibid., 69.

  247 The theme was “objects for the improvement”: King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism, 194.

  247 At the time of the official opening: Galignani’s Messenger, April 2, 1867.

  247 People were calling it: New York Times, May 10, 1867.

  247 “At the Grand Hôtel they were”: Ibid., June 17, 1867.

  248 “Paris is now the great center”: Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and Journals, Vol. II, 454.

  248 The favorite American import: Kirkpatrick, The Revenge of Thomas Eakins, 98.

  248 Travel was a “wild novelty”: Twain, Innocents Abroad, 645.

  248 They “deceive and defraud”: Ibid., 123.

  248 “I knew by their looks”: Ibid., 151.

  249 The idea of it is to dance: Ibid., 136.

  249 “the beautiful city”: Ibid., 151.

  249 The most admiring crowds: See Blake, ed., Report of the U.S. Commissioners to the Paris Exposition, 1867, Vol. I, 12; FitzWilliam Sargent to his mother, June 12, 1867, Archives of American Art.

  249 “M. Homer ought not”: Simpson, Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War, 258.

  250 “I am working hard”: Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, 191.

  250 A painting by Homer: Adler, Americans in Paris, 1860–1900, 245.

  250 It was a small bronze, a standing figure: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Vol. II, 184.

  251 Further, on July 2, word reached: Galignani’s Messenger, July 2, 1867.

  251 The great majority: Ibid.

  251 “The United States, having astonished”: Washburne, Recollections of a Minister to France, Vol. I, 35.

  252 The famous couturier: Latour, Kings of Fashion, 83.

  252 Bringing one lady: McCullough, The Great Bridge, 166.

  252 “waiting for ladies’ dresses”: Adams, The Letters of Henry Adams, ed. J. C. Levenson, Vol. I, 546.

  252 “hordes of low Germans”: Ibid., 547.

  252 Dr. Thomas Evans regularly supplied: Carson, The Dentist and the Empress, 77.

  252 One resident American in Paris: Ibid., 78–79.

  253 I was obliged: De Hegermann-Lindencrone, In the Courts of Memory, 1858–1875, 96.

  253 “The American flag is freely displayed”: FitzWilliam Sargent to his mother, June 12, 1867, Archives of American Art.

  253 “Lincoln’s portrait”: Ibid.

  253 “He sketches quite nicely”: Mary Sargent to her mother from Nice, October 20, 1867.

  254 When a formal notification: Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Vol. I, 73–74.

  254 “the triumphant one”: Ibid., 74.

  254 “with little, intelligent black eyes”: Ibid.

  254 But Jouffroy’s compliments: Ibid., 77.

  254 At a student party: Ibid., 77–78.

  254 “I was finally admitted”: Ibid., 78.

  254 “amorous adventure”: Ibid., 63.

  254 “keep company”: Ibid.

  255 But so “soaring”: Ibid., 79.

  255 “Spartan-like superiority”: Ibid.

  255 “possessing so strongly”: Ibid., 87.

  255 “the most joyous creature”: Ibid.