“When I met you that day in the Louvre, you were copying my uncle’s portrait – I thought it was my uncle – in Gros’s painting. Do you want to paint portraits?”
“I wish I could, but I don’t have the talent for faces one needs to be a success at it. I want to paint military scenes but my parents would never permit me to attend large gatherings of soldiers on my own.”
“I could take you there one day,” he offered.
Thus chatting, he walked me home. In the weeks following, he would come to the studio to meet me on his free afternoons, and we would go walking. Our courtship was in those walks. Sometimes we would stroll east along the river to Notre Dame Cathedral or across the river to Panthéon, or through the Luxembourg Gardens to the Observatoire, not so much to see these monuments of the city as to be together for the day.
I met several of his friends. One who had known him at artillery school smiled and said, “Ah, the Mademoiselle Dufresne!”
Charles laughed. “Yes, she does exist, I did not invent her.”
“But you didn’t tell me how pretty she was either,” the other replied, with an exaggerated wink at me. I did not blush at this; I was learning how to flirt.
For the first time I began to look at the military with a proprietary air. “My young man” belonged to the Grande Armée, and the army, as a consequence, now belonged to me. It became my subject matter as well. Taunay was impressed and praised my work: “You are thinking less like a girl and more like an artist.”
Charles often took part in the cavalry exercises held on the Champ de Mars, the large parade ground in front of the former École Militaire, now used as a barracks, on Sunday afternoons. These served a dual purpose: to enable the young men and their horses to practice formation, and to keep public enthusiasm for the Emperor’s campaigns at a fever pitch. They provided a heart-stirring display of the glory of war without any of its grim reality. Whole families attended this free entertainment, cheering wildly. Twice I saw the lone figure of Gros among them, observing intently the horsemen and the reactions of the crowd.
The exercises began promptly at two o’clock with a blast of trumpets. The horse artillery rode out first, serious and intent, positioning their (empty) rifles and taking aim as their mounts increased speed from a trot to a canter to a gallop. The hussars of the light cavalry followed. These officers were the most showily dressed, each with his elaborately braided jacket slung over one shoulder like a cape, and a tall black shako on his head. The colors of the jackets varied according to the men’s regiments, and our eyes were drawn to the bright rainbow formed by the group. They charged, swords drawn. Finally, the cuirassiers of the heavy cavalry rode out in full battle dress, each wearing his cuirasse – breast and back plates of burnished steel with brass fittings – and casque, a steel and brass helmet with a flowing horse tail and short red plume. They shone in the sunlight, dazzling our eyes. They stopped and, on a signal, withdrew their sabers in one fluid motion and held them aloft. With a mighty yell they galloped forward in a battle charge, their bodies moving in union with their horses, the horses’ tails and helmet tails streaming, the ground shaking with the pounding of the horses’ hooves. My own heart was thudding with excitement. I was so proud of Charles and how well he looked seated on his mount. I was sure he sat up straighter, moved with superior grace and strength. I stood clutching my closed sketchbook to my chest. How silly of me to think I could observe something so stirring and calmly sketch it. That was better done later in the studio, when I was no longer too caught up in the moment.
Seeing him afterward come down to earth, his armor and weapon put away, wearing his everyday uniform, my heart continued to beat fast with the excitement he had stirred in me. Encouraged by the example of the wives and sweethearts around me, I impulsively threw my arms about him and kissed him passionately. He responded in kind, enfolding me in a strong embrace. Chills went up and down my spine. I had read about these sensations in novels but this was the first time I had felt them to my core. Had he asked me to go to bed with him, I would happily have thrown caution to the winds. To my disappointment, he drew back and grinned broadly down at me. Confused, I dropped my eyes and looked at our feet. Before my tears could fall, however, he brought my chin up with his forefinger and bent to kiss me tenderly on the lips. He offered me his arm and escorted me home as decorously as he had always done.
When Charles and I went to the Palais Royal, it was I who played guide. The former home of the Orléans branch of the royal family, it was now a popular public garden surrounded by shops and cafés on the ground floor and apartments above. At that time, the Bourse was located there, and I had visited often with Papa as he went about his business of buying and selling shares. Being with him had always been a special treat – partaking of the excitement of the shouting buyers and sellers, the promise of money changing hands – afterward, being taken by Papa and his friends to Berthellemot’s for ices, or to one of the cafés for hot chocolate, while they drank wine. It was there that we had celebrated Bonaparte’s first victories in Italy. Charles and I would sometimes see Papa or one of his colleagues, and I would present Charles to them with the grave and becoming air of a young lady.
We did not often stop for refreshment at one of the cafés. His lieutenant’s pay was not large and his gleaming new uniform had to be paid for out of that. On one memorable occasion he asked me to help him pick out a birthday gift for his mother, so that we had the pleasure of browsing the many shops together. At least, I enjoyed it; for Charles it was clearly tedium.
Another aspect of the Palais Royal was the many prostitutes who plied their trade there, strolling and catching the eye of any passing officer, then whisking him off to the rooms they kept upstairs. They would assess Charles saucily, note my presence in his company with a more critical eye, and shrug slightly as they determined he was not worth the effort. I accepted them as part of the landscape but looked at them with new understanding of sexual desire. I even smiled inwardly at causing them to turn away from a man they clearly found attractive. Charles, to my surprise, was disturbed less by their attention than by my calm acceptance of it. I teased him about it: surely their existence could come as no surprise to one in the army?
He blushed. “I have,” he struggled for the right words to use in polite society, “known them.” It’s a man’s right, his gaze said defiantly. “But you, Tine, who were brought up to be a young lady—”
I almost laughed out loud at his serious face as he explained this to me but stopped myself just in time. “They have been part of the Palais Royal as long as I have been coming here. It’s too late for me to be shocked by them. I just ignore them.” I shrugged as if to dismiss them.
Charles continued to look doubtful but thought the better of continuing the conversation. I could tell he was disappointed in me but did not know what I could do to make amends. By mutual consent we got up and left the café. It was our first disagreement.
Charles and I had first made each other’s acquaintance in front of Jaffa. Sentiment dictated that we should go together to see Gros’s Battle of Aboukir at the Salon held in the autumn of 1806. The fame of this scene of the Egyptian campaign, showing Murat leading the French cavalry in a charge against Turkish troops at the port of Aboukir, is almost as great as that of Jaffa. Murat had commissioned an even larger canvas, in which Napoleon, who had in fact led the French into battle, did not even appear. The painting’s action centered instead on Murat, the noble hero on his startled white horse. Like Jaffa, it attracted a large crowd that buzzed with excitement, echoing the energy of the painted scene. Eagerly we took our place among them. I realized now why Gros had watched the cavalry displays so intently. Charles’ eyes lit up at the sight of his hero and lingered lovingly on the horses. He scowled at Mustapha Pasha and looked smugly content at the terrified faces of the fleeing enemy troops. He gave a derisive laugh, however, at some parts of it. “It’s a battle. Where is the blood? There’s got to be more than that little drip coming fr
om Mustapha’s hand!”
His voice rose in indignation; heads were turned our way. “Hear, hear!” said an officer with a medal pinned to his coat. I did my best to explain.
“There’s no blood, but look, the color red is everywhere, suggesting it. To show blood would make this a scene of carnage, not battle. It would be too specific. A painting of battle,” I explained, paraphrasing what I had learned from Taunay, “elevates the scene. It’s not just Murat and Mustapha but also good versus evil, the brave versus the cowardly, and the good and brave are winning. The artist suggests a large messy battle but distills it to its essentials.” Earnest and passionate in defense of the painter’s art, I was finding an eloquence I had not known I possessed.
“But, Tine, what about the naked men – surely they’re not essential to battle!”
“To battle itself? No. They belong to battle painting.”
“Why add this and subtract that and elevate the next thing? Why not just show what really happened? Wouldn’t that be simpler?”
“It would be illustrative, but not art.”
The officer who had interjected the comment tapped Charles’s arm and said knowingly, “Monsieur Gros wasn’t at the battle, you know. He ‘observed’ it from the comfort of his Paris studio, using eyewitness reports. So when he thought of it, he thought like a painter. Artists!” Had we been outdoors, he would have spat.
“Were you there, sir?” asked Charles respectfully, standing to attention, a salute implied in his demeanor.
“No, at that time I was in Italy with our artist, escorting the baggage you see displayed around us here.” He gave a dismissive wave in the direction of the Grand Staircase. “Guarding a boatload of old marble rubbish instead of facing an honest battle! I ask you. Still, I got my chance later on. And young Gros was all right. He took hardship like a man when it found us.” His eyes had ceased to focus on Charles and looked inward at his memories.
Abruptly he came back to the present. “But if your young lady wants to talk about Art with you, lad, better indulge her. Your uniform looks too new to have seen battle yet. You’ll find out about its realities soon enough.” He clapped Charles on the shoulder, inclined his head to me, and limped swiftly away. Only when he moved did we notice that one trouser leg concealed a wooden limb whose echo on the wood floors could be heard even above the noise of the crowd.
We looked at each other, startled, unsure how to pick up the thread of the conversation. The dictates of Art seemed small indeed.
After France’s great victories of 1805, thousands of youths like Charles were eager to share in Napoleon’s glory. Charles wanted his father to be proud of him. Like the very young man he was, half his efforts were directed at impressing his elders. It was all a grand adventure. That he would come back safe, he never doubted.
After he had finished his training in Paris, he was sent not to Murat’s division as he had hoped but to the Netherlands troops of Napoleon’s brother Louis, now king of that country. Charles was bitterly disappointed but I confess I was relieved to have him somewhere peaceful and relatively safe.
I threw myself into my painting with renewed fervor, working up my sketches of the cavalry exercises into two paintings. One centered on the charge of the cuirassiers, the exhilaration of their forward momentum, with the crowd only a blur in the background. The other focused instead on the reaction of the crowd to the colorful hussars. Both Denon and Taunay were pleased with these canvases. Denon helped Papa to hang them on the walls of our salon.
My parents liked Charles and trusted him – or we would not have been allowed so much time alone together – but they felt that it was ridiculous to pin my hopes on a soldier. They urged me to find someone who would remain safely in Paris. As if such a man would interest me! Much as I loved Papa, I wanted someone more adventurous than a stockbroker.
Charles returned to Paris just before Christmas in 1807. We spent Christmas together and exchanged miniature portraits as presents. He gave me decorous kisses under the mistletoe with our parents looking on and more ardent ones when we were alone.
The order to depart came early in 1808. He had at last received the assignment he longed for. He was to accompany Murat and Napoleon into Spain, where yet another Bonaparte brother was to become a king. Finally he would have the chance to take part in real battles, to take his place as a man amongst other men. I was happy for him but also fearful. The Spanish were known to be a fierce, proud people. Would they accept a foreign king and his troops as calmly as the Dutch?
I shed tears over it in private but put on a brave face for Charles. I did not want our few weeks together to be spoiled by my worries. Your sweetheart is a soldier, I admonished myself sternly. You too must learn to be mentally tough in the face of fear.
Charles purchased a new uniform and came to show it off to us. Maman and I were duly impressed. The shining breastplate, helmet, and saber were, like Charles himself, not yet scratched or dented. His leather boots were so new they creaked a little when he walked, and I teased him about it. I asked if he would need to spend a long time polishing his armor. No, he replied with complacent superiority, he had an orderly to see to it. His business was to fight, to serve his Marshal and his Emperor, to bring glory to France and to his family.
“If I get to Madrid, I’ll bring you a fan and a mantilla,” he promised, “and a pretty lace veil you can wear at our wed –” he bit off the last word. He never formally proposed to me but his intentions were clear. From that moment I considered us engaged. I sparkled too. I was young and pretty and he seemed to me the most glamorous creature on earth. I couldn’t bear to be parted from him and said I wished I could follow him to Spain. Again I wanted to give myself to him; I was both ashamed of myself and proud of my daring. I thought, he is a man and a soldier and he will appreciate my gift. But he laughed and said I was not the sort of girl who followed the army. The women who did were working-class wives who supplemented their husbands’ pay by doing laundry. Or they were women of the streets who became, as it were, women of the field. To follow him would be to lower myself to the level of those others. His face looked as it had when referring to the women of the Palais Royal.
Then I thought of something else. The army employed artists to travel with them; perhaps I—But the thought died unsaid. I was a girl, barely eighteen years old. To propose this idea would be to invite further ridicule. I was ready to cry with frustration. My role, it appeared, was to sit sedately at home, to wait for his return. Charles longed for adventure but did not want me to be part of it.
“Tine, don’t be upset with me. This isn’t a parade on the Champ de Mars. It’s war. War is men’s business. I want you here, where you’ll be safe.”
I shook off my disappointment then and rallied to smile bravely for the rest of his visit and tenderly kiss him farewell. I did not attend, sketchbook in hand, the next morning’s exit from camp; I knew I would not be able to see the paper through my tears. Perhaps, I thought, Gros was right: some scenes are better left to the imagination.
I missed Charles fiercely in the weeks to come, imagining myself again in his arms. I treasured the brief notes he wrote from the field, visited his mother once a week, and dared to plan a wedding and a future. I dreamed of the home we would have and furnished it, in my imagination, with new pieces in a modern style. I would direct my own household, although we would not need more than two or three servants at the beginning. I paid attention now to Maman’s lessons in household management, much to her relief. I gladly helped a friend prepare for her wedding, taking mental notes. In my diary, I practiced over and over, Madame Charles Legrand, Augustine Legrand; I designed monograms with C-A-L and began to embroider a set of napkins, to be followed by a tablecloth. I lived a dreamy half-life in the present, consumed with Charles’s return and the proposal I knew was imminent. It was so real to me that it was difficult, sometimes, to realize it had only existed in my imagination.
He did not come back. Neither his breastplate nor his helmet nor
his saber had saved him, nor had his father the general, his commander Murat, nor the Emperor. He had ridden out on patrol in Madrid as usual on 2 May 1808, been pulled from his horse, and knifed in the belly by someone who knew not him, Charles, as an individual at all, only that he wore the hated French uniform, and that killing him meant one less Frenchman in this world. The doctors could not save him. He was buried in a mass grave and all his glowing, impressive, ultimately useless armor had been put aside to be given to someone else. His parents received his meager personal effects – including my letters and miniature portrait – and a glowing, impressive, and ultimately useless letter from his colonel assuring them his death was not in vain.
Nor was it unavenged. Retaliatory action was taken on the following day. Suspected rebels were rounded up and shot on the third of May with an impersonal efficiency that matched Charles’s killing. The Emperor and Charles’s father had been satisfied, but they were accustomed to ordering men to their deaths. All I could feel was the emptiness of his absence from the world, my life, and the future I had imagined for both of us.
Charles’s parents were very kind to me. Madame Legrand took off the gold ring she wore on her little finger and pressed it into my hand. “For you, my almost-daughter-in-law.” She cried again after she said it, mourning all his years unlived, all her grandchildren unborn. I whispered, “Merci, belle-maman,” and my own tears flowed. I have worn that ring on the little finger of my right hand from that day to this, even on my wedding day. I have it on now as I write.
I completed but one napkin with our initials. I used it to wrap his letters, his portrait, and the part of my heart that went with him, and stored them in my trunk with other girlhood keepsakes. For years at a time I forgot they were there, but I kept them always.
I had not the heart to pick up my pencils and paintbrushes. I did not go to Taunay’s studio for weeks. Fellow students came to offer me their condolences and sit with me in sympathetic silence. I much preferred that to the reassurances of my parents and their friends. “You’re young,” they told me. “You will recover. It will hurt less. One day you will find someone else.” It was all I could do not to scream at them. I did not want to recover. I did not wish to contemplate a future with someone else, as though Charles could be so easily replaced. I wanted to die, too.
An Artist in her Own Right Page 4