An Artist in her Own Right

by Ann Marti Friedman

  There was a stunned silence. Then Paul gave a great gulping laugh of nervous relief and pandemonium broke loose. Maman Madeleine made loud wordless laments. Marie screamed at her brother, springing forward with hands like claws, prepared to tear at his face. Jacques tried to restrain and calm his wife. Paul wrung his uncle’s hand and tried not to look smug.

  No one paid any attention to me. After six years as part of this family, I was still merely Antoine’s child bride whose opinion didn’t count. Ignored by them, I stared at each one in turn, feeling as though I had dropped into a Dutch painting of a beggars’ brawl. Suddenly I had anger of my own to deal with. This boy was not going to become cannon fodder simply because his mother and uncle were engaged in a showdown for his grandmother’s affection.

  “Quiet!” I ordered.

  The cacophony raged as before.

  “QUI-ET!” My open palm thumping the tabletop underscored my bellow and brought about the desired effect. I turned to Paul.

  “You’re enlisting because of your uncle’s paintings? The paintings aren’t the truth – they’re only what Napoleon wanted you to think was true. Antoine has been telling these lies for so long that he’s ended up believing them. At least learn the truth of those famous events celebrated in them.

  “At Jaffa, he had twenty-four hundred prisoners of war – to whom mercy had been promised – bayoneted to save bullets. Those French soldiers who he’s visiting and ‘curing’ in the hospital? He ordered them to be poisoned so they wouldn’t slow down the retreat.”

  “Lies!” Antoine shouted. “All lies spread by the English!”

  “And those wonderful battle scenes of Egypt – the Pyramids, Aboukir?” I continued as if he had not spoken. “We lost that war despite those victories. It was a lost cause after Nelson and the English destroyed the French fleet at that other Battle of Aboukir that we don’t like to talk about, the one the English call the Battle of the Nile. Only Bonaparte sneaked out early to proclaim a victory, leaving others to the business of surrendering. Denon can confirm this – he came home with Bonaparte and Murat.

  “Then there was Eylau, and that famous scene of compassion for the enemy troops he hadn’t quite managed to slaughter.” Antoine gave a low moan but did not speak. “That battle was fought in the midst of a blizzard. No one could even see who or what they were firing at, but they still managed to kill ten thousand men on each side. When the weather cleared, the French declared victory – and then departed! They had to fight for it all over again the next summer. Do you want to give up your life for a tactical retreat – for Bonaparte’s mistakes? Think about it for a minute before you rush off.”

  “But Uncle Antoine served in the army!”

  “As part of the art-collecting commission in Italy, not as a fighting man. He nearly died in the siege of Genoa. Having got home safely, he hasn’t served in the fifteen years since. He has been painting those so-called victories and great moments from the safety of his studio in Versailles, where he need face nothing more hazardous than rheumatism.”

  Antoine flinched and turned red. Maman Madeleine stared at me open-mouthed, too shocked at my outburst to come to her son’s defense.

  “But we can’t lose!” Paul cried passionately. “We’ll win! We must win! And I’ll be able to say I took part in that victory.”

  “And after it? Do you think one battle will do the trick? That the Allies will give up and go away? What about the battle after that, and the next, and the next? Have you thought of that?”

  Judging by the sharp intakes of breath around me, none of them had.

  Paul appealed again to Gros. “She’s just being mad and spiteful. It’s not all true, is it?”

  Antoine looked stunned. He opened and shut his mouth several times. “I – he––” The words would not come. Wildly he scanned our faces, seeking support but finding none. The fight went out of him and his shoulders sagged. “Yes,” he told his nephew. “It’s true, all of it.”

  “You’re just saying that because they want you to!”

  “No,” he said calmly, looking Paul in the eye. “It’s true.”

  The boy, ashen-faced, clearly held it as a betrayal: “You and your paintings – you’ve been lying to me! I hate you!” He ran out of the room. Marie started to follow him but her husband restrained her. The boy would need time on his own to sort things out.

  There was nothing left to say. We took our leave.

  Shattered by the encounter Antoine slumped exhausted during the cab ride home. The rush of energy of my outburst had drained me. As my glow of triumph faded, a reaction set in, and I, too, was exhausted and sick at heart. In the process of trying to save our nephew I had torn my husband’s most important works to shreds – paintings that had delighted me, inspired me, moved me to laughter and tears. I had betrayed my own belief – carefully nurtured by my training in the studio of Taunay, himself an occasional apologist for Bonaparte – in the power of art to uplift and transform and better mankind. I had betrayed both of us as artists.

  When we arrived home, Maman Madeleine went to her room. Antoine stumbled, dazed, to the salon, where he sat down heavily on the sofa, his face in his hands, and burst into tears. I knelt before him, my own eyes damp, wishing I could give comfort and restore some of what I had taken away. “Antoine,” I said as gently as I could, “Antoine.” I reached up to put my arms around him, but at their touch his hands lashed out to push them away and he sat back, eyes glaring out of that tear-streaked face. I, too, shrank back from the impact of that gaze.

  But I need to try again to make things right between us. “Antoine, what I said – it was to save Paul’s life. Your paintings are magnif—”

  “How could you?” His voice was rough and hoarse. “How could you? It’s been hell these last two years, watching his defeat” – he pressed one hand over the Légion d’honneur in his lapel – “and with it the fall of France. I’ve been so worried for him, for our future, for France’s future. Some days it has been all I could do to get out of bed and make my way to the studio, hoping I would be able to call on some unknown inner reserve to enable me to put paint to canvas.”

  I shook my head in sorrow and pity. I had not known the depths of his despair. “You never said.”

  “I did not want to acknowledge it – to the world, only to hide it from myself. The thought of putting it into words was infinitely worse.” He shut his eyes in pain. Two tears fell from beneath the closed lids. He opened his eyes and drew a shaky breath. “And then the nightmare was over – my beloved Emperor was again among us!” He sat up straight, eyes shining as they reflected an inner vision.

  The hope died out of them as they came to focus on me. “Your words cut like knives to my heart. For my own wife to attack me in front of my family like that! How could you?” he demanded again.

  I was deeply distressed to see him in so much pain and know that I had caused it, however good my intentions. “I was thinking only of Paul and his parents. I didn’t say those things as a gratuitous attack on you. I wanted to save his life.” My voice was soft, a plea for his understanding.

  “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!” I was truly afraid for him then and feared he would become even more enraged if I stayed. I ran from the room, from the apartment, and stayed away for several hours. When I returned, I did not go to our room but slept on the sofa.

  I was awakened there the next morning by Maman Madeleine. She hissed as she bent over me: “How dare you call my son a liar?” She slapped my face.

  At breakfast, Gros was more like his old self, but the rift that had opened in our marriage was now irreparable. We lived in the same house, ate our meals together with Maman Madeleine, even slept in the same bed, but more and more, we became strangers to each other.

  From that day he could not paint any more battles, no matter how much the new government wanted him to. He went back to the classical subject matter of his youth.

  It was also the beginning of the Gros family’s rift with me. Forgetting that I ha
d said these things in an effort to save Paul, and remembering only that I had said them about Antoine, their ire shifted from Antoine to me.

  However, my words had the desired effect. Paul stayed safely at home and the Empire came to its weary end without him. He has never quite forgiven me, and I am happy to say his dislike has lasted for over twenty-five years.

  Chapter 9

  Paris, 1817-1819

  After his defeat by combined English and Prussian forces at Waterloo, Bonaparte was safely sequestered on St Helena. All artistic reminders of his presence were banished to the storerooms of the Louvre. Artists were commissioned to create new works to take their place. Gros reluctantly took up his brush in praise of the Bourbons. In the Salon of 1817 he exhibited a large painting of Louis XVIII’s departure from the Tuileries to which he had been a witness.

  Marie Benoist resumed her studio afternoons, but the old joie de vivre, the attitude that “the opinion of men does not matter here” was gone. It was all too apparent that Monsieur Benoist’s dictates did matter. Still, Marie liked to encourage other artists. I continued to attend faithfully. As I got less and less support from my marriage, the studio and its friendships became my emotional lifeline. However, I felt more comfortable about expressing my Salon ambitions when working alone with Josée. We each had paintings accepted in 1817. I had turned from still life to landscape; Josée continued to exhibit the landscape subjects inspired by classical history and mythology on which she was steadily building her reputation.

  Théodore Géricault did not send anything to the Salon that year. He had been in Rome and was preparing a monumental painting of the horse race at the Roman carnival. He came to dinner one evening shortly after his return. Before, he had been a youth with talent. Now he was a man of maturity and assurance, with a tall, lithe body and an arresting face – full sensuous lips, strong chin, dark eyebrows, and short, curling brown hair. He brought such energy to whatever he did, whether it was covering acres of canvas or conversing with a friend. He was only two years younger than I. Next to him Antoine looked subdued, prim, and old-maidish. I could not help comparing the two. Théodore did not mean to surpass the older man but he could not help pushing ahead of him artistically to pursue his vision.

  Not since Charles had I felt so alert and alive to a man – and Charles had been a mere boy in comparison.

  After Antoine’s outburst over Charles’s portrait, I did not want to give him any cause, real or imagined, to be jealous. Even if our marriage had not been a success, I had never been unfaithful to him and had no intention of betraying him in the flesh. However, I could not help acknowledging my attraction to Géricault and playing out alternatives in my imagination.

  Of course, having made up my mind not to act upon my attraction, I began to run into the man everywhere: at the art supply shop, in the galleries of the Louvre and the arcades of the Palais-Royal; at the Champ de Mars and the Champs-Elysées; in restaurants and cafés; even at my own dinner table. For someone reputed to be hard at work on an immense masterpiece, he certainly spent a great deal of time away from his studio. Like Girodet, he had inherited family money and did not need to sell paintings for a living. Nor did he relish the solitude of the studio the way Antoine did. He loved the company of other artists and their animated intellectual debate. Josée was a particular favorite of his. They were both intrigued by the new printmaking process of lithography, less labor-intensive than engraving and etching, and its potential as both an original and a reproductive medium.

  One day he joined Josée and me at the Salon for a lively discussion of works in the galleries. Paintings depicting the historical kings of France were as popular in 1817 as they had been in 1814, particularly the illustrious deeds of those Louis who had preceded the current king of the same name – Louis VI, Louis IX (Saint Louis), Louis XII, XIII, XIV, XVI and XVII were all well represented, as were those perennial favorites, François I and Henri IV. Géricault was scornful of the so-called Style Troubadour, with its meticulous prettiness. Josée, more tolerant, laughed and replied with robust good humor that called forth the same in him.

  “And what do you think, Madame Gros?”

  I was startled – not as quick-witted as my friend, I was content to follow Josée’s lead. I rarely took part in these debates outside of Marie’s studio, but my practice there stood me in good stead as I found my voice. “Why should the Middle Ages and Renaissance, given their prominence in France, be considered less worthy than ancient Greece and Rome? You are an admirer of Antoine’s work. Do you think the worse of his painting of François I and Charles V – the one he calls his ‘bouquet’ for the beauty of its colors – because it is not of, say, Alexander and Porus?”

  He paid me the compliment of listening closely and replying with respect for my opinion. It was a gratifying, all too rare experience. Antoine’s contemporaries never talked to me about art – even Girodet only inquired after Gros – while I was always relegated to the group of wives and mothers and sisters at these gatherings. As I talked with Josée and Théodore, my Merry Augustine persona came out. Théodore accepted it, not damping my spirits as Gros and Maman Madeleine did. I found my heart expanding with gratitude. It gave my attraction to him an added dimension: the same fulfillment I felt after an afternoon with my friends.

  Soon after, Géricault came to our house again for dinner, and he and Antoine fell to talking about Rome. My husband envied him his ability to come and go to Italy as he pleased, and the length of time he could stay there.

  Afterward, I asked Antoine, “Why don’t we go to Rome for six months? We can afford it! I want to see firsthand the masterpieces by Raphael and Michelangelo and Bernini. I would love to attend services at St Peter’s.”

  Gros shook his head and frowned. “I’m too old for such a tiring trip. Travel is for young men.”

  “Nonsense – you’re only forty-eight. Denon was fifty-five when he went to Egypt – and that was far more strenuous and hazardous than Italy.”

  “Denon’s an exceptional man. His intellectual curiosity overrode the prospect of hardships. I prefer my creature comforts in Paris. Besides, Maman wouldn’t want to be left alone.”

  I looked at him with distaste. Who was this middle-aged man I’d married, smug with satisfaction at the self-imposed limits of his life, who expected me to live within them as well, and who seemed incapable of imagining that I might want something more? I felt like a goldfish swimming round and round in its bowl, forever seeing the outside world without being able to reach it.

  “But I want to go. I’m one-half of this marriage.” (Only one-third, really, but I wasn’t going to admit that now.) I struggled to fight back tears. “Don’t my wishes count?”

  “Of course they do, in many things. But asking me to prove my love by taking you to Rome is going too far. I wish to be here and no place else.” He opened his newspaper and hid behind it. The argument was over as far as he was concerned.

  I was seething. The Empire was gone; a new world was opening up; one’s vistas could expand if one let them. My ambitions had expanded since joining Marie Benoist’s group. I had shown my work at the Salon not once but twice. I longed to find other places and experiences where I could spread my wings.

  If Théodore were my husband, he would take me seriously, I thought. More to the point, he would take me with him! I laughed at myself and shook my head to clear it, but the idea would not go away. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a husband my own age, young and strong.

  It became a full-blown fantasy for me, elaborated in private moments. Théodore, thé-adore, thé-t’adore. Théodore, thé-adore, thé-t’adore. The silly rhyme I had composed would repeat itself, over and over, in my head. Théodore, I adore you.

  I would close my eyes against the realities of Paris, where our love would be hemmed about with restrictions and worries about word of it getting out. I imagined being lovers in Rome, away from the impedimenta of family and society, where I could become Merry Augustine all the
time. We would make love in our studio and have long conversational meals with friends where I would join in the discussion as an equal. I would set a course of study for myself, sketching in the galleries and monuments and streets, painting in the studio, growing as an artist both in skills and scope.

  This new-found freedom would make its way into our bed, where I would display a passion I had only rarely – too rarely! – known with Antoine. Imagining his mouth on mine, his rough hands running over my smooth naked body, rousing me to a pitch of desire I had never experienced, feeling his own, but always holding back until the last possible moment, an explosion of pleasure for both of us. Then, afterward, sated and content, we would sleep in each other’s arms.

  My fantasy existed outside real time – I knew that eventually Géricault would want to return to Paris and that when we did, all the censure of family and society would fall upon me. I refused to think that far – it would only spoil it.

  I was too embarrassed to try out any of my imagined lovemaking with Antoine, and I was afraid lest he think I had taken a lover for real. I could not confess it to anyone, not even Josée. I tried my hand at painting the images in my mind, but they looked so amateurish that I burned them. Confession in church brought penance but no relief from my desires, only the forgiveness of past thoughts.

  One late autumn day Josée and I were painting in her studio when Géricault arrived unannounced. We each wore an old dress and a paint-stained smock, our customary working attire. My hair was bundled under a scarf and Josée’s red tresses were in glorious disarray. I was dismayed to look so bedraggled, but consoled myself that perhaps it was no bad thing to be seen as a working artist. I envied Josée her lack of embarrassment, but of course her heart was not fluttering as mine was. He had come to tell us he would soon be leaving for Rome. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Oh, I wish I could go with you!” His eyebrows shot up. I blushed deeply, wanting to explain that of course I meant it for the sake of Rome rather than for himself, but I was afraid an explanation would make matters worse. I tried anyway, couching it in terms he would accept: “When you and Antoine spoke about Rome that evening, I urged him to think about taking me there and spending several months this time. He wouldn’t even consider it – he says it’s too strenuous for him at his age.” Despite my effort to keep my voice neutral, I could not help injecting more than a trace of contempt into it.