At the time, Pierre was a highly gifted and lauded young actor in Paris. From 1910 until he was drafted in mid-1914, he performed in twenty-one plays at the Théâtre de l’Ambigu and at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.147 Pierre also performed in two silent films: in 1911, La Digue (The Sea Wall), directed by Abel Gance, and in 1912, Les Deux Gosses (The Two Lads), directed by Adrien Caillard.148 In November 1912, Rivière reported to Aline that he ‘seemed very happy with his work. The role [of the German General von Talberg in Coeur de Française (Heart of a French Woman) at L’Ambigu] that he has just developed has made him a star and is very good for him.’149 Indeed, Pierre had received favourable reviews in the daily theatre journal Comoedia: ‘Monsieur Renoir, in the role of General Von Talberg, achieved a well-deserved and dazzling success’, and ‘[His role] is acted with authority and sobriety, which are remarkable for a young actor.’150 A year later, a critic praised his ‘performance of infinite tact and naïve sensitivity’, and writing: ‘This young actor has made surprising progress during the past few years, and he is right to expect a good future.’151
In 1909, when he was twenty-four, Pierre met his first love, Colonna Romano (1883–1981), at the Paris Conservatory. She was an actress at the Odéon theatre, joining the Comédie-Française in 1913. Nicknamed Colo, her real name was Gabrielle Dreyfus, from a Jewish family. In 1910, when Pierre introduced her to his parents, Renoir liked her so much that he asked her to pose for him and, throughout the next three years, had her sit for a total of seven portraits.152 Renoir’s esteem for Colonna caused him to give his 1912 portrait of her to the Fine Arts Museum of his birthplace, Limoges, writing in December 1915: ‘I authorize Monsieur Vollard, 6 rue Laffitte to take the head of Colonna for the museum of Limoges.’153 Three years later, in March 1918, Renoir wrote to the critic Geffroy: ‘I have a portrait of Colonna [Young Woman with a Rose, 1913, now Musée d’Orsay] that I would like to give to the Luxembourg [Museum, Paris]…. Consult either Vollard or Durand-Ruel to see what needs to be done.’154 The government paid Renoir a token sum of 100 francs and the painting went on display at the Luxembourg in that year. Another portrait of Colonna Renoir refused to let go and it remained in his studio until his death, when Pierre acquired it.155
It is unclear when Pierre and Colonna ended their relationship but by 1913 he had become involved with another actress, Véra Sergine (1884–1946), then twenty-nine, whose real name was Marie Marguerite Aimée Roche. Like Colonna, Véra was from a Jewish family; her father was the assistant director at the Ministry of Justice and Religion.156 Also like Colonna and Pierre, Véra had attended the Conservatory and then gone to the Odéon before pursuing her career in other Parisian theatres.157 She also starred in silent films, such as when she partnered Pierre in 1912 in Les Deux Gosses. Véra was so well known that the French playwright, Henri Bataille, wrote a laudatory tribute comparing Véra to distinguished French Jewish actresses: ‘Our elders had Rachel, Desclée, and Sarah Bernhardt158 who, even today, still amazes us. We, the younger ones, we have Véra Sergine…our veritable interpreter, our tragic muse, but always human and real.’159
By the summer of 1913, Véra was pregnant with Pierre’s child. On 4 December 1913, Claude André Henri Renoir was born. The names Claude and André came from the Renoirs,160 while the name Henri may have come from Véra’s family.161 Just as when Pierre himself had been born, both parents legally recognized their son but the couple did not marry immediately. Unlike Pierre, however, baby Claude was not a secret from the family and close friends.162 Pierre, Véra and baby Claude lived together at 30 rue de Miromesnil in the eighth arrondissement.163
Jean, meanwhile, had begun his military training. Just like his father forty years before, he wanted to join the cavalry; indeed, he wanted it to be his profession, as Renoir’s was art and Pierre’s was the theatre. Jean and many young men like him were eager to regain the glory of France, since the nation was still smarting from its territorial and financial losses in the Franco-Prussian War. The cavalry attracted Jean not only because of his father’s military service, but also because of its tradition dating back hundreds of years. Looking back in 1958, Jean compared the costume and rules of his cavalry regiment to the ‘Regulations of Louvois’, the minister of war under Louis XIV.164 Later still, in 1970, Jean romantically described the cavalry experience: ‘The people in that war were like knights during a crusade of the 12th century or characters from an episode in Virgil.’165 In order to join the cavalry as an officer, Jean had to fulfil the educational requirements. He had graduated from the Lycée Masséna in 1912 with a standard certificate but also needed the more advanced baccalauréat classique, which entailed oral and written examinations in mathematics and philosophy. Jean gained his bac classique at a branch of the University of Aix-en-Provence in Nice in early 1913.166
Renoir supported Jean’s aim by using his connections, such as with Rivière, an official in the finance ministry. As early as November 1912, Rivière wrote to Aline: ‘Does Jean still want to join the army?…. If he decides to enlist, let me know ahead of time so that I can take the necessary steps at the Ministry of War or at the Guards and so that our good man is placed in a good regiment and in the best conditions.’167 Jean decided to take advantage of his father’s connections, as Maurice Denis’s diary shows: ‘Had lunch at Renoir’s place…. Jean Renoir…is going to enlist in the dragoons.’168 Thanks to Rivière’s help, after Jean’s basic cavalry training, he was placed in the prestigious 1st Dragoons regiment in Joigny (150 kilometres [94 miles] south-east of Paris and 136 kilometres [85 miles] due west of Essoyes).169
Jean Renoir in dragoon regalia with plumed helmet, cavalry boots, and sword, Paris, 1913. Photo by Chamberlin, 35 blvd de Clichy, Paris. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, Art Library Special Collection, Jean Renoir collection
Jean started his three years of officer training as a private aged eighteen on 17 February 1913.170 His military record book shows that his height was 180.3 centimetres (5 ft 11), taller than his father, so tall that his regulation sleeping bag was too short for him.171 He wrote to his mother: ‘Dear Mama, If you have some shopping to do, at the same time please buy me a sleeping bag big enough for my long legs – and a grey blanket, or one that won’t soil easily.’172 The patriotic uniform of his troop pleased him with its red trousers, blue jacket, white collar, white gloves, ostentatious, metal helmet with plume and old-fashioned sword.173 He was so proud of how he looked that he had two photographs taken to give as Christmas or New Year presents in 1913/14. His pose calls to mind his father’s portrait, Jean Renoir as a Huntsman, of only three years earlier, where he looks significantly younger (see page 245). Jean sent one of the photographs to his godmother, Jeanne Baudot, who wrote to Renoir: ‘Jean did me the pleasure of sending me his photograph and I have just responded that I am proud of my godson and think that he nobly represents his regiment and his country.’174
The day Jean began his training, his superior officer wrote to Renoir on stationery inscribed ‘1st Regiment of Dragoons, The Colonel’: ‘I am very proud that your son has chosen to enlist in my regiment and that you have consented to trust me with him…. I will take special care of him, and I hope that…he will soon really enjoy the regiment. I would be very happy if, because of his hard work, I will be able to give him his first stripes [designating a rise in rank] as quickly as possible.’175 Jean’s dragoon training made progress, as Rivière wrote to Renoir two months later: ‘This evening I received a letter from Jean who was a little tired, he wrote, after five hours of manoeuvres in the sun…he can take part in exercises, which are pretty difficult in this period of intensive instruction; moreover, he doesn’t complain!’176
The colonel’s prediction of a swift rise through the ranks was well founded because Jean loved the military and sportsmanship. He was promoted to corporal only eight and a half months after he started, and was popular in his troop, as Rivière informed Renoir on 21 December: ‘Our dragoon is adored by his comrades; his bosses hold him in high
esteem; he is very military. His colonel invited him to dine a few days ago and this is a true mark of the consideration this big chief has for Jean. I don’t need to tell you how happy this news made me; thus, I rushed to impart it to you.’177
However, things did not always turn out as Jean wanted. Another letter of a few weeks earlier from Rivière to Renoir reveals that Jean was worried about a potentially unpleasant move of his group from Joigny to Luçon in the Vendée in west-central France. Rivière wrote: ‘About five minutes ago Jean left my house where he slept the other night. Our young corporal is in good health from all points of view, that is to say that his morale is as excellent as his physical state. What spoils the picture of his military life is the prospect of a transfer of his regiment that could end up stationing them at a camp at Luçon, in the Vendée. This is obviously an exile since it’s fifteen or sixteen hours by train to go from Luçon to Paris and I don’t know how long to go to Cagnes.’178 In January 1914, Jean wrote: ‘Dear Mama, I believe that the die has now been cast. We will leave for Luçon…. The most annoying thing I can see in our departure is that the officer corps is going to be completely changed – good officers don’t get sent to Luçon! All the good people who command us will either go east or to the garrisons near Paris – only the incompetent ones will stay.’179 The same month, Renoir wrote to Durand-Ruel: ‘Jean’s regiment is definitely going to the Vendée. We, along with the poor boy, are very upset.’180 The regiment made the arduous journey from Joigny to Luçon on horse, all of 490 kilometres (306 miles). In Luçon, Jean felt so isolated that he had to ask for news, writing to André on 10 April 1914: ‘As soon as I can…I’ll come to visit you. You will see that I am not dead and you can give me some details about the art exhibition [at Durand-Ruel’s].181 As isolated as I was, I could not get hold of any magazines, so that I don’t know anything about anything…. Jean Renoir, 1st Dragoon, 4th Squadron.’182
That spring, Jean was promoted again, this time to the rank of sergeant. On hearing the good news, Aline planned to visit him. The trip must have been difficult for her, but she had always been devoted to all her children. Jean tried to help her with her plans and wrote to her: ‘The Hotel de la Poste is not as good as the Duc de Bourgogne Hotel – as for the food, I don’t know…. My love to you as well as Papa and Coco, Jean.’183 After Aline left, Renoir informed André: ‘My wife is at Luçon visiting Jean for about a week.’184
With war looming on the horizon and a beloved son already active in the military, Renoir clung to his painting as an escape from the frightening reality that his two older sons might be hurt or killed. Hence, on occasion he accepted a portrait commission. The most notable during this period was of the German actress Tilla Durieux (1880–1971; see page 305), whose husband, the Jewish dealer Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), was Renoir’s primary contact in Germany. Cassirer had a gallery in Berlin where he exhibited Renoir’s work in 1904–05 and 1912, the latter being a major show with forty-one Renoir paintings.185 In her diary of July 1914, Tilla Durieux wrote that she and her husband came to Paris where she posed for Renoir in his studio fifteen times, usually two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon during the first two weeks of July.186 She modelled in her majestic costume from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.187 In her journal, she recorded the discussions she and Renoir had during her posing sessions. The painter told her how he had visited Munich in 1910.188 Durieux and Renoir also discussed music; Renoir expressed his preference for Bach and Mozart over Wagner to whom he could no longer listen.189 Durieux was impressed by Renoir’s modesty, quoting what he said to her: ‘I no longer want to do portraits, but I am happy I decided to undertake this work. It has helped me to make progress, don’t you think so?…. I have made progress, haven’t I?’190 Renoir’s vibrant, heartfelt portrait of Durieux is one of his great paintings (see page 305). When the actress and her husband were ready to leave Paris, they could not take the portrait with them since the paint was still wet. On 20 July 1914, they left Paris in their chauffeured car and drove through Belgium and Holland where ‘no one expected a war’.191 Eight days later, on 28 July, Austria declared war on Serbia and, on 3 August, Germany declared war on France. With the interruption of the First World War, Renoir could not send the portrait to Germany so he kept it in his studio until his death, at which time it went to Durand-Ruel. Then, by the mid-1920s, the portrait went to the Cassirer-Durieux collection in Berlin.192
Tensions in Europe had come to a head. On 28 June, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated. On 1 August 1914, the French government declared a general mobilization. France mobilized 8,410,000 men between the ages of eighteen and forty-six, which was 91 per cent of men of those ages. Nearly half (43 per cent) of the entire French male population fought in this war.193 Pierre, who had already completed his military training and had been in the reserves for five years (see Chapter 5), was drafted as a private in a reserve artillery unit. One might imagine that Pierre was sad to leave his career, Véra and baby Claude. In contrast, his brother Jean later described his positive feelings: ‘We were all of us then believing in the importance of this war. We were absolutely sure that we were rescuing humanity, that we were bringing democracy to the world.’194 These hopes, pinned on France’s grand traditions, were out of touch with reality since France’s military was pathetically outdated, especially the cavalry. With their swords and horses, they were ill-prepared for barbed wire, trenches, machine-guns and poison gas.
The war was extremely stressful for Renoir. About six weeks after it began, he wrote to André of ‘unbearable dizzy spells’, doubtless brought on by fears for his two older sons.195 Also, living in France meant that the war surrounded the painter. On 2 September 1914, the Germans advanced until they were only 48 kilometres (30 miles) from Paris. The French government abandoned the capital and took refuge in Bordeaux. The very next day, Aline, Renoir and Coco, then in Paris, evacuated to Cagnes. Even there, they could not escape the war. A month later, they hosted a large group of French soldiers, as the compassionate Renoir wrote: ‘We had sixty soldiers staying with us, all fathers; they left this morning, disappointed to leave Les Collettes; they are sad but very brave, the poor men.’196 Painting was Renoir’s only escape, as he wrote to Georges Durand-Ruel: ‘Me, I am aging here peacefully, as much as the constant anxiety of this ridiculous war will allow, and I am working a little so as not to think about it. That’s one benefit.’197 Renoir felt anguish about ‘this ridiculous war’ both because two of his sons were in the military but also because he had many friends who were German, such as the painter and photographer von Freyhold and the dealer Cassirer.
By August 1914, when the war began, artillery had developed enormously and gun wounds were a great danger. The machine-gun had been invented and perfected; guns firing 1,000 bullets a minute were common. In the early days of the trench war, gunners amused themselves by cutting down trees with their bullets. The new rifled and breech-loading cannon accurately fired projectiles (shells) filled with explosive that detonated on impact.198
On 2 September 1914, the same day that the French government evacuated Paris, Pierre was shot in the arm, abdomen and leg during the first major offensive of the war, severely injuring him and handicapping him for life. Thirty years later, when interviewed about his war experiences, Pierre said: ‘“My war” was short. I was a foot soldier. The 2nd of September I was injured at the battle of Grand-Couronné [in fact, the main battle began two days later] in Nancy.’199 Pierre was transported 848 kilometres (527 miles) to a military hospital in Carcassonne in the south, where he waited for treatment. When Renoir received the bad news, he wrote to André: ‘Pierre, wounded in his right arm, is in the Carcassonne hospital. His radius was shattered by a bullet that went through his arm.’200 In another letter, to Mme Gangnat, Renoir wrote: ‘His arm was very badly hurt and we don’t know if he’ll ever be able to use it again.’201 Pierre later told a journalist: ‘A
big scare nearly ruined my career. After a serious injury in the war, I was very afraid of losing an arm and I would not have been able to do anything in theatre other than stage-managing or administrative work. My arm was saved, but slightly shrunken.’202 Pierre’s war injury did not stop him pursuing an energetic forty-year acting career in sixty-five films and eighty-four plays.203 Pierre’s perseverance in spite of his crippled arm echoes his father’s resoluteness in painting despite his paralysed fingers.
Tilla Durieux, 1914. 92 × 73.7 cm (36¼ × 29 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Stephen C. Clark
After hearing that Pierre had been wounded, Renoir became very concerned that he had not heard anything about Jean. He sent an inquiry to Army headquarters: ‘Request for information about: Renoir/Jean/1st regiment of the Dragoons/Staff of the 5th and 6th Squadrons/Cavalryman/[from] M. Renoir resident of Cagnes – Alpes-Maritimes/His father/Cagnes, 15 September 1914’, and signed it ‘Renoir’.204 Six days later, Renoir received this reply: ‘The Sergeant/Renoir/Jean returned from the front in good health. He is currently at the headquarters of the 1st regiment of Dragoons at Luçon/Luçon 21 September 1914/Chief of the Headquarters of the Company.’205
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