A liaison with George Sand would have killed Eugène Delacroix, I am perfectly certain; for he would have staked gold, she would have only played with counters. It would have been the vitiated atmosphere in which the cradle of his life and of his genius—which were one, in this instance—would have been extinguished.
As it was, that candle burned very low at times, because, during the years I knew Delacroix, he had nearly always one foot in the grave; the healthy breezes of art's unpolluted air made that candle burn brightly now and again; hence the difference in quality, as striking, of some of his pictures.
Perhaps on account of his delicate health, Delacroix was not very fond of society, in which, however, he was ever welcome, and particularly fitted to shine, though he rarely attempted to do so. I have said that Dante and Shakespeare, if they had painted, would have painted as Delacroix did; I am almost tempted to add that if Delacroix' vocation had impelled him that way, he would have sung as they sang—of course, I do not mean that he would have soared as high, but his name would have lived in literature as it does in painting, though perhaps not with so brilliant a halo around it. For, unlike many great painters of his time, Delacroix was essentially lettré. One has but to read some of his critical essays in the Revue des Deux Mondes of that period, to be convinced of that at once. Théophile Gautier said, one evening, that it was "the style of a poet in a hurry." The sentences give one the impression of newly-minted golden coins. Nearly every one contains a thought, which, if reduced to small change, would still make an admirable paragraph. He gives to his readers what he expects from his authors—a sensation, a shock in two or three lines. The sentences are modelled upon his favourite prose author, who, curious to relate, was none other than Napoléon I. I often tried to interest him in English literature. Unfortunately, he knew no English to speak of, and was obliged to have recourse to translations. Walter Scott he thought long-winded, and, after a few attempts at Shakespeare in French, he gave it up. "Ça ne peut pas être cela," he said. But he had several French versions of "Gulliver's Travels," all of which he read in turn. One day, I quoted to him a sentence from Carlyle's "Lectures on Heroes:" "Show me how a man sings, and I will tell you how he will fight." "C'est cela," he said; "if Shakespeare had been a general, he would have won his battles like Napoléon, by thunderclaps" (par des coups de foudre).
Delacroix had what a great many Frenchmen lack—a keen sense of humour, but it was considerably tempered by what, for the want of a better term, I may call the bump of reverence. He could not be humorous at the expense of those he admired or respected, consequently his attempts at caricature at the early period of his career in Le Nain Jaune were a failure; because Delacroix' admiration and respect were not necessarily reserved for those with whom he agreed in art or politics, but for everyone who attempted something great or useful, though he failed. The man who, at the age of sixty, would enthusiastically dilate upon his meeting forty years before with Gros, whose hat he had knocked off by accident, was not the likely one to hold up to ridicule the celebrity of the hour or day without malice prepense. And this malice prepense never uprose within him, except in the presence of some bumptious, ignorant nobody. Then it positively boiled over, and he did not mind what trick he played his interlocutor. The latter might be a wealthy would-be patron, an influential Government official, or a well-known picture-dealer; it was all the same to Delacroix, who had an utter contempt for patronage, nepotism, and money. It was as good as a clever scene in a comedy to see him rise and draw himself up to his full height, in order to impress his victim with a sense of the importance of what he was going to say. To get an idea of him under such circumstances, one must go and see his portrait in the Louvre, painted by himself, with the semi-supercilious, semi-benevolent smile playing upon the parted lips, and showing the magnificent regular set of teeth, of which he was very proud, beneath the black bushy moustache, which reminds one curiously of that of Rembrandt. Of course, the victim was mesmerized, and stood listening with all attention, promising himself to remember every word of the spoken essay on art, with the view of producing it as his own at the first favourable opportunity. And he generally did, to his own discomfiture and the amusement of his hearers, who, if they happened to know Delacroix, which was the case frequently, invariably detected the source of the speaker's information. I once heard a spoken essay on Holbein reproduced in that way, which would have simply made the fortune of any comic writer. The human parrot had not even been parrot-like, for he had muddled the whole in transmission. I took some pains to reproduce his exact words, and I never saw Delacroix laugh as when I repeated it to him. For, as a rule, and even when he was mystifying that kind of numskull in the presence of half a dozen well-informed friends, Delacroix remained perfectly serious, though the others had to bite their lips lest they should explode. In fact, it would have been difficult at any time to guess or discover, beneath the well-bred man of the world, with his charming, courtly, though somewhat distant manner, the painter who gave us "La Barque de Dante," and "Les Massacres de Scio;" still, Delacroix was that man of the world, exceedingly careful of his appearance, particular to a degree about his nails, which he wore very long, dressed to perfection, and, in spite of the episode with George Sand, recorded above, most ingratiating with women.
Different altogether was he in his studio. Though he was "at home" from three till five, to visitors of both sexes, it was distinctly understood that he would not interrupt his work for them, or play the host as the popular painter of to-day is supposed to do. The atelier, encumbered with bric-à-brac and sumptuous hangings and afternoon tea, had not been invented: if the host wore a velvet coat, a Byronic collar, and gorgeous papooshes, it was because he liked these things himself, not because he intended to impress his visitors. As a rule, the host, though in his youth perhaps he had been fond of extravagant costumes, did not like them: Horace Vernet often worked in his shirt-sleeves, Paul Delaroche nearly always wore a blouse, and Ingres, until he became "a society man," which was very late in life, donned a dressing-gown. Delacroix was, if anything, more slovenly than the rest when at work. An old jacket buttoned up to the chin, a large muffler round his neck, a cloth cap pulled over his ears, and a pair of thick felt slippers made up his usual garb. For he was nearly always shivering with cold, and had an affection of the throat, besides, which compelled him to be careful. "But for my wrapping up, I should have been dead at thirty," he said.
Nevertheless, at the stroke of eight, winter and summer, he was in his studio, which he did not leave until dark, during six months of the year, and a little before, during the other six. Contrary to the French habit, he never took luncheon, and generally dined at home a little after six—the fatigue of dining out being too much for him.
I may safely say that I was one of Delacroix' friends, with whom he talked without restraint. I often went to him of an evening when the weather prevented his going abroad, which, in his state of health, was very often. He always chafed at such confinement; for though not fond of society in a general way, he liked coming to the Boulevards, after his work was over, and mixing with his familiars. Delacroix smoked, but, unlike many addicted to tobacco, could not sit idle. His hands, as well as his brain, wanted to be busy; consequently, when imprisoned by rain or snow, he sat sketching figures or groups, talking all the while. By then his name had become familiar to every art student throughout the world, and he often received flattering letters from distant parts. One evening, shortly after the death of David d'Angers, to an episode in whose life I have devoted a considerable space in these notes, Delacroix received an American newspaper, the title of which I have forgotten, but which contained an exceedingly able article on the great sculptor, as an artist, and as a man. It wound up with the question, "And what kind of monument will be raised to him by the man who virtually shortened his life by sending him into exile, because David remained true to the republican principles which Napoléon only shammed—or, if not shammed, deliberately trod underfoot to ascend a tyrant's throne?"
I translated the whole of the article, and, when I came to the last lines, Delacroix shook his head sadly. "You remember," he said, "the answer of our friend Dumas, when they asked him for a subscription towards a monument to a man whom every one had reviled in the beginning of his career. 'They had better be content with the stones they threw at him during his existence. No monument they can raise will be so eloquent of their imbecility and his genius.' I may take it," he went on, "that such a question will be raised one day after my death, perhaps many years after I am gone. If you are alive you will, by my will, raise your voice against the project. I have painted my own portrait; while I am here, I will take care that it be not reproduced; I will forbid them to do so after I am at rest. There shall not be a bust on my tomb."
About a fortnight before his death he made a will to that effect, and up to the present hour (1883) its injunctions have been respected. Delacroix lies in a somewhat solitary spot in Père-Lachaise. Neither emblem, bust, nor statue adorns his tomb, which was executed according to his own instructions. "They libelled me so much during my life," he said one day, "that I do not want them to libel me after my death, on canvas or in marble. They flattered me so much afterwards, that I knew their flattery to be fulsome, and, if anything, I am more afraid of it than of their libels."
It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than there existed between Eugène Delacroix, both as a man and an artist, and Horace Vernet. The one loved his art with the passionate devotion of an intensely poetical lover for his wayward mistress, whom to cease wooing for a moment might mean an irreparable breach or, at least, a long estrangement; the other loved his with the calm affection of the cherished husband for the faithful wife who had blessed him with a numerous offspring, whom he had known from his very infancy, a marriage with whom had been decided upon when he was a mere lad, whom he might even neglect for a little while without the bond being in any way relaxed. According to their respective certificates of birth, Vernet was the senior by ten years of Delacroix. When I first knew them, about 1840, Vernet looked ten years younger than Delacroix. If they had chosen to disguise themselves as musketeers of the Louis XIII. period, Vernet would have reminded one of both Aramis and d'Artagnan; Delacroix, of Athos.