During all this time, Tony had been growing up under the protection of that friendship which had in it both the intimacy of brotherhood and the protective tenderness of fatherhood. And, from the time when the young life became connected with that of Alfred, there was no separation: the figurative phrases about ivy and elms, creepers and oaks, would seem to have been conceived with these two artists in view. One day, death broke down the eldest; but the survivor was left, with his roots springing from the grave of the one who was dead. For, indeed, from the moment when they joined forces together, they kept the same step and pace, until it was impossible to say which was ahead of the other. Tony blended into Alfred, became an engraver with the engraver, designer and painter with the designer and painter, forming the unique spectacle of a triple fraternity of blood, mind and talent. It was not as on the playbills of a theatre, where the name of the oldest in art precedes that of the younger: one as often spoke of Alfred and Tony as of Tony and Alfred. Like the inseparable Siamese twins, a moment came when they themselves wished to separate, but could not do so. And thus, for ten years, the history of one is that of the other. One can no more separate this history than, one league from Lyons, one can separate the Saône from the Rhone; or, a league from Mayence, the Moselle from the Rhine. When they depended on one another they felt themselves to be strong. It was no longer the drawings of others that they engraved, but their own. Aquafortis engraving became their favourite process; and it was at this time that the vignettes of Walter Scott, of Cooper and of Byron appeared. All the great literary names bore their signature. There is little poetry scattered over the world the illustrations to which have not been traced by their graving tools.
Then, marvellous to relate, each of them dreamed of still greater glory; from copyists, they became engravers; from engravers, they decided to make themselves painters. It was no longer from designs that they executed their aquafortis work: it was after the charming little pictures in the Salon of 1831—so remarkable that we returned two or three times to see them—that they exhibited their plates, which were placed, I recollect, in the embrasure of a window of the great gallery to the left. There were twenty-four compositions. From that moment, each became both artist and engraver at one and the same time.
Let us follow Alfred; we shall return to Tony later. In 1831 Alfred did his first great easel painting: L'Arrestation de Jean Crespière. This was a success. The same year he finished Don Juan naufragé and a scene from Cinq-Mars.
In 1832 and 1833 he produced L'Annonce de la Victoire de Hastenbeck for King Louis-Philippe's gallery, and L'Entrée de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, pendant la Fronde, à Orléans; in 1834, François Ier et Charles Quint; in 1835, Le Courrier Vernet saigne et pause par le roi Louis-Philippe, Henri II., Catherine de Médicis et leurs enfants; in 1836, Marie Stuart quittant l'Écosse,—Anne d'Este, Duchesse de Guise se présentant à la cour de Charles IX.,—Saint Martin,—and La bataille de Saint-Jacques.
But during the last two years nature had been exhausted in Alfred; he succumbed under a final effort. He recognised his condition, and knew that when the finger of time pointed to the early months of the winter of 1837 the hour of eternity would strike for him. So the last eighteen months of his life are prodigious in activity: pictures, vignettes, water-colours, aquafortis, wood-engravings, pencil sketches, pen-and-ink drawings, he undertook everything, hurried on and carried all through. A lifetime would scarcely have been enough to finish what he had begun, and he only had a few months!
In the midst of this feverish output, this agonising productiveness, he received a letter from Mannheim. It was from his sister; his father was ill and desired to see him. He announced his departure; it was in vain for people to tell him that, however seriously ill his father might be, his father was not so ill as he was himself; that the old man had longer to live than the young man: he did not listen to anything; his father called for him and he felt he must go! He went, he remained absent three months from Paris and returned late in November. His father was out of danger; but he was dying. On 7 December 1837, he died, with his sketches, tools and vignettes on his bed and his eyes fixed on his unfinished pictures!
The phantom has just ceased speaking. Then, turning in its direction I said to it: It was so, brother, was it not? Have I translated thy words well? But I saw nothing more than a white vapour which faded away, I heard nothing but a faint sigh, which was lost in the air after having articulated the word "Yes!"