One of the special rooms is devoted to pictures of the opulent Félix Ziem, painter of Venetian sunsets and the sky at its most golden, wherever it may be found, who is still (1909) living in honourable state on those slopes of the mountain of fame which are reserved for the few rare spirits that become old masters before they die, and who presented his pictures to Paris a few years ago; another room is filled with the works of the late Jean Jacques Henner, whose pallid nudities, emerging from voluptuous gloom, still look yearningly at one from the windows of so many Paris picture dealers. Henner, I must confess, is not a painter whom I greatly esteem; but few modern French artists were more popular in their day. He died in 1905, and this gift of his work was made by his son. Other French artists to have rooms of their own in the Palais are Jean Carriès the sculptor, who died in 1894 at the age of thirty-nine, after an active career in the modelling of quaint and grotesque and realistic figures, one of the best known and most charming of his many works being "La Fillette au Pantin" (No. 1338 in the collection); and Jules Dalou (1838-1902), also a sculptor, a man of more vigour although of less charm than his neighbour in the Palais. That strange gift of untiring abundant creativeness which the French have so notably, Dalou also shared, his busy fingers having added thousands of new figures to those that already congest life, while he modelled also many a well-known head. I think that I like best his "Esquisses de Travailleurs". Nothing here, however, is so fascinating as Dalou's own head by Rodin in the Luxembourg.
Of the picture collection proper I am saying but little, for it is in a fluid state, and even in the catalogue before me, the latest edition, there is no mention of several of its finest treasures: among them Manet's portrait of Théodore Duret, a sketch of an old peasant woman's hand by Madame David, a Rip Van Winkle by that modern master of the grotesque and Rabelaisian, Jean Véber, and one of Mr. Sargent's Venetian sketches—the racing gondoliers. For the most part it is like revisiting the past few Salons, except that the pictures are more choice and less numerous; but one sees many old friends, and all the expected painters are here. It is of course the surprises that one remembers—the three Daumiers, for example, particularly "L'Amateur d'Estampes," reproduced [opposite page 286], and "Les Joueurs d'Echecs," and the fine collection of the drawings of Puvis de Chavannes and Daniel Vierge. I was also much taken with some topographical drawings by Adrian Karbowski—No. 494 in the catalogue. Other pictures and drawings which should be seen are those by Cazin (a sunset), Pointelin, Steinlen (some work-girls), Sisley, Lebourg, and Harpignies, who exhibits water-colours separated in time by fifty-nine years, 1849 to 1908. The drawings on a whole are far better than the paintings.
In the collection Dutuit look at Ruisdael's "Environs de Haarlem," Terburg's "La Fiancée," Hobbema's "Les Moulins" and a woodland scene, Pot's "Portrait of a Man," Van de Velde's landscape sketches, and the Rembrandt. The rooms downstairs are not worth visiting.
Among the statuary, some of which is very good, particularly a new unsigned and uncatalogued Joan of Arc, is a naked Victor Hugo holding a MS. in his hand; while Frémiet of course confronts the door, this time with a really fine George and the Dragon, George having a spear worthy of the occasion, and not the short and useless broadsword which he brandishes on the English sovereign.
On my last visit to this thinly populated gallery I was for some time one of three visitors, until suddenly the vast spaces were humanised by the gracious and winsome presence of a band of Isidora Duncan's gay little dancers, with a kindly companion to tell them about the pictures, and—what interested them more—the statues. These tiny lissome creatures flitting among the cold rigid marbles I shall not soon forget.
And so we come to the Pont Alexandre III., the bridge whose width and radiance are an ever fresh surprise and joy, and make our way to the Invalides, at the end of the prospect, across the great Esplanade des Invalides, so quiet to-day, but for a month of every year, so noisy and variegated with round-abouts and booths. It is, by the way, well worth while, whenever one is in Paris, to find out what fair is being held. For somewhere or other a fair is always being held. You can get the particulars from the invaluable Bottin or Bottin Mondain, which every restaurant keeps, and which is even exposed to public scrutiny on a table at the Gare du Nord, and for all I know to the contrary, at the other stations too. This is one of the lessons which might be learned from Paris by London, where you ask in vain for a Post Office Directory in all but the General Post Office. Bottin, who knows all, will give you the time and place of every fair. The best is the Fête de Neuilly, which is held in the summer, just outside the Porte Maillot, but all the arrondissements have their own. They are crowded scenes of noisy life; but they are amusing too, and their popularity shows you how juvenile is the Frenchman's heart.
One should enter the Invalides from the great Place and round off the inspection of the Musée de l'Armée by a visit to Napoleon's tomb; that, at least, is the symmetrical order. The Hôtel des Invalides proper, which set the fashion in military hospitals, was built by Louis XIV., who may be seen on his horse in bas-relief on the principal façade. The building once sheltered and tended 7,000 wounded soldiers; but there are now only fifty. From its original function as a military hospital for any kind of disablement it has dwindled to a home for a few incurables; while the greater portion of the building is now given up to collections and to civic offices. There could be no greater contrast than that between the imposing architecture of the main structure and the charming domestic façade in the Boulevard des Invalides, which is one of the pleasantest of the old Paris buildings and has some of the simplicity of an English almshouse.
LES PÈLERINS D'EMMAÜS
REMBRANDT
(Louvre)