JULES DE GONCOURT.
From a water-colour by Edmond de Goncourt, 1857.
EDMOND DE GONCOURT.
From a photograph by Nadar, 1892.
It was in 1870 that Jules de Goncourt died at the age of thirty-nine. "It was impossible," wrote Paul de Saint-Victor in La Liberté, "to know and not to love this young man, with his child's face, his pleasant, ready laugh, his eyes sparkling with intellect and purpose.... That blond young head was bent over his work for months at a time...." It was the profile of this "blond young head" that Claudius Popelin traced for the enamel that was set into the binding of the Nécrologe, in which Edmond preserved all the articles, letters, and tokens of sympathy called forth by the irreparable loss of his beloved companion and fellow-labourer. This medallion, etched by Abot, was prefixed afterward to the edition of Jules de Goncourt's Letters, published by Charpentier. The profile, which is reproduced as the frontispiece to this edition of Renée Mauperin, is infinitely gentle; the emaciated contours, the extraordinary delicacy of the features, betray the intellectual dreamer, his mind intent on literary questions, and we understand M. Émile Zola's dictum: "Art killed him."
EDMOND DE GONCOURT.
From an etching by Bracquemond, 1882.
(The original drawing is in the Luxembourg Museum.)
Prince Gabrielli and Princesse Mathilde also made certain furtive sketches of Jules which have since been photographed. Méaulle engraved a portrait of him on wood, and Varin made an etching of him. Henceforth, save in Bracquemond's double medallion, and in one or two papers in which studies of him by different hands appeared, Edmond de Goncourt was no longer represented in company with his gifted brother, but always alone.
EDMOND DE GONCOURT.
From a photograph by Nadar, 1893.