Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

Her art and life inspired respect and admiration; we have nothing to regret, nothing to conceal; we desire to love her for her animals, and we must esteem her for her grand devotion to her art and family, for her purity and charity, for her kindness to and love for those in the lower walks of life, for her goodness and honesty. An illustration of the last quality may be taken from her dealings with art collectors. After having offered her Horse Fair, which she desired should remain in France, to her own town for twelve thousand francs, she sold it for forty thousand francs to Mr. Gambert, but with the condition which she thus expressed: "I am grateful for your giving me such a noble price, but I do not like to feel that I have taken advantage of your liberality. Let us see how we can combine matters. You will not be able to have an engraving made from so large a canvas; suppose I paint you a small one of the same subject, of which I will make you a present." Naturally, the gift was accepted, and the smaller canvas now hangs in the National Gallery of London.

In all her dealings she showed this kindness and uprightness, sympathy and honesty. Although numberless orders were constantly coming to her, she never let them hurry her in her work. She was, possibly, the highest and noblest type—certainly among great French women—of that strong and solid virtue which constitutes the backbone and the very essence of French national strength. The reputation of Rosa Bonheur has never been blemished by the least touch of petty jealousy, hatred, envy, vanity, or pride—and, among all great French women, she is one of the few of whom this may be said. She won for herself and her noble art the genuine and lasting sympathy of the world at large.

The only woman artist in France deserving a place beside Rosa Bonheur belongs properly under the reign of Louis XVI., although she lived almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. At the age of twenty, Mme. Lebrun was already famous as the leading portrait painter; this was during the most popular period of Marie Antoinette—1775 to 1785. In 1775, but a young girl, admitted to all the sessions of the Academy as recognition of her portraits of La Bruyère and Cardinal Fleury, she made her life unhappy and gave her art a serious blow by consenting to marry the then great art critic and collector of art, Lebrun. His passion for gambling and women ruined her fortune and almost ended her career as an artist. Her own conduct was not irreproachable.

Mme. Lebrun will be remembered principally as the great painter of Marie Antoinette, who posed for her more than twenty times. The most prominent people of Europe eagerly sought her work, while socially she was welcomed everywhere. Her famous suppers and entertainments in her modestly furnished hôtel, at which Garat sang, Grétry played the piano, and Viotti and Prince Henry of Prussia assisted, were the events of the day. Her reputation as a painter of the great ladies and gentlemen of nobility, and her entertainments, naturally associated her with the nobility; hence, she shared their unpopularity at the outbreak of the Revolution and left France.

It is doubtful whether any artist—certainly no French artist—ever received more attention and honors, or was made a member of so many art academies, than Mme. Lebrun. It would be difficult to make any comparison between her and Rosa Bonheur, their respective spheres of art being so different. Only the future will speak as to the relative positions of each in French art.

In the domain of the dramatic art of the nineteenth century, two women have made their names well known throughout Europe and America,—Rachel, and Sarah Bernhardt, both tragédiennes and both daughters of Israel. While Rachel was, without question, the greatest tragédienne that France ever produced, excelling Bernhardt in deep tragic force, she yet lacked many qualities which our contemporary possesses in a high degree. She had constantly to contend with a cruel fate and a wicked, grasping nature, which brought her to an early grave. The wretched slave of her greedy and rapacious father and managers, who cared for her only in so far as she enriched them by her genius and popularity, hers was a miserable existence, which detracted from her acting, checked her development, and finally undermined her health.

After her critical period of apprenticeship was successfully passed and she was free to govern herself, she rose to be queen of the French stage—a position which she held for eighteen years, during which she was worshipped and petted by the whole world. As a social leader, she was received and made much of by the great ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Her taste in dress was exquisite in its simplicity, being in perfect harmony with the reserved, retiring, and amiable actress herself.

Possibly no actress, singer, or other public woman ever received such homage and general recognition. With all her great qualities as an actress, vigor, grandeur, wild, savage energy, superb articulation, irreproachable diction, and a marvellous sense of situations, she lacked the one quality which we miss in Sarah Bernhardt also—a true tenderness and compassion. As a tragédienne she can be compared to Talma only. Her greed for money soon ended her brilliant career; unlike her sister in art, she amassed a fortune, leaving over one million five hundred thousand francs.

Compared with Bernhardt, Rachel is said to have been the greater in pure tragedy, but she did not possess as many arts of fascination. There are many points of similarity between the two actresses: Rachel was at times artificial, wanting in tenderness and depth, while at times she was superhuman in her passion and emotion, and often put more into her rôle than was intended; and the acting of Sarah Bernhardt has the same characteristics. Rachel, however, was much more subject to moods and fits of inspiration than is Bernhardt—especially was she incapable of acting at her best on evenings of her first appearance in a new rôle. Her critical power was very weak in comparison with her intellectual power, the reverse being true of her modern rival. Rachel's greatest inspiration was Phèdre, and in this rôle Bernhardt "is weak, unequal. We see all the viciousness in Phèdre and none of her grandeur. She breaks herself to pieces against the huge difficulties of the conception and does not succeed in moving us.... Rachel was the mouthpiece of the gods; no longer a free agent, she poured forth every epithet of adoration that Aphrodite could suggest, clambering up higher and higher in the intensity of her emotions, whilst her audience hung breathless, riveted on every word, and dared to burst forth in thunders of applause only after she had vanished from their sight."

Both of these artists were children of the lower class, and struggled with a fate which required grit, tenacity, and determination to win success. The artist of to-day is no social leader—"never the companion of man, but his slave or his despot." It is entirely her physical charms and the outward or artificial requisites of her art that make her what she is. According to Mr. Lynch, her tragedy "is but one of disorder, fury, and folly—passions not deep, but unbridled and hysterical in their intensest display. Her forte lies in the ornate and elaborate exhibition of rôles," for which she creates the most capricious and fantastic garbs. She is a great manager,—omitting the financial part,—quite a writer, somewhat of a painter and sculptor, throwing her money away, except to her creditors, adored by some and execrated by others. Her care of her physical self and her utter disregard for money have undoubtedly contributed to her long and brilliant career; rest and idleness are her most cruel punishments. All nervous energy, never happy, restless, she is a true fin de siècle product.