Her Royal Highness Woman

by Max O'Rell

PORTRAIT OF A FRENCH MOTHER

Madame Proquet lived in a little town in Brittany, which she had never quitted in her life. She had been born there, she had married there, and there it was that she had brought up her only son, Henri. When friends said to her, 'Why not travel a little? You should at least go and see Paris!' she would reply: 'Thank you, I am happy enough at home.' She cared little for the outer world. Early left a widow, she had resolved to live for her son. She had made herself his dearest friend without effeminating him, his constant guide without monopolizing him, and his preceptor without ceasing to be his comrade.

Before sending the boy to any school, she set to work herself and learned enough Latin and Greek to enable her to hear his lessons; and by the time he reached the upper forms, Madame Proquet would have been able to cut a very fair figure beside him.

Thanks to the care and order with which she managed her small fortune, she was well off—rich even—with her 5,000 or 6,000 francs a year, for at the end of each year the budget showed an excess of receipts over expenditure. Her house, her books and her garden occupied all the time which was not devoted to Henri. She was fond of receiving visits, but rarely paid calls herself; and in the winter evenings she loved to sit with a book by the fireside in the room, half kitchen, half dining-room, which, with its great open fireplace, is very often the most attractive-looking apartment in a small Breton house. Sometimes it was her needlework that she would bring out and busy her fingers upon, while the faithful Fanchette, who had held Henri on her knee, and who still 'thee'd' and 'thou'd' him, took her knitting, and to the steady click of the needles would go over again the merry tricks that he was wont to play when he was a little boy.

By-and-by Henri finished his studies and took his B.A. with honours. Then it became necessary to choose a profession. For some time past he had been longing to say to his mother: 'Mother, let me go to Paris and study painting. Something tells me that I should be successful.' But he knew that Madame Proquet had long been putting by 1,000 francs a year to send him to Paris to study law or medicine, whichever he should choose. She had made up her mind to make a lawyer or a doctor of him. Is it not the ambition of every French provincial mother? Henri allowed himself to be persuaded, although he felt not the least inclination for the one profession or the other. However, when it came to the point he chose the law.

What he did in Paris during six years we may see from the fact that, in the month of May, 1877, he pleaded at the assizes in a case which resulted in two years' imprisonment for his client; and that he exhibited at the Salon a portrait which earned for the artist the praise of all critical Paris. A very talented painter had arisen. Madame Proquet learned the news without making a very wry face, swallowed the pill without grimacing, and, Fanchette having declared that she had always predicted that Henri's genius would soon manifest itself, she wisely decided under the circumstances to be proud of her boy.

'But who is going to keep the dear fellow while he is painting in Paris? I cannot, that is certain,' said the good mother to herself.

'But, madam,' said Fanchette, 'do you not know that there are rich folks who pay one hundred and even as much as two hundred francs to have their portrait painted, and that Paris is full of people like that?'

Madame Proquet remained incredulous and full of anxiety. She certainly was not going to discourage her son, but she could not find it in her to encourage him. She would let events follow their course, while she remained calm at her post of observation. She had every confidence in her son after all. Was he not an advocate, and could he not always return to his profession if painting should fail him?

The following year Henri exhibited another portrait, which excited not merely the admiration but the enthusiasm of the critics. People talked of a future Bonnat, and the name of Henri Proquet was on everyone's tongue. The young painter was striding into fame.