In a masterly fashion he could make soldiers deploy in masses. No one has known in the same way how to render the impression of the multitude of an army, the notion of men standing shoulder to shoulder, the welding of thousands of individuals into one complete entity. In Raffet a regiment is a thousand-headed living being that has but one soul, one moral nature, one spirit, one sentiment of willing sacrifice and heroic courage. His death was as adventurous as his life; he passed away in a hotel in Genoa, and was brought back to French soil as part of the cargo of a merchant ship. For a long time his fame was thrown into the shade, at first by the triumphs of Horace Vernet, and then by those of Meissonier, until at length a fitting record was devoted to him by the piety of his son Auguste.
Never had Ernest Meissonier to complain of want of recognition. After his rococo pictures had been deemed worth their weight in gold he climbed to the summit of his fame, his universal celebrity and his popularity in France, when he devoted himself in the sixties to the representation of French military history. The year 1859 took him to Italy in the train of Napoleon III. Meissonier was chosen to spread the martial glory of the Emperor, and, as the nephew was fond of drawing parallels between himself and his mighty uncle, Meissonier was obliged to depict suitable occasions from the life of the first Napoleon. His admirers were very curious to know how the great “little painter” would acquit himself in such a monumental task. First came the “Battle of Solferino,” that picture of the Musée Luxembourg which represents Napoleon III overlooking the battle from a height in the midst of his staff. After lengthy preparations it appeared in the Salon of 1864, and showed that the painter had not been untrue to himself: he had simply adapted the minute technique of his rococo pictures to the painting of war, and he remained the Dutch “little master” in all the battle-pieces which followed.
Napoleon III had no further deeds of arms to record, so the intended parallel series was never accomplished. It is true, indeed, that he took the painter with the army in 1870; but after the first battle was lost, Meissonier went home: he did not wish to immortalise the struggles of a retreat. Henceforward his brush was consecrated to the first Napoleon. “1805” depicts the triumphant advance to the height of fame; “1807” shows Napoleon when the summit has been reached and the soldiers are cheering their idol in exultation; “1814” represents the fall: the star of fortune has vanished; victory, so long faithful to the man of might, has deserted his banners. There is still a look of indomitable energy on the pale face of the Emperor, as, in utter despair, he aims his last shot against the traitor destiny; but his eyes seem weary, his mouth is contorted, and his features are wasted with fever.
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| (By permission of M. Georges Petit, the owner of the copyright.) | |
| MEISSONIER. | 1814. |
| Gaz. des Beaux-Arts. |
| MEISSONIER. THE OUTPOST. |
| (By permission of M. Georges Petit, the owner of the copyright.) |
Meissonier has treated all these works with the carefulness which he expended on his little rococo pictures. To give an historically accurate representation of Napoleon’s boots he did not content himself with borrowing them from the museum. Walking and riding—for he was a passionate horseman—he wore for months together boots of the same make and form as those of the “little Corporal.” To get the colour of the horses of the Emperor and his marshals, in their full-grown winter coat, and to paint them just as they must have appeared after the hardships and negligence of a campaign, he bought animals of the same race and colour as those ridden by the Emperor and his generals, according to tradition, and picketed them for weeks in the snow and rain. His models were forced to wear out the uniforms in sun and storm before he painted them; he bought weapons and harness at fancy prices when he could not borrow them from museums. And there is no need to say that he copied all the portraits of Napoleon, Ney, Soult, and the other generals that were to be had, and read through whole libraries before beginning his Napoleon series. To paint the picture “1814,” which is generally reckoned his greatest performance—Napoleon at the head of his staff riding through a snow-clad landscape—he first prepared the scenery on a spot in the plain of Champagne, corresponding to the original locality, just as he did in earlier years with his interiors of the rococo period; he even had the road laid out on which he wished to paint the Emperor advancing. Then he waited for the first fall of snow, and had artillery, cavalry, and infantry to march for him upon this snowy path, and actually contrived that overturned transport waggons, discarded arms, and baggage should be decoratively strewn about the landscape.
From these laborious preparations it may be understood that he spent almost as many millions of francs upon his pictures as he received. In his article, What an Old Work of Art is Worth, Julius Lessing has admirably dealt with the hidden ways of taste and commerce applied to art. Amongst all painters of modern times Meissonier is the only one whose pictures, during his own lifetime, fetched prices such as are only reached by the works of famous old masters of the greatest epochs. And yet he sold them straight from his easel, and never to dealers. Meissonier avenged himself magnificently for the privations of his youth. In 1832, when he gave up his apprenticeship with Menier, the great chocolate manufacturer, to become a painter, he had fifteen francs a month to spend. He had great difficulty in disposing of his drawings and illustrations for five or ten francs, and was often obliged to console himself with a roll for the want of a dinner. Only ten years later he was able to purchase a small place in Poissy, near St. Germain, where he went for good in 1850, to give himself up to work without interruption. Gradually this little property became a pleasant country seat, and in due course of time the stately house in Paris, in the Boulevard Malesherbes, was added to it. His “Napoleon, 1814,” for which the painter himself received three hundred thousand francs, was bought at an auction by one of the owners of the “Grands Magasins du Louvre” for eight hundred and fifty thousand francs; “Napoleon III at Solferino” brought him two hundred thousand, and “The Charge of the Cuirassiers” three hundred thousand. And in general, after 1850, he only painted for such sums. It was calculated that he received about five thousand francs for every centimetre of painted canvas, and left behind him pictures which, according to present rate, were worth more than twenty million francs, without having really become a rich man; for, as a rule, every picture that he painted cost him several thousand.