Weary, penniless, and attacked with inward inflammation, he at length reached Paris. Philippe de Champagne received him, and watched over him like a brother until he recovered. A great degree of weakness and languor still depressed him; the air of Paris weighed on him like lead. He sighed for his native breeze at Andelys, and still more for his mother's embrace—his good and tender mother, whose letters to him were so often rendered almost illegible by her tears, and whose memory had been his sweetest comfort during the weary nights of sickness.
He set out on his journey with six livres in his pocket, which he had earned by painting a bunch of hats on the sign-post of a hatter, and arrived safely at home. Soon afterwards, his father died, and Nicholas determined never again to leave his mother. She, tender woman that she was, grieved for a husband who had rarely shewn her any kindness, and who, in his hard selfishness, had now left her totally destitute. All the money she had brought him as her dowry, he, unknown to her, had sunk in an annuity on his own life, and nothing now remained for her but the devoted love of her only son.
This, however, was a 'goodly heritage.' Those who zealously try to fulfil their duty, may be assured that a kind Providence will assist their efforts; and Nicholas succeeded for some time in maintaining his mother by the sale of water-colour paintings for the decoration of a convent chapel. At length, this resource failed; and the ardent young painter determined to relinquish all his bright visions, and learn some manual trade, when his mother was seized with illness, and, despite of his anxious care, died.
No motive now detained him at Andelys. The sale of his slender possessions there furnished him with a little money; and, partly in order to assuage his grief for his mother, partly to see the works of the great masters, he determined to go to Italy.
Rome was naturally the goal of his steps, but on this occasion he was not destined to reach it. On arriving at Florence, he met with an accidental hurt, which confined him to a lodging for a month, and when he was cured, left him almost penniless. Finding it impossible to dispose of the sketches which he drew for his daily bread, he determined to retrace his steps. Arrived at Paris, he was once more received by his faithful friend, Philippe de Champagne, and by him introduced to Duchesne, who was then painting the ornaments of the Luxembourg, and who engaged both the young men as his assistants.
This promised to be a durable and profitable engagement; but Duchesne, who had but little pretension to genius, soon grew jealous of his young companions, and seized the first pretext for dismissing them.
Shortly afterwards, the Jesuits of Paris celebrated the canonisation of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier. For this occasion, Poussin executed six water-colour pictures, representing the principal events in the lives of these two personages. The merit of these works attracted the attention of Signor Marini, a distinguished courtier of the day. He was attached to the suit of Marie de Medicis, and held a high place amongst the literary and artistic, as well as gay circles of the court; his notice was therefore of importance to the artist, who by it was introduced amongst the great, the learned, and the gay.
Wisely did he take advantage of mixing in this society to improve his knowledge of men and things, and to satisfy that craving for enlightenment which he felt equally when rambling in the fields, standing at his easel, or sitting as a timid listener in the splendid saloons of Signor Marini.
This pleasant life lasted for a year; Marini was his Mecænas; orders for paintings flowed in on him; and when, in 1625, his patron went to Rome to visit Pope Urban VIII., Poussin would have accompanied him, but for an honourable dread of breaking some engagements which he had made. Amongst others, he had to finish a large piece representing the Death of the Virgin, undertaken for the guild of goldsmiths, who presented every year a picture to Notre-Dame.
Marini tried in vain to shake his resolution. Nicholas Poussin had pledged his word, and nothing could make him break it—not even the advantage of accomplishing, in the company and at the expense of the generous Italian, that journey to Rome which had always formed his most cherished day-dream. The following year, Poussin went to Rome, and, to his great sorrow, found his kind patron suffering from a malady which speedily terminated his life. Thus was the painter once more thrown on his own resources in a city where he was a stranger; but his was not a nature to be discouraged by adversity. There was something grand in the serenity with which he spent days in examining the wondrous statues of the olden time, while a cheerless attic was his lodging, and his dinner depended on the generosity of a printseller for whom he worked occasionally, and who was not always in the humour to advance money.