Saint-Gaudens himself feared that he might be making a serious mistake. The ocean voyage in itself was an ordeal to him, and before leaving he wrote: "I continue fencing and am preparing for the voyage as one prepares for a fight. I go to the theatre and that tides over the blue hours which lie between dinner and bed-time." But he felt that he must make the venture, whatever lay before him, and that he could never be satisfied until he had stood the test of a comparison with his chief contemporaries and until his work had been passed upon by the most sophisticated and penetrating critics of art. At the end of September, 1897, accompanied by his wife and his son, Homer, he sailed for England. After crossing to France, he thus described his first impressions:
"Hotel Normandy, Paris, Nov. 7th, 1897
"The beauty of the scenery and of the English homes and villages on the railroad from Southampton to London recalled the delightful impression of the last trip, when I was so light-hearted. The sense of order and thrift appealed to me strongly in comparison with the shiftlessness of America. Then London with its extraordinary impression of power and also of order. Homer and I went to see Hamlet. Read it, R——. As I grow older, the greatness of Shakspeare looms higher and higher; every line, every word is so deep, so true, 'never offending the modesty of nature withal,' as Hamlet himself advises the players.
"From London we came on the following day to Paris. The country between Calais and Dover seemed very grand; great rolling lands with immense fields being ploughed in the waning day. The peace, simplicity, and calm of it all was profoundly impressive. Just a ploughman and a boy, alone in the country on a hillside, following the horses and the plough along the deep, straight furrows; no fences, a clear sky with the half moon, and only a small clump or two of trees—all so orderly and grand."
For the first few weeks in Paris Saint-Gaudens was miserable. His studio, on the Rue de Bagneux, in the Latin Quarter, was large and cheerful, with comfortable quarters adjoining for his assistants, and he was extremely interested in his work upon the equestrian statue of General Sherman. But he missed his old friends and haunts in New York, the weather was gloomy and depressing, and he felt enervated and homesick. Almost none of the friends of his student days were there to welcome him back to Paris, and he was not in the mood to make new ones. Dr. Shiff, a retired physician with a philosophic turn of mind, and many years the sculptor's senior, was the only man he could count upon for regular companionship, though occasionally an old friend like Henry Adams, John Alexander, or Garnier would drop into the studio. John Sargent was another warm friend who helped to keep up his spirits and whom he admired intensely both as a man and as an artist. With Helleu, the etcher, they enjoyed spending a day or two at Chartres and Rheims. In the following letter he describes his first meeting with Whistler:
"Paris, Nov. 16th, 1897
"Mac and I made a short call on Whistler, whom I found much more human than I imagined him to be, and today I went to the Court of Appeals where a trial of his was to come off—it didn't,—but I had a delightful chat with him. He is a very attractive man with very queer clothes, a kind of 1830 coat with an enormous collar greater even than those of that period; a monocle, a strong jaw, very frizzly hair with a white mesh in it, and an extraordinary hat."
The brightest spot in Saint-Gaudens' winter was his visit to the south of France and to Italy, in the company of his friend Garnier, who, like Bion, had been a fellow-student of his at the École des Beaux-Arts years before. They left Paris in December, and went almost directly to Aspet and Salies du Salat, Gascon villages where Saint-Gaudens' father was born and where he worked at his trade as a young man. This was the first time that Augustus Saint-Gaudens had visited that country on the Spanish frontier where his paternal ancestors had lived for centuries and where many of their name still survived.
"Aspet, December, 1897
"I write this in the village where my father was born and today has been one of the most delightful days of my life. I have invited my old friend Garnier (a dear friend and the most delightful of companions) to travel with me. We left Paris yesterday morning and slept at Toulouse last night. We left there this morning before dawn and saw the sun rise over the Pyrenees on our way to Salies du Salat, a most picturesque and dirty village at the foot of the beautiful mountains. I inquired at the station if any Saint-Gaudens lived there. 'Yes, opposite the mairie.' We walked up a narrow Spanish-looking street and there was a little shoe-store and on it the sign 'Saint-Gaudens.' I woke my cousin up. His is the very house where father passed his childhood. We three walked over the town up to the cradle of the 'Comminges' just back of father's house, and we went around on the sward and on the old moat where the children now play and where his father and my father played when children. I cannot describe to you how I was moved by it all.
"After a characteristic déjeuner with the cousin, a typical French peasant, and his typical wife, we hired a wagon with two horses and drove three hours into the mountains through a wonderfully beautiful country, very Spanish in character, to this delightful village. Here father was born, and baptized in the little church right at hand from where I write. There are delightful fountains at every corner and an air of thrift, order, and cleanliness that you cannot imagine. We are in a nice hotel, a homelike place, and tomorrow, after seeing Market Day, we walk to Saint-Gaudens, about 12 miles from here. It is a most romantic spot; all the country and the people here have a good deal of the Spanish dignity. We are 30 miles from the frontier of Spain. I must stop now because my third cousin (his grandfather and mine were brothers) is coming. He is the postman of the village and the surrounding country, a handsome young fellow who carries the mail around on horseback, and who between times makes shoes."
Leaving this out-of-the-way corner of Gascony, under the shadow of the Pyrenees, Saint-Gaudens and Garnier traveled by Toulouse to Marseilles. From this port the sculptor had sailed twenty-seven or eight years before, when he first went to study in Rome. Now, with his old friend, he again climbed up to where the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde overlooks the Mediterranean, and was amused to remember the three days he had spent upon that hill-top, with little to eat but figs and chocolate, while awaiting the departure of his ship for Italy.
The two artists went by train from Marseilles to Nice and Ventimiglia, and then walked along the superb Cornice road to San Remo, conscious that every step brought them nearer to their beloved Italy. The hills, covered with palms and orange-trees, the sacred-looking groves of gray-green olives detached against the deep blue of the sea, recalled to Saint-Gaudens a story by Anatole France describing some early Christians in an olive grove overlooking the Mediterranean.
In Italy they stopped first at Pisa, and did not reach Rome much before midnight. Regardless of fatigue, Saint-Gaudens insisted upon starting out that night to revisit the favorite haunts of his student days, taking the reluctant Garnier with him. At a late hour they ended their excursion at the Café Greco, where the sculptor talked with a waiter who had served him with coffee in 1871. The next morning they spent in the gardens and the Bosco of the Villa Medici. Nothing seemed to them much changed, and their happiness was as great as if they had found their youth again in the land where they had left it. Saint-Gaudens afterward said that on the night of that arrival in Rome he felt as if he were slaking a great thirst. Before their return they also visited the Bay of Naples. Vivid memories of Italy were present with the sculptor until the end of his life, and during his last illness he said that one thing he wished to live for was to take again the drive from Salerno to Amalfi: the vineyards clinging to the hillsides, the cliffs with the blue waves breaking at their base, haunted him as a vision of exquisite beauty.
Late in the winter Saint-Gaudens returned to Paris, and when spring and the pleasant weather came on he was working again with great enthusiasm, preparing for the Salon. His exhibit at the Champs de Mars attracted much attention and elicited unexpected praise from the severest French critics.