All the great painters have their exclusive model or models, paying them a permanent salary. These favored ones move in a special circle, into which the ordinaire may not enter, unless she becomes the favorite of some grand homme. They are never seen at the academies, and rarely or never pose in the schools, unless it was there they began their career.
Perhaps the most famous of the models of Paris was Sarah Brown, whose wild and exciting life has been the talk of the world. Her beautiful figure and glorious golden hair opened to her the whole field of modeldom. Offers for her services as model were more numerous than she could accept, and the prices that she received were very high. She was the mistress of one great painter after another, and she lived and reigned like a queen. Impulsive, headstrong, passionate, she would do the most reckless things. She would desert an artist in the middle of his masterpiece and come down to the studio to pose for the students at thirty francs a week. Gorgeously apparelled, she would glide into a studio, overturn all the easels that she could reach, and then shriek with laughter over the havoc and consternation that she had created. The students would greet her with shouts and form a circle about her, while she would banteringly call them her friends. Then she would jump upon the throne, dispossess the model there, and give a dance or make a speech, knocking off every hat that her parasol could reach. But no one could resist Sarah.
She came up to the Atelier Gérôme one morning and demanded une semaine de femme. The massier booked her for the following week. She arrived promptly on time and was posed. Wednesday a whim seized her to wear her plumed hat and silk stockings. "C'est beaucoup plus chic," she naively explained. When Gérôme entered the studio and saw her posing thus she smiled saucily at him, but he turned in a rage and left the studio without a word. Thursday she tired of the pose and took one to please herself, donning a skirt. Of course protests were useless, so the students had to recommence their work. The remainder of the week she sat upon the throne in full costume, refusing to pose. She amused herself with smoking cigarettes and keeping the nouveaux running errands for her.
It was she who was the cause of the students' riot in 1893,—a riot that came near ending in a revolution. It was all because she appeared at le Bal des Quat'z' Arts in a costume altogether too simple and natural to suit the prefect of police, who punished her. She was always at the Salon on receiving-day, and shocked the occupants of the liveried carriages on the Champs-Elysées with her dancing. In fact, she was always at the head of everything extraordinary and sensational among the Bohemians of Paris. But she aged rapidly under her wild life. Her figure lost its grace, her lovers deserted her, and after her dethronement as Queen of Bohemia, broken-hearted and poor, she put an end to her wretched life,—and Paris laughed.
The breaking in of a new girl model is a joy that the students never permit themselves to miss. Among the many demoiselles who come every Monday morning are usually one or two that are new. The new one is accompanied by two or more of her girl friends, who give her encouragement at the terrible moment when she disrobes. As there are no dressing-rooms, there can be no privacy. The students gather about and watch the proceedings with great interest, and make whatever remarks their deviltry can suggest. This is the supreme test; all the efforts of the attendant girls are required to hold the new one to her purpose. When finally, after an inconceivable struggle with her shame, the girl plunges ahead in reckless haste to finish the job, the students applaud her roundly.
But more torture awaits her. Frightened, trembling, blushing furiously, she ascends the throne, and innocently assumes the most awkward and ridiculous poses, forgetting in that terrible moment the poses that she had learned so well under the tutelage of her friends. It is then that the fiendishness of the students rises to its greatest height. Dazed and numb, she hardly comprehends the ordeal through which she is now put. The students have adopted a grave and serious bearing, and solemnly ask her to assume the most outlandish and ungraceful poses. Then come long and mock-earnest arguments about her figure, these arguments having been carefully learned and rehearsed beforehand. One claims that her waist is too long and her legs too heavy; another hotly takes the opposite view. Then they put her through the most absurd evolutions to prove their points. At last she is made to don her hat and stockings; and the students form a ring about her and dance and shout until she is ready to faint.
Of course the studio has a ringleader in all this deviltry,—all studios have. Joncierge is head of all the mischief in our atelier. There is no end to his ingenuity in devising new means of torture and fun. His personations are marvellous. When he imitates Bernhardt, Réjane, or Calvé, no work can be done in the studio. Gérôme himself is one of his favorite victims. But Joncierge cannot remain long in one school; the authorities pass him on as soon as they find that he is really hindering the work of the students. One day, at Julian's, he took the class skeleton, and with a cord let the rattling, quivering thing down into the Rue du Dragon, and frightened the passers out of their wits. As his father is chef d'orchestre at the Grand Opéra, Joncierge junior learns all the operas and convulses us with imitations of the singers.