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Sixty Year's Memories of Art and Artists XI . WE remained on the Rhine until November, studying both banks of the river very carefully from Cologne to Mayence, including all the ruins and important historical features, but before leaving for Paris we took the steamer down the river that we might visit Dusseldorf. Hunt had given me a letter to Leutze, at that time one of the principal painters of the then highly renowned school of Dusseldorf. Leutze received us with great kindness and genuine frank hospitality. It seemed as though the town was made up of artists, and we were taken to many of the studios of the most eminent. Lessing had on his easel "The Martyrdom of Huss," afterwards exhibited in the Boston Athenaeum. He was a man of great intellectual power and refinement. We went to the studios of the two Achen-bach's-Andreas and Oswald. Andreas was the better known at this time, and his fine marines are well known here. But Oswald made himself famous later by his fine renderings of Italian scenery. There was also a young man by the name of Gude who painted Norwegian mountain scenery with great effect. Some fine specimens of his work were seen here in the Dusseldorf collection so well-known forty or forty-five years ago. We were guests of the artists' club, and we were fêted royally. There was a young American painter, named Woodville, studying there then, who showed much ability. He was slow and patient, but his little paintings were full of exquisite color, and he always painted some subject characteristic of American life, which young art students are not apt to do. Our brief visit to Dusseldorf was exceedingly interesting, and we owed this to our kind-hearted friend Lentze. Back to Paris again and settled for the winter, I went to work to find out the way to execute the panorama. I first made a painting in miniature of the whole including the composition and effects. I knew nothing of the manner of using distemper colors, but through a friend I became acquainted with Theodore Frère, brother of Ed-douard Frère, and through him with Charles Hugo, a decorative painter of great cleverness, and he came to help me begin my work. According to the French method the huge lengths of canvas were laid and tacked upon the floor, and we walked in soft slippers over the picture, standing up and using long-handled brushes. It came very easy to use the new material, and with the help of Hugo and one or two others the work went along rapidly until we heard the first mutterings of the Revolution of February, .1848, which was destined to overthrow the government of Louis Phillippe. It had been understood some days previously that a revolution would begin on Tuesday, the twenty-second of February, and, sure enough, in the afternoon of that day someone came into the studio saying that great crowds of people were in the Place de la Concorde, and had assaulted and taken some of the places in that neighborhood where soldiers were posted. When we came down the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré towards night, the street was deserted save by a few serjeants de ville, and a person here and there armed with sword and gun, skulking around the corners as the horsemen rode by, but we gained our lodgings in safety. The next day the fighting went on, and the government yielded to the demands of the mob which demanded the dismissal of the existing cabinet of which Guizot was the head. Everything seemed in a fairway to be adjusted amicably. Paris that evening was ablaze with illuminations. The people, satisfied and joyous, were promenading the boulevards in immense numbers. We went to our lodgings early, being tired with the day's emotions, and our young friend, William Babcock, came to stay with us. In the morning he went out to go to his own home. He had been gone but a few minutes when he returned, looking pale and anxious, saying that large bodies of troops were posted on the boulevards, that there had been bloodshed, and that the rioters were felling the trees across the streets, and upsetting omnibuses and carriages for barricades. This proved to be true as we found upon going out to breakfast. It seems that the evening before just after we had left the boulevards a corps of soldiers, stationed to guard the building used by the Minister of War, received orders through a mistake or by malice (which has never been known) to fire upon the crowd-a crowd of peaceful, joyful citizens. The result was sixty people killed and many wounded. The excitement was intense. The people were called to arms, and the tocsin was sounded. The victims were piled in carts, which were paraded through the streets. Arms were demanded at every house. I talked with some of the soldiers. They said that they were in a hard position. They could not fire upon the people because their brothers and friends were there. All this time the barricades were going up. We went to breakfast, and when we came back, the soldiers were deserting from the ranks and allowing the people to filch their cartridges from them. Some were throwing up their caps with huzzas for the insurgents. An hour or two after, Gay and I strolled out to observe, and found the insurgents were now headed for the Tuileries by the cross streets from the Boulevards. We followed on over many barricades to the Rue de Rivoli. There was hard fighting at the Chateau d'Eau near the Palais Royal. The Rue de Rivoli and the Gardens were deserted. We turned home again, but the desire to know what was going on was so great that I went out once more to my studio in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. All was quiet there, but as I went down the Champs Elysées I found people in a great state of ferment. Men were decorated in brocades from the windows of the palace, and carried treasures of bric-a-brac in their hands. I soon found that the Palace had been taken, and that the King had fled. I followed through the Place de la Concorde, and through the Gardens of the Tuileries. The Gardens were filled with a strange crowd of people, who seemed to have sprung from the most miserable dens of the city, men and women of a type I had never seen before. It seemed as though the prisons had been opened, and all the felons and cutthroats of the great city had been let loose. Shots were being fired in all directions. I approached the Palace. Crowds were rushing in and out. I went up the steps and was carried in by the surging masses. A scene of devastation met the eye. Everything breakable had been smashed. The floors were heaped with the debris. I stooped to pick up some little memento from amongst the papers and splinters when a man rushed at me with fixed bayonet crying out angrily Don't you see what is written on my musket? ". I looked at him and I saw a piece of paper through which his steel had been thrust. On it was in scribed in pencil: "Mort aux Voleurs. "- Death to robbers. I hastily dropped my worthless relics, but managed later to obtain more. Who had placed these men on guard ? From what secret service had authority come, and the beginning of order appeared? I went all over the Palace and saw the work of destruction going on. Fine paintings on the walls of the reception rooms, portraits of distinguished generals and men of note adorning the walls were riddled with bayonet thrusts. Nothing of much value was left intact. I walked back up the Champs Elysées, and, coming through the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, came to the place where the United States Legation was situated. Dr. Martin was there in charge of the Legation. He was on the street with the crowd, and was in a state of perplexity because there was nothing over the doors to announce that the building was occupied by a representative of the American Republic. I had seen Dr. Martin, and knew him by sight, but he did not know me. I spoke to him in French and volunteered to help him with the announcement that this was the house of the American Legation, and so I mounted a ladder, and with chalk made the proper inscription on the walls. At that time it seemed as though the mob would sack the city, and this was thought a proper precaution. The Dr. thanked me, and I went away, and he never knew I was an American. About dusk I was back again near the Palace. It was a scene of
desolation there. The furniture and beds were being thrown from the windows and set on fire. The wine cellars had been invaded. The
principal rioters inside were satiated with plunder and drunk with
wines and liquors, and Paris seemed doomed. I met Babcock here, and
we went home with sad hearts. |
