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At this time he was scarcely more than thirty years old. A most brilliant career henceforth lay open before him.

G?r?me remains, beyond question, the unrivalled painter of Egypt, whose aspects, enchanting and sinister alike, he has reproduced in a series of pictures of finished workmanship and vibrant colouring.

It was in 1856 that, together with a few friends, among others Bartholdi, then twenty-two years old, he undertook his long tour through Egypt. To-day, one can go to Cairo or up the Nile as casually as to Nice or Italy and with almost as little trouble. In those days it was not a question of a simple excursion, of which any and every amateur tourist would be capable, but of a veritable expedition.

Unforeseen adventures appealed to G?r?me, for he was brave, energetic, and eager for new sensations. M. Fr?d?ric Masson, the eminent historian, who was one of his companions through the desert, has since shown him to us, in a series of graphic recollections, as perpetually on his feet, indefatigable, ready to endure any and every vicissitude for the sake of sketching a site or a silhouette.

His stay in Egypt was for G?r?me a period of enchantment. He has left, in regard to it, some hasty but expressive notes. He passed four months on the Nile, well filled months, consecrated to fishing, hunting, and painting, all the way from Diametta to Philae. He remained the four succeeding months at Cairo, in an old dwelling that Suliman Pasha rented to the young Frenchmen. "Happy epoch!" wrote the painter, "Care-free, full of hope, and with the future before us. The sky was blue."

He returned to Paris with an ample harvest of sketches, a supply of curious, novel, and striking themes to work up. M. Moreau-Vauthier shows him to us at that period of his existence, full of unflagging energy and pleasant enthusiasm, in the company of Brion, Lambert, Schutzenberger, and Toulmouche,--not to forget his monkey Jacques, who took his place at the family table arrayed in coat and white cravat, but would slink away and hide himself in shame when, as a punishment for some misdeed, they decked him out as a ragpicker.

What jolly parties were held in that "Tea Chest," in which G?r?me then had his studio, Rue de Notre-Dame-des-Champs! It was the scene of many a festival, entertainment, and joyous puppet show, attended by spectators such as Rachel , her sister, George Sand, Baudry, Cabanel, H?bert, and others.

This was, nevertheless, an epoch of prolific work and constant research. G?r?me passed ceaselessly from one type of painting to another; one might say that he rested from his exotic landscapes by evoking, with an ever new lavishness of detail, curious or affecting scenes from Greek and Roman antiquity.

Thus rewards and successes multiplied, and he experienced all the joys of triumph. Already honorary member of the Academy of Besan?on, he was appointed professor at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts in 1863, and in 1865, member of the Institut, where he succeeded Heim.

Meanwhile he fought a duel with revolvers and was gravely wounded. His mother hastened once again to his bedside and saved his life a second time. Since the ball had passed through his right arm, complications affecting his hand were feared. The artist declared that if necessary he would learn to paint with his left. No sooner was he cured than off he started again, bound for Egypt, whence he passed to Arabia and, more venturesome than ever, continued on his way, as one of his biographers phrased it, "making sketches clear to the summit of Mt. Sinai."

He was destined to make still other journeys, notably that of 1868 in company of Messrs. Bonnet, Fr?d?ric Masson, and Lenoir; and his companions paid tribute to his unfailing spirits and his powers of endurance. But at the age of forty he married. The bride was Mlle. Goupil, daughter of the well-known picture dealer.

G?r?me was also numbered among Compi?gne's habitual visitors, along with Berlioz, Gustave Dor?, Guillaume, Merim?e, Viollet-le-Duc, and others. M. Moreau-Vauthier, who with pious zeal has collected the more interesting anecdotes of his life, relates that he had a special gift for organizing charades: he was scene setter and costumer. At Fontainebleau, he took the Empress out alone in a row-boat.

Surrounded by devoted friends, such as Augier, Charles Blanc, Dumas, Clery, his brother-in-law, Fr?miet, G?r?me continued his laborious and tranquil life in his vast atelier on the Boulevard de Clichy.

His studio at Bougival held him for many a long day, while the season lasted. While there, he worked with extraordinary assiduity, barely giving himself time enough to appear among his guests and hastily swallow a few mouthfuls of the mid-day meal. He owned at one time another country house at Coulevon, near Vesoul, but this he sold to one of his former pupils, Muenier. He remained none the less the chief pride of his native town, where, even during the artist's life, there was a street bearing the name of G?r?me.

His favourite summering place, however, was in the heart of Normandy at Saint-Martin, near to Pont-L?v?que, where he possessed a delightful property.

Such he appears in his painting of himself as a sculptor in his studio, absorbed, in his alert and perennially youthful old age, by his new task of making polychrome statues. M. Aim? Morot, his son-in-law, has shown him to us in his intimate life, simple, natural, and at one and the same time alert and caustic. We find him also thoroughly alive in the fine bust by Carpeaux and in the medal by Chaplain, now in the Luxembourg.

M. Dagnan-Bouveret saw him under another aspect. In the portrait he has given us, we have the master authoritatively proclaiming his convictions. This distinguished artist, by the way, was formerly a pupil of G?r?me's. One day when he was complimenting the latter upon his method of teaching, G?r?me replied, in his loud, assertive voice: "When I undertake to do a thing, I do it to the very end. I am a man with a sense of duty."

As professor at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts he continued to fulfil his duty for a period of forty years. While conducting his classes he showed himself grave and stern, even sardonic when so inclined. In front of a canvas too thickly coated, he would exclaim: "The paint shop man will be pleased"; or perhaps he would move around to get a side view and then play upon his words, saying: "How that picture stands out!"

He had a good many foreigners in his studio, Spaniards such as La Gandara, Americans like Bridgman and Harrison, and Russians such as the celebrated and courageous Verestschagen who, according to M. L?on Coutil, declared, in speaking of G?r?me, "Next to my dear Skobelof, he is the most resolute man that I have ever met."

G?r?me was frank and unreserved in his opinions. Having become, so to speak, the official representative of French painting, he was exposed to repeated attacks. He did not hesitate to flout unmercifully and to pursue with a veritable hatred such artists as had adopted formulas opposed to his own,--and among them some of the biggest and the ones least open to discussion. M. Besnard, who was not a pupil of his, nevertheless owed him his Prix de Rome.

And when a prominent politician criticised the official curriculum without proposing anything to take its place, it was, according to M. Moreau-Vauthier, again G?r?me who replied: "Gentlemen, it is easier to be an incendiary than a fireman!"

G?r?me had always wished for a sudden and brusque death, "without physic and without night-cap." He was spared both physical and moral decline. At the age of seventy-nine he climbed the stairs, four steps at a time, and sprang upon moving omnibuses running. He died suddenly of a cerebral congestion, on his return from a dinner which he had attended together with his colleagues of the Institut, January 10, 1904.

THE ARTIST'S WORK

It is difficult to enumerate in detail all the works of G?r?me, whose originality and energy were inexhaustible. Only a short time before his death he declared that with the help of the sketches contained in his cupboards he had material enough to keep him busy for twenty-five years longer.

Instead of attempting to draw up a chronological list of his paintings, which would be only approximately correct, even if limited to the more important, it is more profitable to study this conscientious artist under his principal aspects.

G?r?me had a sincere and profound love for antiquity; with him it was not the enjoyment of a contemplative mind, a tranquil amateur art, but that of an historian, an archaeologist coupled with the instinct of a dramatist, a psychologue, let us say, who is eager to discover, in any scene whatever, in the graceful or violent gestures of such and such personages of bygone days, some general application. He was certainly most anxious to suggest interesting or amusing parallels to modern life, for, in spite of the dissimilarity of the settings, the tinsels, the decorations, over which the artist laboured with an almost devout care of minute detail, human nature to-day is always more or less close to the human nature of Greece or Rome.

It is easy to detect the historian, or, to adopt the expression of M. Jules Claretie, the "Memoir Maker," possessed of the true gift, agreeable and individual, lurking behind every one of the works of this authoritative orientalist. He dedicated himself quite naturally and with great success to the interpretation of history and of the historic and literary anecdote.

"Bonaparte is no longer on the road to Syria, he is on the road to India; he is hesitating between the two halves of the world that he holds in his hands; he is weighing the destiny of Alexander against the destiny of Caesar; he is asking himself whether Asia, to which he holds the key, is a fair exchange for Europe which he has just quitted; and while his dream embraces the universe, he leaves his human rubbish heap to suffer."

G?r?me is wholly himself when he has an anecdote to give us, whether it be subtle, humorous, kindly, or dramatic, and even,--why not use the word?--melodramatic.

One can see at once what a tremendous appeal a subject like this would have for the general public.

This singular drama, taking place in the snow, all this joyousness ending in bloodshed and perhaps death, is so fantastic that it leaves a lasting impression. It was, by the way, as M. Guillaumin has explained, suggested by an actual duel that took place between Deluns-Montaud, the Harlequin, and the Prefect of Police Bortelle, the Pierrot.

Undoubtedly there was, and still is, ground for criticism. Alexandre Dumas thought, not unreasonably, that serious-minded men of that age would not go out to fight each other in such a costume. Edmond About criticized the pose of Crispin supporting on his knee an entire group of spectators, along with the body of poor Pierrot. But Paul de Saint-Victor praised the "truthfulness of the postures, the etching-like precision of the heads, the wise planning of the whole composition."

His efforts to revive the art of coloured or polychrome sculpture, the so-called chryselephantine sculpture, which invokes the aid of various precious elements, constitute one of the most curious and important artistic experiments of modern times, even though the result did not always come up to the expectation.

On February 2, 1892, in an unpublished letter addressed to M. Germain Bapst, who desired information concerning the artist's experiment, G?r?me wrote: "I have always been struck with a sense of the coldness of statues if, when the work is once finished, it is left in its natural state. I have already made some experiments and am continuing my efforts, for I am anxious to bring before the eyes of the public a few demonstrations that I hope will be conclusive. I know that there are a great many protests. The world always protests against anything which is, I will not merely say new, but even renewed; for it disturbs a good many people in their tranquillity and their routine." And after having first shown that ancient architecture was adorned with colours and that in chryselephantine sculpture the Greeks combined gold, tin, and ivory, that they painted the marble and united it with various metals, G?r?me added: "Shall I succeed? At least I shall have the honour of having made the attempt."

In the interesting study which M. Germain Bapst devoted to this question, after having, as we have seen, consulted the artist himself, he recalled the fact that both in chateaux and in churches the Mediaeval statuary was coloured. In Greece, the Minerva Parthenos contained a weight of gold equivalent to more than 2,200,000 francs in the French currency of to-day. The statue of Jupiter at Olympus was partly of ivory and partly of gold.

Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the Duc de Luynes undertook, in collaboration with the architect Dubau, to produce an example of chryselephantine sculpture, which cost him more than 500,000 francs and was placed on view at the Exposition Universelle held in the Palais de l'Industrie in 1855.

THE ART OF G?R?ME

"If you wish to be happy," G?r?me used to say to his pupils, "remain students all your lives." For his own part he applied himself ceaselessly to his studies, trusting nothing to chance. He had an extraordinarily methodical and orderly mind, even in regard to the smallest details. It is related that, when he was absent on his travels, he would notify his models several months in advance, so that they would be on hand to pose for him in his studio, from the very day of his arrival.

Being partly a traditionalist and partly an independent, he did not always possess the gift of pleasing the critics, and he loved them none too well. And when one of them asked him one day for a sketch, he replied, "I do not pay to be applauded." But he was exceedingly strict in his self-criticism. In one of his notes entrusted to his relative Timbal, he wrote: "I am my own severest critic.... I am under no delusion regarding my works."

After his appointment as professor at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts, he did his best to have Manet banished from it. He couched his protest in the following energetic terms: "I am certain that Manet was capable of painting good pictures. But he chose to be the apostle of a decadent fashion, the scrap-work school of art. I, for my part, have been chosen by the State to teach the orthography of art to young students.... I do not think it right to offer them as a model the extremely arbitrary and sensational work of a man who, although gifted with rare qualities, did not develop them." In his opinion, it would have been more suitable to exhibit such works in a bar-room than at the Beaux-Arts. M. Coutil relates that G?r?me said further on this same subject: "The first merit a painting should have is to be luminous and alluring in colour, and not dull and obscure."

He had, for that matter, no more tolerance for Millet than for Sisley, Monet, and Pissaro. On one occasion, he assured M. Jules Claretie that if Millet could return and again send his canvases to the Salon, he would refuse them over again! And, when his distinguished interlocutor protested, "Oh, come now, G?r?me, you don't mean that!" he declared unhesitatingly, "I mean just that, and nothing else."

Messrs. Moreau-Vauthier and Dagnan-Bouveret have given some very accurate and useful details regarding his methods of instruction and of work. They have shown him to us at his task, both as painter and professor.

He emphasized the importance of construction, and of the character of the form, rather than the form itself, which is a matter of temperament. He insisted that a scene must be visualized in its completeness, as a harmonious and fully significant whole. Emile Augier, for instance, with whom he felt no annoyance at being compared, the excellent comedian, Got, the younger Dumas, Gounod,--all of these he loved for their absolute clarity, and he demanded it of them. He declared that one has no right to paint off-hand, without a model; and he also held that one has no right to make hasty, careless sketches.

His method was distinguished by its scrupulous and admirable precision. Impeccable order always reigned in his studio. M. Dagnan-Bouveret writes that his palette and brushes were scrupulously cared for. He used to overspread his canvases with a uniform foundation of half-tones more or less warm or cold, using preparations made by Troigras. He roughed in the whole picture very rapidly, and this first rough draft, according to connoisseurs, was always extremely interesting.

In his paintings, he proved that the strength of colouring is in inverse proportion to the intensity of light. He had a marvellous faculty for making the delicate shadings of nature correspond with the psychological sentiments that their aspects evoke. From this comes his amazing variety.

A man of wide reading and deep culture, G?r?me had a profound love for the truth, for reality just as it is, holding that it is the artist's first duty to know his place, his time, his episode, and the one special angle of vision that will give the rarest and most fruitful results.

On the eve of his death, he was still lauding the merits of photography, which has the advantage of being able to snatch a document straight out of life, without falsifying it by giving it a personal interpretation that must always be more or less inaccurate.

Whatever allowance must be made for what we may call the personal equation of an artist, his own individual temperament, it is not unprofitable to recall this opinion of G?r?me's, for it helps us to acquire a better conception of his art, based as it was upon accuracy and unwavering truth.

Truth, which he once depicted in her well, killed by liars and mountebanks , always charmed and inspired him. He rendered it more attractive by his admirable sincerity, by his chivalrous and imaginative spirit, as well as by his archeological and ethnographic learning.

Thanks to this lofty conscientiousness in research, his work, erudite and entertaining at the same time, making distant and vanished civilizations live again, and reproducing atmospheres and local settings with a delicacy that at times is a trifle specious, but always incomparably picturesque, cannot fail to please and charm to-day as it did yesterday, and to-morrow as it does to-day.

Accordingly, it is with good reason that M. Soubies has lauded his fine attention to detail, and that M. Thiebaut-Sisson has summed him up in the following terms: "The artist created his formula for himself. He extracted from it the maximum effect that it contained." And even while we glorify and venerate those painters gifted with a graver or more lyric vision, a bolder or more laboured craftsmanship, we must freely subscribe to the opinion of Edmond About when he said of G?r?me: "He is the subtlest, the most ingenious, the most brilliant ... of his generation."

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