The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

by Dominic Smith

  She inched towards him and put her head on his shoulder. He stood, stiff as a plank, while she wrapped her arms around him tightly.

  “Do you remember when you said I was a child of God?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I could tell from your eyes that you really meant it. That was the moment I knew I could have another life.”

  “I’m glad for that,” he said. “And I’m glad we rediscovered Isobel together.”

  The word Isobel. He was not expecting to be unhinged by her name. A sob bolted through his chest. He pressed his face to her shoulder and brought his arms around her. They stood there, locked together, unable to let go.

  Thirty

  Back in Paris, Louis tried to return to the fold of his life. The city pulsed with violence and protests. Forty thousand people marched from the Champ-de-Mars to the Hotel de Ville. The May elections returned a conservative chamber and now there was more rioting. Troops from the provinces came in by train and they marched along the streets with bayonets—Burgundy farm boys, fishmongers from the South, the sunburnt Provençal.

  Louis kept his door locked and his curtains drawn. Revolution was no longer an abstraction to him. One afternoon, as he ate his lunch, a brick hurtled through his window. He looked at it with a certain admiration and proceeded to make a daguerreotype of his street through the star of shattered glass. He did not go to collect his doomsday portraits, but he often thought of them entombed in the catacombs, resting beside the man who had mapped the moon. He lay in bed, tethered to mercurial dreams and fevers, and listened to the sounds of distant looting. He pictured Isobel’s cottage in the woods, shuttered and sealed, losing itself to dusk. Within a few years he would lie next to her grave of rosemary and hyssop. The thought gave him comfort. He imagined their bodies in the ground, a woman returned to the earth and a man removed from the light, their twin fates finally resolved.

  He rarely saw anybody. Sometimes he was invited to take portraits of generals and memorial images of the wealthy dead. He invented excuses and declined politely. He took his supper at a nearby tavern and ventured no farther than the wineshop at his corner. The mail, when it came, carried his pension checks and, now and then, letters from Chloe. The envelopes carried chatty letters and dried cornflowers. They bore the hopeful blue postal stamp of Marseille.

  One day near the end of August 1848, Louis received an invitation from a bishop, asking him to make a daguerreotype from the roof of Notre Dame. He wrote back to say that such images had already been made and with little success. The bishop wrote again and told him that this would be a birthday present for the pope. Louis thought of Degotti and his papal portraits inside the Vatican and agreed to go.

  A week later, at noon, Louis found himself climbing the tower steps of Notre Dame. Two assistants, assigned by the bishop, hauled his equipment to the rooftop. His lungs ignited with the climb and several times he had to stop on a landing to cough and recover. They reached the top and the assistants set his equipment down. They stood for a moment, flanked by gargoyles, and took in the city. Louis attached the camera to the tripod and prepared a plate.

  The jigsaw of Paris sprawled in all directions. He had never seen the city from this height and he noted, in outline and detail, the routes and warrens of his life. The blue-gray Seine cut the city neatly in two. He saw the patchwork of shanties and the mud-daubed poverty behind the Left Bank; this was where he had taken his walks as an apprentice and named colors as an antidote to love. He saw the old Right Bank mansions, tired and ravaged with ivy, their stone courtyards still protecting family shrines and cherubic fountains. In just such a house he had made love with a woman for the first time. To the north were the Montmartre tenements stacked and buttressed by common walls, laundry lines flapping ragtail flags of breeches and work shirts. Near the Tuileries, along the boulevards, were the mansard rooflines of the grand town houses, the dormers shuttered against the sun and the revolution. There was the wide, open boulevard where Louis Daguerre had taken his very first portrait and where the first man to be photographed had stood with one foot up on a shoe-shine crate. He saw the old theater where Degotti had taught him how to use a camelhair brush and to paint from both memory and sight. He could see his studio and the site where the Diorama building had stood. He could see the monuments—the Arc de Triomphe, the Obelisk—diminished in scale. They were paltry, towers in a child’s city of blocks. Below him, unseen, was the Gothic mouth of the cathedral where he had kissed Isobel on the night of his first opera. In Paris, he realized, everything important had happened within the same square mile.

  He loaded the plate and tightened the tourniquets on the back of the camera. The light was good, despite the clouds. There were clearings of blue sky that resembled alpine lakes. To the west, if he waited long enough, verticals of sunlight might throw the Palais Royal into silhouette. The three men stood in silence, awed by the sight of Paris at noon. Louis turned the camera to face the west. He leaned down to the eyepiece, his life spread beneath him, and waited for the perfect sunburst.

  “Gentlemen, if we’re prepared to wait a little, the pope will have a river of light for his birthday,” Louis said.

  The assistants chuckled at this and returned to silence. After an eternity of staring into the brightening west, one of them asked, “Monsieur Daguerre, how long do you think that will take?”

  Without looking up, Louis said, “I can’t be sure. But I am prepared to wait a long time.”

  Acknowledgments

  I am deeply grateful to the James A. Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Dobie Paisano Fellowship for financial support during the writing of this novel.

  I am also indebted to James Magnuson and Elizabeth Harris for their expert guidance and for offering their time to me on countless occasions; Wendy Weil, my agent, for her hard work and insight; Suzanne O’Neill, my editor, for her vision and enthusiasm; Darin Ciccotelli, Lee Middleton, and Vivé Griffith for their friendship and for being such demanding, generous, and attentive readers; Jeff Tietz for being the writing friend I can call with random complaints and ideas; Laura Smith for her belief, tireless enthusiasm, and support of my writing over the last fifteen years; Thom Knoles for eight years of friendship and guidance; the late Glenn Leggett for being so passionate about literature and life; Evelyn Foltyn and Jacqueline Rolfe, my high school English teachers, for inspiring me with their love of language; John Dalton and Emily Barton for being the first in a series of great and dedicated writing teachers; photography professor, Lawrence McFarland, for sparking my interest in Daguerre. This book benefited greatly from the daguerreotype collection at the Harry Ransom Center.

  A special thank-you goes to my parents and my three sisters for their love and encouragement.

  A final and immense thank-you to Emily Zartman for her love, humor, and support while I tried to find the time to finish this book.

  THE MERCURY

  VISIONS OF

  LOUIS DAGUERRE

  Dominic Smith

  Reading Group Guide

  Introduction

  Paris, 1847. Louis Daguerre has achieved the height of fame for his invention of the daguerreotype, but his legacy has come at a great cost. He is falling deeper and deeper into delusions caused by repeated exposure to mercury, the key ingredient in capturing photographic images. Daguerre believes the world will end within a year and creates a “Doomsday List,” ten things he must photograph before the final day—including a portrait of Isobel Le Fournier, the woman he loved and lost nearly a half century ago. With the aid of colorful poet Charles Baudelaire and a beautiful prostitute named Pigeon, Daguerre sets out to locate his subjects and fulfill his quest.

  The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre weaves together the strands of Daguerre’s life: his youth in rural France, the ruined love that gave rise to artistic achievement, and the eventual unraveling of a prodigious mind. As Daguerre counts down the days to his apocalypse, he is caught
between memory and reality. Ultimately, he must confront his haunting past if he is to finally win the heart of the only woman he has ever loved.

  Questions and

  Topics for Discussion

  1. Item number 10 on Louis Daguerre’s “Doomsday List” of images to photograph is Isobel Le Fournier. Why is it so important to Louis that he find Isobel before (as he believes will happen) the world expires? Why does Louis confide in the poet Charles Baudelaire about his doomsday prophecy? What about the other items on the list? What do they reveal about Daguerre?

  2. As a rapin at the theater, Louis is subjected to an “initiation” by his fellow apprentices, who attempt to frighten him by taking him to a morgue and having him sketch a portrait of a dead woman. Louis, however, stays inside the morgue for hours, long after he is free to leave. Why does Louis put so much time and effort into his drawing of the corpse? What does this incident reveal about Louis? What does Degotti mean when he later tells Louis, “You drew what you wanted to see” (78)?

  3. Under Degotti’s tutelage, Louis serves as the master paint mixer and brush washer at the theater for more than a year. What makes him finally stand up to Degotti and demand that he be allowed to paint a set? Is it a coincidence that Louis takes a stand on the same day he has his first sexual encounter with Madame Treadwell? Why or why not?

  4. In what ways do the instances of civil unrest in France mirror Louis’s states of mind, including the burning of the mansion in Orléans, the rioting taking place in Paris the first time he has a vision, and the uprising on the day his “apocalypse” arrives?

  5. Why does Louis develop such an intense fascination with quicksilver, to the point where he “carried a phial of mercury around his neck at all times…. He was, in a sense, in love again”? What does the quicksilver represent to him?

  6. On the night Louis and Isobel kiss on the Pont Neuf in the shadow of Notre Dame, Isobel says to him, “Life is more complicated than you know.” Louis replies, “Life is more mysterious than you know” (99). What do these statements reveal about Louis and Isobel’s respective attitudes about life in general, as well as about their relationship?

  7. On that same evening in Paris, Isobel tells Louis that someday he will be famous. “Louis knew this to be true; he saw it sometimes in the shop-windows when his reflection passed, the glimmer of who he was becoming” (100). Why is Louis so certain that he will achieve renown? Particularly when his discovery of the daguerreotype, as even he admits, is primarily accidental?

  8. Describe the way Louis looks at the world both before and after the onset of his mercury-induced visions. What similarities, if any, are there? How did Louis’s experiences as a boy, particularly his fascination with light and his youthful love for Isobel, shape his artistic viewpoint?

  9. In a letter to Isobel (which he never gives her), Louis writes, “That day on Pont Neuf, you with child, began the rise of my career. I have often thought it ironic that losing you was what led me to fame” (184). What validity is there in Louis’s belief that his losing Isobel is what led him to become famous? In what ways are his shifting feelings for Isobel reflected in his art and the arc of his career?

  10. Why is Louis compelled to help Pigeon and save her from a life of prostitution? Is it merely because she is Isobel’s daughter? Why does he not tell Pigeon about his connection to her mother? Does Pigeon even want to be “rescued” by Louis, or is she content with the life she has chosen?

  11. Louis stores his portraits in the catacombs beneath the Paris Observatory before fleeing the city, but he decides to take one with him: the portrait of Pigeon on the rooftop of Baudelaire’s mansion. Why does Louis choose to keep this particular image? What does it represent to him?

  12. On the morning he awakens in Isobel’s cottage, Louis realizes that “he did not want to die” (229). Why does he have a change of heart, particularly when he had been preparing for the apocalypse with determination and even a sense of detachment?

  13. What is your overall opinion of Isobel? Why do you suppose she turned down Louis’s marriage proposal? One evening at her cottage, Isobel asks Louis to kiss her. After nearly half a century, why does Isobel finally acknowledge her feelings for Louis?

  14. When Isobel knows that she is about to take her last breath, she asks Louis to leave the room and make her a cup of tea. Why does Isobel send him away? And why does Louis, knowing what she is doing, agree to her request?

  15. Discuss the impact of Louis’s invention of the daguerreotype on France and on the world. Why were some people quick to embrace this new medium while others denounced it? Is it possible for us to fully understand the impact that such an invention would have had at the time? Why or why not?

  A Conversation

  with Dominic Smith

  Q: You mention in the Acknowledgments section of the book that a photography professor sparked your interest in Louis Daguerre. How did you go from that instance to using Daguerre as the central character in your novel?

  A: During that professor’s class we talked about early photographic processes, including the daguerreotype. It was speculated that Daguerre may have had some level of mercury poisoning due to his constant use of mercury vapor as the fixing agent for his images. I wondered whether Daguerre had suffered delusions on his road to fame. While I was spending lots of time in the darkroom and out in the Texas Hill Country taking pictures, I began research on Daguerre’s life and methods. As it turns out, the University of Texas at Austin has an important archive of early photography and I spent hours at the Harry Ransom Center looking at images from the nineteenth century, including some made by Daguerre and other early Paris photographers. There was something immediately ghostly and intriguing about the pictures—the way portrait subjects looked somberly into the lens, the way the image of a daguerreotype appeared like a hologram if viewed from different angles. They were otherworldly. As I dug into Daguerre’s story I found that there was really only one biography about him and it left me with a lot of unanswered questions. The novel began by trying to fill in the gaps in his creative and personal life and with the notion that he was going mad from mercury poisoning. Just as I had seen an ethereal world in nineteenth century daguerreotypes, perhaps Daguerre—his mind slipping—had seen something ominous in his own metal-plate portraits.

  Q: How true did you stay to details of Daguerre’s life, such as the fact that he received a Legion of Honor medal? Did you find the process of blending fact and fiction a difficult one?

  A: The main thrust of Daguerre’s creative life in the novel is taken from historical accounts of Daguerre’s rise to fame. For example, he did apprentice as a scenic painter, invent the Diorama, and receive the Legion of Honor for his daguerreotype invention. The love story and the degree to which Louis Daguerre had mercury poisoning are the main fictional elements in the book. Blending fact and fiction is tricky; the writer faces a moral issue of how much to play around with a real person’s life for the sake of a narrative. In the end, I hope that I posed new questions and insights about Daguerre’s legacy.

  Q: Is there historical evidence that Daguerre was romantically linked with a woman such as Isobel Le Fournier, or is she entirely a literary invention?

  A: No. Isobel is pure fiction.

  Q: The poet Charles Baudelaire, known as “the Prince of Clouds,” appears in The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre as a character. Is there evidence that Baudelaire and Daguerre were acquainted?

  A: Charles Baudelaire was certainly familiar with Daguerre and his work. The poet also wrote a lot of criticism, some of which expressed disdain for photography and other forms of realism. He was part of the rebellion against the new invention. Although I can’t be sure that the men interacted to any degree, I thought it would be interesting to combine their worlds in the novel. The two men had spent a lot of time in the bohemian, artistic world of Paris but ended up on different sides of the Seine, so to speak—Daguerre a Legion of Honor and an internationally known artist and inventor, and Baudelaire
a controversial and impoverished poet who was against anything that reeked of the establishment.

  Q: Your descriptions of Paris are wonderfully vivid, from Daguerre’s meanderings through the city streets to the catacombs beneath the Paris Observatory to the view from the top of Notre Dame. How important is Paris as a backdrop to the story?

  A: Paris as a backdrop is essential. I started with Daguerre’s madness and the Paris streets in the novel and wanted the two to mutually inform one another. We sometimes see the city through Daguerre’s mercury-addled consciousness and sometimes we see it through a seemingly objective reality. Both ways of seeing Paris give it a sense of place and provide Daguerre’s madness with a context. And without the political turmoil and bohemian culture of Montmarte, Daguerre’s journey has less urgency.

  Q: There are several mentions of Edgar Allan Poe throughout the novel, including his reaction to the daguerreotypes, which he called “miraculous beauties” and “photogenic drawings of absolute truth.” In another instance Baudelaire is reading Poe’s poem “The Raven.” Are you an admirer of Edgar Allan Poe? Did his literary explorations in any way mirror the artistic territory that Daguerre was charting?

  A: Edgar Allan Poe exerted significant influence on nineteenth century French writers in general and in particular on Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire translated a number of Poe’s short stories and poems from English to French, including “The Raven.” Making reference to Poe’s work in the novel is a nod to the writerly relationship between the two men.