by Stacy Gregg
I didn’t doubt that it was real; that what I’d held in my hands was the actual journal of Rose Bonifait. There was one thing puzzling me, though. How come the diary was in English? The answer, by chance, came to me in a conversation with Nicole at breakfast the next morning.
“I was wondering,” I said, as she served me up brioche and jam and a big mug of hot chocolate. “Why did Rose choose to offer this scholarship to a pupil from England?”
“But I thought you knew?” Nicole was surprised. “Rose herself was English on her mother’s side. Eleanor Claridge arrived from London at the age of eighteen to study in Paris in 1830. Her parents intended her to become a refined lady who would return to them with a rounded education and sophisticated manner. But instead, the young Eleanor met Rose’s father, Jacques Bonifait. It was a whirlwind romance, nobody approved, but they got married regardless and Madame Eleanor Bonifait never left France again. She died when Rose was only seven.”
And now it all made sense to me. In the diary Rose had spoken of her mother teaching her English in the park. So Rose had been fluent in two languages! And after her mother died, what better way to keep her diary secret than to write in a tongue that no one else in the household could speak?
I didn’t tell Nicole about finding the diary. Or Françoise either. I felt so guilty, but I needed time to think about what to do with it. In my hands that diary felt almost like a portal to another time. I was consumed by Rose’s story and the power of the secrets held in that journal. I felt like she would have wanted me to see it, but would she have wanted her innermost thoughts shared with the rest of the world? Weirdly, that felt like a betrayal of her confidence. And so I was torn over my loyalty to my guardian, Nicole, and my bond to my benefactor, Rose, a girl who had been dead now for a hundred and fifty years. All I knew was that once I handed the diary over to Nicole, there would be no going back. The book would become an artefact to be pored over by intellectuals and historians. But in my hands it was alive somehow, and so was Rose.
It made me feel better, too, knowing that Rose had felt like an outsider at the Paris art school just like me. If she could rise above it to become great, then so would I.
Augustin did not even look at me when I entered the classroom that morning. The other students all talked amongst themselves. Sure, maybe they thought it wasn’t worth trying to talk to me, but even so they could have at least acknowledged my presence with a bonjour or something, right? Anyway, without a word from anyone I took up the same place at the easel where I had been sketching the day before and began to work.
I kept my head down and focused on my picture. The drawing was really taking shape now. I was filling in the details on the black-and-white cobs, working up the textures of their manes, the ripples of their muscles and the reflections on their coats of the dappled light through the overhanging tree boughs. Now, as they became more defined on my sketch pad, I found my own focus becoming more intense. With each line and smudge I was bringing them alive, pressing hard against the paper with the charcoal to get the dark bits I needed, then going back over to rework the charcoal, smudging it and rubbing out areas to create shade and light. I was working from fiction, and yet it felt I’d recreated a scene that was so real, if you gave it a very quick glance it almost looked like a photograph.
I was so engrossed that at one point I looked up at the clock and saw that hours had passed! Finally, I felt that I had the picture just as I wanted it, and as chance would have it, at exactly the same moment Augustin was telling us that our time was up and commanding that we put down our paintbrushes and pencils. I watched him walk around the room gathering up the work, peeling the top page from our sketch books so that soon he had all of our drawings, including mine. He took the stack back to the front of the classroom and, using sticky tape, he quickly stuck them up on the classroom wall so that we could all see them lined up in two rows.
It was a shock. All this time, I had been so focused on my own work, I hadn’t cast a glance at the other easels. Now, displayed like this, I could see that the other sixteen pictures on the wall were nothing like mine. They weren’t even pictures – well, not like I thought of a picture. I’ve never wanted to make modern art, and to me these pictures were all kind of weird. Some of them were no more than splodges, smears and blobs. Others were just bold words scrawled in French. One picture was nothing more than three spindly lines with a splodge on top and it was this one that Augustin actually singled out first to discuss with the class.
“Now here is a composition that speaks to me!” he enthused. “When I look at this work I think ‘Yes! This is what is modern now!’ This is art that confronts the viewer, and asks them to question: what is life? What does it all mean?”
I was boggling at this. As far as I could see all we were staring at here was a couple of wiggly lines and a blob. Was that a commentary on life? Apparently so, because Augustin didn’t stop! He raved on about it for ages in a way that seemed positively bonkers and then … embarrassingly, he went straight over to my work next.
I already had this sick feeling in my gut before he spoke a word. I mean, if he thought the dumb squiggles were “modern” and “confronting” then how could he possibly like my picture too? There was a part of me though that held out hope all the same, that maybe he would find himself bowled over by my skill. After all, hadn’t I won a scholarship that got me into this place? They had brought me here from England for this. That had to mean I was talented, right? And then Augustin opened his mouth and all my hope was gone.
“We come now to a picture of horses,” Augustin said. “And horses are powerful creatures, are they not? But do you feel their power? Do you hear their hooves? Do you smell their earthy dung or their sweet, honeysuckle breath? No. You do not. Because this is a picture with no soul. Yes, there is some technique. But what does this matter if the art fails to captivate me? A picture like this is a hollow vessel. This is not art. This is just drawing. And so, for me, it ultimately disappoints.”
And that was it! In front of everyone, just like that, he had ripped my heart out. And without even looking at me, that was it; his criticism was done. Augustin moved on to the next picture and now he was gushing once again over some blobs and squares, talking about the magnificence of their colours and clever ideas and the students were all chiming in with their thoughts, and meanwhile I was just left standing there, shaking behind my easel, totally broken into bits.
No one else seemed to bat an eyelid at his cruelty. They all just carried on listening to him as he bleated on about heart and passion and who cares what else. And I stood there, and I felt myself consumed by how much I despised this man for ripping apart my work like that. Yes, I was crying a little, but not big tears, and not because I was sad. I was angry. By the time Augustin had been through all the works – mine was not the only one he hated, but it was undoubtedly the one he hated most – and he’d told us we could take a break for lunch, I had decided I needed to talk to him.
I waited until the rest of the class had gone out and then I went over to his desk. The blood was still pulsing at my temples, making a whooshing noise in my ears.
“Augustin?”
He turned around to me. He looked completely blank, as if he had no idea why I would want to talk to him.
“I …” I didn’t know how to begin. “You seem to really hate my work,” I said. “I’m just wondering if there’s even any point in me coming back here tomorrow.”
Augustin looked hard at me, saw that I’d been crying.
“I don’t hate your work, Maisie,” he said. “It inspires no feelings in me at all; that is the problem. I look at your ‘art’ and I feel nothing. It is old-fashioned, meaningless and dated. Pictures of horses? What does that say to me about modern life, about the world we live in now? No. I will not sugar-coat it for you just because you are younger than the others. You have technique, it is true, but it is worthless unless you produce work that sparks emotion, that speaks from your heart and soul. This sc
hool is about work that feels fresh and avant-garde – art that shocks with its spirit and courage. This is what a real artist does, Maisie. If you think you will make it through the Paris School with an A-grade by drawing pretty ponies, then you are wasting all of our time.”
And with that, Augustin turned his back on me and walked out of the room.
I stood at the front of the class after he’d gone, and I stared at my picture. Really? Was it so very bad? The horses were accurate enough. I walked back and forth examining the other pictures stuck to the wall, looking hard at the other works, the ones that he’d singled out as his favourites. He liked their modernism, their daring. If I put my own wounded feelings aside, perhaps I could see a little of what he saw, but even if I did see it, I knew I couldn’t imitate it. If I’d tried to copy, then my work would have even less heart than Augustin claimed it did now. I couldn’t do some ridiculous mimicry of the scribbles and blobs that I saw before me. All I’d ever wanted to do was to paint horses. Unfashionable, dated, what was the other word he said? Oh yes, meaningless. Meaningless horses.
There was a whole afternoon of class still to come, but what was the point in sticking around? Augustin hated my work, and I hated being here, and right now all I could think was that this whole art school thing had been a stupid, crazy mistake and all I wanted was to go home.
I was crying again by the time I left the school grounds. I ran out on to the street and I was wiping my eyes as I went round the corner, which is kind of an excuse, but not really, because even with blurred vision you would think I would be able to see a horse right in front of me.
I ran straight into him. Like, I know people say that, but I did. Smack into his forelegs – it was like crashing into a tree. He was enormous! Almost seventeen hands and jet black, and when I looked up it was like looking up at a mountain, that huge, muscular slab of a neck, thick shoulders and the massive legs. I staggered back and said, “Sorry!” – which was funny when I thought about it later, apologising to a horse’s legs. The horse, he didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even move a muscle. Police horses are trained to be unflappable.
“Son nom est Claude,” the policeman who had been mounted on his back told me after he’d leapt down to pick me up off the ground.
“En anglais?” I said.
“Ah,” the gendarme smiled. “You are English? Bien. I speak it well. All I was saying is that his name is Claude. If you like, you can stroke his muzzle. He is very friendly. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m not scared of horses.”
“Bien,” the policeman said. “So, you like horses? What is your name?”
“Maisie,” I said.
“Well, Maisie, would you like to meet Claude’s friends? We’re just on our way back to the Célestins Quarter, the police-horse city stables where he lives. Come with us if you want? It’s almost parade time.”
They always say that you shouldn’t talk to strangers. But this stranger was a policeman, and they also say you should find one if you need help. So I figured it was OK to go. And it turned out we weren’t going far. All this time I had been so close to horses – just one street up from the art school were the high, baroque iron gates of the Célestins. Tourists were queueing outside, waiting to come in to see the afternoon display of the guards on horseback, and I thought the policeman might leave me there to wait with them, but he called to me to stay at his side and I walked through the gates as if I was being escorted by Claude, until I was in the central courtyard of the grand enclosure with buildings on every side. Here, gravelled paths were bordered by neatly clipped topiary hedges and a sand arena for the display stood at the centre. I followed around the perimeter of the arena alongside Claude, then through the stone arch of the main stable blocks. I was stunned at how many stalls there were. There must have been more than a hundred horses living here! The cobbled corridors echoed with the sounds of men laughing and joking as they saddled their horses ready for the show. Their horses looked almost identical, rich golden chestnuts, as shiny and burnished as a copper coin.
“Hey, Oscar!” One of the other guards spoke to Claude’s rider. “You have a young friend?”
“This is Maisie,” Oscar called back. “She’s come to watch you perform, so you’d better not mess it up like you usually do, Alexandre!”
There was a lot of laughter from the others at this. They were all mounting now, and from another wing of the stables came still more horses, grey ones this time. They were very elegant and dressed in cavalry saddle blankets across their dappled backs. They had long free-flowing manes and sooty leg-stockings and dark eyes and muzzles. As I watched them take their places, ready to perform, the tourists gathered in the courtyard on the seats waiting for them to begin. I breathed it all in, the sounds and the smells and the sense of pure heaven to be in such a place. And when Claude took his place at the front of the parade and held me with his dark and intense gaze, I felt myself become lost in the mysteries hidden in those deep, black eyes of his. He was so beautiful, so powerful and so gentle at the same time. Of all the horses here at the Célestins, there was something special about him. He was the most noble horse I had ever seen. And at that moment, although I didn’t realise it yet, in the realms of the Célestins Garde, I had found what every artist needs. As Rose explained to me later in the diary, I had discovered something in Claude. He was to become my muse.
August 24, 1852
Papa says all great artists have a muse: someone that symbolises ultimate beauty for them and inspires them to feel the emotions they need to create their art. Horses are my muse. Every day I find something new in them that I want to capture. Until now, my muse had always been Celine, but Papa forced me to leave the mare behind in the city when we left to spend the summer at Fontainebleau. Luckily our chateau here in the country has a stable full of horses I can use as my models if need be.
My routine at Fontainebleau is no different to life at home. All I do is paint. For two weeks, I have been cooped up in my room with my work, creating a picture that expressed my torment after visiting the abattoir. The picture I’ve painted is of a horse being attacked by a lion. Of course, I live in Paris, so I’ve never witnessed that first hand. Even here in Fontainebleau, where the oak forests have bears and deer and wild boar hidden in their darkest depths, there are no lions. There is a stuffed lion in one of the museums in Paris, though, and I’ve seen him up close. I spent a whole day there before we left for Fontainebleau, sitting at his feet and drawing him, noting particulars like the texture of his fur, the shagginess of his mane. These sketches I have now reworked into my painting to show the great beast leaping through the air and gouging his claws into the back of a wild horse.
The horse in this painting is based on a young colt here at Fontainebleau. There was a thunderstorm one afternoon, and I watched this bay colt running wild as the lightning struck, the way he tossed his mane in fear and the whites of his eyes gleaming. That is what I have tried to capture here in the painting, with the sinew and flesh from the abattoir to make my work realistic. I want to feel as if the horse in my painting is truly alive.
This is my assignment for school this term, and as soon as I’m done with it, as a reward, Papa says he will take me hunting. The horses we keep in the stables here at our chateau are very good, and the forests are perfect for riding. This will be my first time riding out with the hounds. I’m very excited. But first I must finish the work. Madame Gris knocks on my door every few hours with a tray of food. There’s still more to be done before the painting is finished, but the light is fading now, so I will paint by gaslight for a while and then I’ll sleep, and in the morning I’ll begin again. Everyone envies the artist’s life, but this is the part they don’t see. I should be on holiday, picking wildflowers and berries and playing in the gardens, but instead I do nothing but work, work, work. Still, it will be worth it, if the work is good enough.
August 26, 1852
The work is dreadful. I don’t know why. The paint
sits on the canvas in a way that should please me, but it is horrible. It has no soul. I give up. I’m going out hunting.
August 27, 1852
I hate my father, and Philippe too. They are pure evil. Yesterday, I went out hunting, which was supposed to be my treat for finishing my painting. A painting which I haven’t finished, as it happens, because it is too awful, but that is not the point. I was so fed up with it all, I pushed the easel aside and I joined the hunting party, hoping the fresh forest air would clear my head and do me good, perhaps.
There were eight of us riding out yesterday. My family – Papa and Philippe and Dorian and myself – made four, plus the duc of the estate next door and his huntsmen made us eight.
We set off at a canter through the forests following after the hounds – there were six of these and they were terrible howlers, baying and carousing at the merest provocation as they ran ahead. I had been given a big, heavy roan draught horse that was a little too strong and too big for me, so I was mostly concentrating on keeping him back as he fought to get to the front. Horses in a large group will often get hot and uncontrollable, and he was being very headstrong, pulling hard on the reins and pushing off his hocks to leap forward in ridiculous bounds, fretting at the bit. My entire focus had become staying in the saddle and not being tossed to the ground. I haven’t fallen off a horse in a very long time, not since I was perhaps seven years old, and I didn’t want to break my record now.
At the sound of the horn, I knew the master upfront had sighted a stag, and now we were galloping and the horses were fighting to take the lead and it was bedlam. The tracks soon narrowed – stags do not care to stick to the paths – and we began to ride in single file, into the very heart of the forest. As the trees closed in, I stayed low on my horse’s neck to avoid being hit by a bough, and at the same time I tried to keep my weight in my heels and my thighs gripped tight. The roan, despite his speed, was spooking constantly at every leaf that fluttered, and I thought that any minute he might veer in either direction and I would be flung to the ground. There was no time to think about anything except for hanging on for dear life, and there was certainly no way of stopping. If I had tried to pull the roan up, or to turn him to go back and away from the others, he would have mutinied and bucked or reared, and that would have been the end of me. All I could do was keep my seat and stay with the hunt.
