At this period Bastien-Lepage had already begun to incur the first attacks of the disease which was destined so soon to end his days. He suffered violent pains in the kidneys. He became melancholy, nervous, irritable; he shut himself up in his studio in the Rue Legendre, and even his best friends could not gain admittance. The doc[Pg 66]tors who were called in recognized the gravity of his illness and ordered energetic treatment and a change of air. The poor artist reconciled himself to go for a time to Brittany, and his choice fell on Concarneau. The keen sea air produced a temporary betterment, and he took advantage of it to work, for he could not resign himself to lay aside his palette and brushes. He spent entire days in a boat and, in spite of his sufferings, executed several landscapes of rare beauty. But his condition, instead of improving, took a turn for the worse. "The digestive tube," he wrote to Theuriet, "is always kicking up a row!" The pain in the kidneys and bowels became at this time so violent that he was forced to decide to return to Paris, in order to consult the men of science once again.
This time, when Dr. Potain examined him, he could no longer deceive himself as to the artist\'s fate; he saw that his patient was irremediably condemned. However, a sojourn in a milder[Pg 67] climate might prolong his life for a few months; so he advised Algeria. The prospect of the journey, the desire to make the acquaintance of this land of sunshine which Delacroix, Decamps, and Fromentin had taught him to love, for a few days gave a false strength to the poor sufferer, which produced a deceptive appearance of renewed health and even deceived the artist himself. Besides, Mme. Bastien-Lepage, the "good little mother," was to accompany him, and this unselfish and tender devotion warmed his heart. The poor woman forced back her tears in order to smile upon the unfortunate son whom she knew to be doomed. And so the pitiful pair set forth for the land of sunshine, she consumed with grief, and he almost joyous in the hope of a speedy cure.
His first letters to his friends bore the imprint of good spirits; Algeria aroused his enthusiasm by its clear and vibrant colours; his disease declared a brief truce and he began to form projects. The thought of dying had not yet even[Pg 68] vaguely occurred to him, though, for that matter, he had no fear of death. The previous year he had painted Gambetta on his Death-bed; and his frequent visits to Ville-d\'Avray led him to discuss the inevitable end of life. "I am not afraid of death," he said, "dying is nothing,—the important thing is to survive oneself, and who can be sure of establishing a claim upon posterity? But there! I am talking nonsense! So long as our work is true, nothing else matters."
But before long the ravages of the disease began to make headway; the kidneys no longer performed their function, and he suffered atrocious agonies which stretched him for days at a time on his back. Even the burning heat of the African sun no longer had strength enough to animate his shattered physique; the brush, which the artist from time to time still attempted to take up, fell from between his fingers. He, Bastien-Lepage, painter of the soil, found himself unable to transfer[Pg 71] to canvas the enchantment of that land of fairy tale! And he poured forth his distress in long and poignant letters, in which could be read in every line the loss of hope and the sure prevision of the now inevitable end.
PLATE VIII PLATE VIII.—THE ARTIST\'S UNCLE
(Museum at Verdun)
Here is still another kindly and vigorous face from Lorraine, forcefully modelled, with salient jaw bones, betraying the obstinacy of the race. An air of good nature softens the energy of this face, and the eyes sparkle with intelligence. This portrait is treated in a free-handed manner, with unfaltering strokes, and its colouring is especially excellent.
As no amelioration took place, Bastien-Lepage made the return journey to Paris towards the end of May, 1884. He went back to his studio in the Rue Legendre, where he had formerly passed such happy hours in the full enjoyment of a talent at its zenith and a constitution apparently able to defy all tests. Now, however, he dragged around a dying body, with disease gnawing at his vitals. He could no longer sleep without the aid of powerful doses of morphine. The winter-time increased his suffering; his strength rapidly failed him; and, on the tenth of December, at six o\'clock in the evening, he drew his last breath, at the age of thirty-six years.
As long as he could hold a brush, Bastien-Lepage continued to work, in spite of the sufferings[Pg 72] which racked him. During the year preceding his death, while he was already experiencing frightful tortures, he painted The Woman making Lye and The Little Chimney-sweep, the latter of which is here reproduced. This admirable canvas is to be seen now at the studio of the painter\'s brother at Neuilly, and forms part of the legacy which M. émile Bastien-Lepage intends to bequeath to the Louvre. It has never been shown at any Salon, and for that matter there are a good many other paintings and portraits which have never been exhibited in public and which are not for that reason any the less remarkable. We may cite at random: The Portrait of M. é. Bastien-Lepage, The Prince of Wales, Mme. Juliette Drouet, A Little Girl going to School, The Little Pedler asleep, The Vintage, No Help! The Thames at London, etc.
The very year of his death, shortly before his departure for Algeria, Bastien-Lepage executed a delicious little canvas entitled The Forge, in which[Pg 73] the artist expended a surprising amount of talent and skill, and which enables us to realize what extraordinary heights his ever progressive genius might have attained, but for the blind and brutal cruelty of Destiny.
His death was a time of mourning for the arts; the regrets which he left behind him were unanimous. Even those who had been opposed to his aesthetic creed paid homage to his great conscientiousness as an artist and his noble character as a man.
During March and April, 1885, only a few months after his death, all literary and artistic Paris flocked to the Hotel de Chimay, an adjunct to the école des Beaux-Arts, where a posthumous exhibition of his works had been organized.
At this exhibition the entire body of his works had been brought together. The museums had loaned the canvases which they possessed and the private collectors had done their share towards the glorification of the artist by entrusting to the[Pg 74] organizers a goodly number of paintings and portraits which had never figured in any of the Salons.
Thus it was made possible to comp............