Chapter VII: War. Battle Paintings

Padua I greatly enjoyed--its academic quiet, its Shakespearean atmosphere; and still more did Shakespearean Verona enchant me. I had a good study of the modern French school at the Paris Salon, and on getting back to London rejoined the South Kensington schools till the end of the summer session. Then a studio and practice from the living model. In July we were all absorbed in the great Franco-German War, declared in the middle of that month. It seems so absurd to us to-day that we should have been pro-German in England. This little entry in the Diary shows how Bismarck’s dishonest manœuvres had hoodwinked the world. “France _will_ fight, so Prussia _must_, and all for nothing but jealousy--a pretty spectacle!” We all believed it was France that was the guilty party. I call to mind how some one came running upstairs to find me and, subsiding on the top step with _The Times_ in her hand, announced the surrender of MacMahon’s army and the Emperor. I wrote “the Germans are pro-di-gious!” and I have lived to see them prostrate. Such is history.

I was asked, as the war developed, if I had been inspired by it, and this caused me to turn my attention pictorially that way. Once I began on that line I went at a gallop, in water-colour at first, and many a subject did I send to the “Dudley Gallery” and to Manchester, all the drawings selling quickly, but I never relaxed that serious practice in oil painting which was my solid foundation. I sent the poor “Magnificat” to the Royal Academy in the spring of 1871. It was rejected, and returned to me with a large hole in it.

That summer, which we spent at well-loved Henley-on-Thames, was marred by the awful doings of the Commune in Paris. _The Times_ had a stereotyped heading for a long time: “The Destruction of Paris.” What horrible suspense there was while we feared the destruction of the Louvre and Notre Dame. I see in the Diary: “_May 28th, 1871_.--Oh! that to-morrow’s papers may bring a decided contradiction of the oft-repeated report that the great Louvre pictures are lost and that Notre Dame no longer stands intact. As yet all is confusion and dismay, and one clings, therefore, to the hope that little by little we may hear that some fragments, at least, may be spared to bereaved humanity and that all that beauty is not annihilated.”

In August, 1871, we were off again. From London back to Ventnor! There I kept my hand in by painting in oils life-sized portraits of friends and relations and some Italian ecclesiastical subjects, such as young Franciscan monks, disciples of him who loved the birds, feeding their doves in a cloister; an old friar teaching schoolboys, _al fresco_, outside a church, as I had seen one doing in Rome. For this friar I commandeered our landlord as a model, for he had just the white beard and portly figure I required. Yet he was one of the most _furibond_ dissenters I ever met--a Congregationalist--but very obliging. Also a candlelight effect in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome; a large altar-piece for our little Church of St. Wilfrid, and so on, a mixture of the ecclesiastical and the military. The dances, theatricals, croquet parties, rides--all the old ways were linked up again at Ventnor, and I have a very bright memory of our second dwelling there and reunion with our old friends. In the spring of 1872 I sent one of the many Roman subjects I was painting to the Academy, a water-colour of a Papal Zouave saluting two bishops in a Roman street. It was rejected, but this time without a hole. This year was full of promise, and I very nearly reached the top of my long hill climb, for in it I began what proved to be my first Academy picture.

What proved of great importance to me, this year of 1872, was my introduction, if I may put it so, to the British Army! I then saw the British soldier as I never had had the opportunity of seeing him before. My father took me to see something of the autumn manœuvres near Southampton. Subjects for water-colour drawings appeared in abundance to my delighted observation. One of the generals who was to be an umpire at these manœuvres, Sir F. C., had become greatly interested in me, as a mutual friend had described my battle scenes to him, and said he would speak about me to Sir Charles Staveley, one of the commanders in the impending “war,” so that I might have facilities for seeing the interesting movements. He hoped that, if I saw the manœuvres, I would “give the British soldiers a turn,” which I did with alacrity. I sent some of the sketches to Manchester and to my old friend the “Dudley.” One of them, “Soldiers Watering Horses,” found a purchaser in a Mr. Galloway, of Manchester, who asked through an agent if I would paint him an oil picture. I said “Yes,” and in time painted him “The Roll Call.” Meanwhile, in the spring of 1873, I sent my first really large war picture in oils to the Academy. It was accepted, but “skyed,” well noticed in the Press and, to my great delight, sold. The subject was, of course, from the war which was still uppermost in our thoughts: a wounded French colonel (for whom my father sat), riding a spent horse, and a young subaltern of Cuirassiers, walking alongside (studied from a young Irish officer friend), “missing” after one of the French defeats, making their way over a forlorn landscape. The Cameron Highlanders were quartered at Parkhurst, near Ventnor, about this time, and I was able to make a good many sketches of these splendid troops, so essentially pictorial. I have ever since then liked to make Highlanders subjects for my brush.

In this same year of 1873 my sister and I, now both belonging to the old faith, whither our mother had preceded us, joined the first pilgrimage to leave the shores of England since the Reformation. I had arranged with the _Graphic_ to make pen-and-ink sketches of the pilgrimage, which was arousing an extraordinary amount of public interest. Our goal was the primitive little town of Paray-le-Monial, deep in the heart of France, where Margaret Mary Alacoque received our Lord’s message. I cannot convey to my readers who are not “of us” the fresh and exultant impressions we received on that visit. There was a mixture of religious and national patriotism in our minds which produced feelings of the purest happiness. The steamer that took us English pilgrims from Newhaven to Dieppe on September 2nd flew the standard of the Sacred Heart at the main and the Union Jack at the peak, seeming thus to symbolise the whole character of the enterprise. Those _Graphic_ sketches proved a very great burden to me. Nowadays one of the pilgrims would have done all by “snapshots.” I tried to sketch as I walked in the processions at Paray and to sing the hymn at the same time. There was hardly a moment’s rest for us, except for a few intervals of sleep. The long ceremonies and prescribed devotions, the processions, the stirring hymns and the journey there and back, all crowded into a week from start to finish, called for all one’s strength. But how joyfully given!

I can never forget the hearty, well-mannered welcome the French gave us, lay and clerical. The place itself was lovely and the weather kind. It is good to have had such an experience as this in our weary world. The Bishop of Salford, the future Cardinal Vaughan, led us, and our clergy mustered in great force. The dear French people never showed so well as during their welcome of us. It suited their courteous and hospitable natures. Most of our hosts were peasants and owners of little picturesque shops in this jewel of a little town. We two were billeted at a shoemaker’s. The urbanity of the French clergy in receiving our own may be imagined. I love to think back on the truly beautiful sights and sounds of Paray, with the dominant note of the church bells vibrating over all. They gave us a graceful send-off, pleased to have the assurance of our approval of our reception. Many compliments on our _solide piété_, with regrets as to their own “_légèreté_,” and so forth. “_Vive l’Angleterre!_” “_Vive la France!_” “_Adieu!_”