Chapter III: Part 3

But a little later, when Marat, "the Friend of Man," was stricken down, a voice rose in the Convention, "Where art thou, David?" And again, responding to the call, he painted the picture of the dead demagogue lying in his bath, his pen in hand, a half-written screed on a rude table improvised by placing a board across the tub; and again the picture, more eloquent, more explanatory of character and of epoch than any written page of history, was a convincing argument that painting was not a plaything.

Born August 21, 1748, a man over fifty years of age when this century commenced, David may yet be considered entirely our own; for the ideas of his country, despite minor influences that have affected modern art, have prevailed in the art of all other countries, and these principles were largely formulated by him. France has been throughout this century the only country which has steadfastly encouraged art, with a system of education unsurpassed in any epoch, and by the maintenance of a standard which, however rebellious at times, every serious artist has been and is obliged to acknowledge. A cousin--or, as some authorities have it, a grand-nephew--of Boucher (the artist who best typifies the frivolity of the art of the eighteenth century, so that there is grim humor in the thought that this iconoclast was of his blood), David was twenty-seven years of age when, in 1775, he won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to go to Italy for four years at the expense of the government. He was the pupil of Vien, a painter whose chief merit it was to have inspired his pupil with a hatred of the frivolous Pompadour art of the epoch; and David only obtained the coveted prize after competing five successive years. It is instructive to learn that of this first sojourn at Rome almost nothing remains in the way of painting; for the young artist, endowed with the patience which is, according to Goethe, synonomous with genius, devoted all his time to drawing from the antique.

It was here and during this time, doubtless, that he formed his conviction that painting of the highest type must conform to classical tradition--that all nature was to be remoulded in the form of antique sculpture. But it was also at this time, and owing to his stern apprenticeship to the study of form, that he acquired the mastery of drawing which served him so well when in the presence of nature; and with no other preoccupation than to reproduce his model, he painted the people of his time and produced his greatest works. For by a strange yet not unprecedented contradiction, David's fame to-day rests, not upon the great classical pictures which were the admiration of his time and by which he thought to be remembered, but on the portraits which, with his mastery of technical acquirement, he painted with surprising truth and reality.

The time was propitious, however, for David. France, the seeds of revolution germinating in its soil, looked upon the Republic of Rome as the type from which a system could be evolved that would usher in a new day of virtuous government; and when, after a second visit to Rome, David returned home with a picture representing the oath of the Horatii, Paris received him with open arms. The picture was exhibited, and viewed by crowds, burning, doubtless, in their turn to have weapons placed in their hands with which to conquer their liberties. This was in 1786; but years after, in the catalogue of the Salon of 1819, we read this note: "The Oath of the Horatii, the first masterpiece which restored to the French school of painting the purity of antique taste."

At the outbreak of the Revolution David abandoned painting; and on January 17, 1793, as a member of the Convention, voted for the execution of Louis XVI. It was during this period that were painted his pictures of Lepelletier and Marat, in which his cold, statuesque, and correct manner was revivified and warmed to life--paradoxically enough, to paint death. A friend of Robespierre, he was carried down at the overthrow of the "little lawyer from Arras," and imprisoned in the Luxembourg. His wife--who had left him at the outset of his political life, horrified at the excesses of the time--now rejoined him in his misfortune; and inspired by her devotion, David made the first sketch of the Sabine women.

Released from prison October 26, 1795, he returned to his art; and in 1800 the Sabines was exhibited in a room in the Louvre, where it remained for more than five years, during which time it constantly attracted visitors, and brought to the painter in entrance fees more than thirteen thousand dollars. Early in the career of Napoleon, David had attracted his attention; and he had vainly endeavored to induce the artist to accompany him on the Egyptian campaign. On the accession of Napoleon as Emperor, therefore, we find in the Salon catalogues, "Monsieur David, first painter to his Imperial Majesty," in place of plain "Citizen David" of the Revolutionary years.

Napoleon ordered from David four great paintings. The Coronation and the Distribution of Flags alone were painted when the overthrow of the Empire, and the loyalty of David to his imperial patron, caused him to be exiled in 1816. He went to Brussels, where, on December 29, 1825, he died. The Bourbons, masters of France, refused to allow his body to be brought back to his country; but Belgium gave him a public funeral, after which he was laid to rest in the Cathedral of Brussels.

Pius VII. was the Pope who, in 1804, consecrated Napoleon I. as Emperor of France. Later he opposed Napoleon's aggressions, and was imprisoned for it, first in Italy and afterwards in France. In 1814 he recovered his freedom and his dominions, temporal as well as spiritual. The above picture is, perhaps, the best example of what may be termed the official portrait (as the preceding picture is of the familiar portrait) of David. It was painted in 1805, in the apartment assigned to the Pope in the Tuileries.]

This dominant artistic influence of France in the first quarter of this century is not entirely extinguished to-day. The classical spirit has never been entirely absent from any intellectual manifestation of the French; but in David and his pupils it was carried to an extremity against which the painters of the next generation were to struggle almost hopelessly. Time, which sets all things right, has placed David in his proper place; and while to-day we may admire the immense knowledge of the man as manifested in the great classical pictures, like the Horatii, the Sabines, or the Leonidas at Thermopylæ, we remain cold before their array of painted statues. His portraits--Marat, the charming sketch of Madame Recamier, his own portrait as a young man, the group of Michel Gérard and his family, and the Pope Pius VII.--give the touch of nature which is needed to kindle the fire of humanity in this man of iron.

This picture was painted for the Criminal Court of the Palace of Justice in Paris. At the time of the Restoration in 1816 the picture was replaced by a crucifix, and removed to the Luxembourg gallery, where it remained until 1823, when it was placed in the Louvre. It is considered Prud'hon's masterpiece.]

It is as though nature had wished a contrast to this coldly intellectual type that there should have existed at the same time a painter who, seeking at the same inexhaustible fountain-head of classicism, found inspiration for an art almost morbid in excess of sentiment. Pierre Prud'hon was born at Cluny in Burgundy, April 4, 1758, the son of a poor mason who, dying soon after the boy's birth, left him to the care of the monks of the Abbey of Cluny. The pictures decorating the monastery visibly affecting the youth, the Bishop of Macon placed him under the tuition of one Desvoges, who directed the school of painting at Dijon. Here his progress was rapid, but at nineteen the too susceptible youth married a woman whose character and habits were such that his life was rendered unhappy thenceforward.

In 1780 Prud'hon went to Paris to prosecute his studies; and there, two years after, was awarded a prize, founded by his province, which enabled him to go to Rome. It is characteristic of the man that, in the competition for this prize, he was so touched by the despair of one of his comrades competing with him that he repainted completely his friend's picture--with such success that it was the friend to whom the prize was awarded, and who, but for a tardy awakening of conscience, would have gone to Rome in his place.

The judgment rectified, Prud'hon went to Rome, where he stayed seven years, studying Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and above all Correggio, whose influence is manifest in his work, and returned to Paris in 1789. Unknown, and timid by nature, he attracted little attention, and for some years gained his living by designing letter-heads, visiting cards, which were then of an ornate description, and the many trifles which constitute a present resource to the unsuccessful painter even to-day.

This picture was ordered by the Emperor Napoleon for the chapel of the Tuileries. It was exhibited in the Salon of 1819, and, after the Revolution of 1848, was removed from the Tuileries to the Louvre, where it has since remained.]

It was not until 1796 that some of the charming drawings which he had made commenced to attract attention. A series of designs illustrating Daphnis and Chloe, for the publishing house of Didot _ainé_, were particularly noticeable; and through this work he made the acquaintance of M. Frochot, by whose influence he received a commission for a decoration for the palace of St. Cloud, which is now placed in the Louvre.

This charming drawing, which forms part of the collection in the Louvre, is a study for a projected painting, and is, by its grace of line and composition, peculiarly typical of the painter. Hector, about to depart for his combat with Ajax, and having bidden farewell to Andromache, his wife, desires to embrace his son. But the child, frightened at the emotion of which he is witness, takes refuge in his mother's arms.]

Life now became somewhat easier, and in 1803--having long been separated from his wife--a talented young woman, Mlle. Mayer, became his pupil, and relations of a more tender character were established. The pictures of Mlle. Mayer are influenced by her master to a degree that makes them minor productions of his own; and her unselfish, though unconsecrated, devotion to him makes up the sum of the little happiness which he may have had.

In 1808 Prud'hon's picture of Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing Crime was ordered for the Palace of Justice, and was shown at the Salon of that year, where the presence of David's Sabines and its influence as shown in many of the productions of his pupils were not enough to rob Prud'hon of a legitimate success, and the cross of the Legion of Honor was accorded him. The Assumption of the Virgin was exhibited in 1819; but before that Prud'hon had been made a member of the Institute, and (it passed for a distinction) drawing-master to the Empress Marie Louise.

Many pictures, all characterized by a subtile charm, were produced during this happy period; but in 1821 Mlle. Mayer, preyed upon by her false position, committed suicide, and Prud'hon lingered in continual sorrow until February 16, 1823, when he died. The work of Prud'hon covers a wide range, of which not the least important are the drawings which he made with a lavish hand. As has been observed, he was a true child of his time, and the classic influence is strongly felt in his work; but translated through his temperament, it is no longer lifeless and cold. It is eloquent of the early ages of the world, when life was young and maturity and age bore the impress of a simple life, little perplexed by intricate problems of existence. Throughout his work, in the recreation of the myths of antiquity or in the rarer representation of Christian legend, his style is sober and dignified--as truly classic as that of David; but permeating it all is the indescribable essence of beauty and youth, the reflection, undoubtedly, of a man who, rarely fortunate, capable of grave mistakes, has nevertheless left much testimony to the love and esteem in which he was held.

François Gérard, one of the many faithful followers of David, was born May 4, 1770, at Rome, where his father had gone in the service of the ambassador of France. He went to France in his twelfth year, and at sixteen was enrolled in the school of David. As a docile pupil he entered the competition for the Roman prize in 1789; but Girodet having obtained the first place, a second prize was awarded, and the next year the death of his father prevented him from finishing his competition picture; so that he is one of the exceptions amongst David's pupils, inasmuch as he did not obtain the Prix de Rome. In 1790, however, he accompanied his mother, who was an Italian, to her native country. But his sojourn there was short, as in 1793 he solicited the influence of David to save him from the general conscription; which was done by naming him a member of the Revolutionary tribunal. By taking refuge in his studio and feigning illness, he avoided the exercise of his judicial functions; and the storm passing away, he exhibited in 1795 a picture of Belisarius which attracted attention.

In 1806 Napoleon made him the official portrait painter attached to his court, and ordered the picture of the battle of Austerlitz, finished in 1810. This and indeed all of Gérard's pictures are marked by all the defects of David's methods, and lack the virile quality of his master. His portraits, however, have many qualities of grace and good taste, and his success in France was somewhat analogous to that of Lawrence in England. Under the Restoration his vogue continued; in 1819 he was given the title of baron; and, dying in Paris on January 11, 1837, he left as his legacy to the art of his time no less than twenty-eight historical pictures, many of great dimensions, eighty-seven full-length portraits, and over two hundred smaller portraits, representing the principal men and women of his time. The portraits of the Countess Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely and of the Princess Visconti are both excellent specimens of the work of this estimable painter.

Of the pictures which testify to the industry and talent of Louis-Léopold Boilly, who was born at La Bassée, near Lille, on July 5, 1761, the Louvre possesses but one specimen; namely, the Arrival of a Diligence before the coach-office in Paris. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that with the preoccupation of the public mind with the events of the time, and the prevailing taste for great historical pictures, Boilly's art, so sincere and so intimate in character, was underestimated. It is certainly not due to any lack of industry on the part of the painter. Even at the age of eleven years he undertook to paint, for a religious fraternity of his native town, two pictures representing the miracles of St. Roch. These still exist, and they are said to be meritorious. His facility in seizing the resemblance of his sitter was evidently native, for when only thirteen years of age, without instruction of any kind, he left his parents, and established himself as a portrait painter first at Douai and afterwards at Arras. In 1786 he went to Paris, where he lived until his death. Here he painted a great number of pictures of small size, representing familiar scenes of the streets and of the homes of Paris, and an incredible number of portraits.

The picture gives an interesting study of the costume of the First Empire, and is a work conceived in the style of the time when the recent publication of "Corinne" by Madame de Staël had influenced the popular taste. The original painting is now in the Louvre.]

A valiant craftsman, happy in his work, following no school but that of nature, careless of official honor (which came to him only when, late in life, on the demand of the Academy, the government accorded him the cross of the Legion of Honor in 1833), his life was uneventful. But his little pictures pleased the people who saw themselves so truthfully depicted, and to-day they are more highly esteemed than are the works of many of his at-the-time esteemed contemporaries. He painted for seventy-two years, produced more than five thousand portraits, an incredible number of pictures and drawings, and died, his brush in hand, on January 5, 1845. The little picture of the Arrival of a Diligence presents, with exquisite truthfulness, a Paris unlike the brilliant city of our day, the Paris where Arthur Young in his travels in 1812 notes the absence of sidewalks; a city inhabited by slim ladies dressed _à la Grecque_, and by high-stocked gentlemen content to travel by post. It is a canvas of more value than the pretentious and tiresome historical compositions of the time, and suggests the reflection that many of the David pupils might have been better employed in putting their scientific accuracy of drawing to the service of rendering the life which they saw about them, instead of producing the arid stretches of academy models posing as Hector or Romulus.

Guillaume-Guillon Lethière, a painter in whose veins there was an admixture of negro blood, would hardly have echoed the sentiments of this last paragraph, as he lived and worked in the factitious companionship of the Greeks and Romans. So clearly, however, does the temperament of a painter inspire the character of his work that we may be glad that this was the case; for, of his school, Lethière alone infuses into his classicism something of the turbulent life which marked his own character.

Born in Guadeloupe January 10, 1760, coming to Paris when very young, he took the second prize of Rome in 1784, with a picture of such merit that the regulation was infringed and he was given leave to go to Rome at the same time as the winner of the first prize. His first picture was exhibited in the form of a sketch in the Salon of 1801; and not until eleven years after was the great canvas of Brutus Condemning his Sons to Death shown at the Salon of 1812. The other picture by which he is best known, the Death of Virginia, is, like the preceding, in the Louvre; and though the sketch of this was exhibited in 1795, the picture only took definite form in 1828.

This picture, now in the Louvre, is the only example of this artist's work shown there, and is particularly interesting as showing the Paris of 1803, when the streets had no sidewalks. The scene is laid at the place of arrival and departure of the coaches which from Paris penetrated into all parts of France, and were the only means of transport or communication.]

Meanwhile Lethière had travelled much in England and Spain, and had been for ten years director of the French School of Fine Arts in Rome. His life was adventurous, and it is told of him that he was often involved in quarrels, and fought a number of duels with military officers because, humble civilian that he was, he yet dared to wear the mustache! In 1822 he returned definitely to Paris, where he was made a member of the Institute and professor in the School of Fine Arts, and where he died April 21, 1832. The quality of his work is well characterized by Charles Blanc, who writes of it "as producing the effect of a tragedy sombre and pathetic."

The picture of the Burial of Atala, from Châteaubriand's well-known story, is interesting as showing the methods of the David school applied to subjects of less heroic mould than the master and his disciples were wont to treat. Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson, born at Montargis January 3, 1767, was one of the most convinced adherents of his master David; and while competing for the Prize of Rome, which he won in 1789, was accustomed each morning before beginning his work to station himself in front of David's picture of the Horatii as before a shrine, invoking its happy influence. Such devotion received its official reward, and after five years spent in Rome his great (and tiresome) picture of the Deluge met with the greatest favor, and in 1810 was awarded the medal for the best historical picture produced in the preceding decade. The Burial of Atala, painted in 1808, is, however, a work of charm in composition and sentiment; and though in color it is dry and uninteresting, is not unworthy of the popularity which it has enjoyed from the vantage ground of the Louvre for more than four-score years. Girodet died in Paris, December 9, 1824, after having received all the official honors which France can award to a painter.

The charming face of Marie-Anne-Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, who, with the arms of her daughter encircling her, smiles on us here, was undoubtedly not painted in this century, as the painter was born in Paris April 16, 1755, and it is as a young mother that she has represented herself. But as its author lived until March 30, 1842, she should undoubtedly figure among the painters of this century. From early girlhood until old age,

"_Lebrun, de la beauté le peintre et le modèle._"

as Laharpe sang, was, though largely self-taught, a formidable concurrent to painters of the sterner sex. Married when very young to Lebrun, a dealer in pictures and critic of art, a pure marriage of convention, she left France shortly before the Revolution, and went to Italy. Before her departure she was high in favor at the court, and painted no less than twenty portraits of Marie Antoinette.

Brutus led in overthrowing the tyranny of Tarquin the Proud and establishing a republic in Rome. He was then elected one of the two consuls. His two sons were detected in a conspiracy to restore Tarquin, and he, as consul, himself condemned them to death.]

Atala, the heroine of a romance by Châteaubriand, was the daughter of a North American Indian chief, passionately in love with the chief of another tribe, with whom she fled into the desert. But having been religiously vowed to virginity by her mother, she remains faithful to the vow, and finally in despair poisons herself.]

This picture, painted for a private patron, passed, at the period of the French Revolution, into the possession of the French nation, and is now in the Louvre. There is in the Louvre also another by Madame Lebrun, representing herself and her daughter, one which the artist bequeathed to the Louvre at her death, in 1842. Of the two, while both are charming, the one here printed represents the painter at her best.]

Fortune favored her in Italy, whence she went to Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and Berlin. In each and every capital the same success, due to her talent, beauty, and amiability, followed her; and at last arriving in St. Petersburg, she remained there until 1801, when she returned to Paris. Some time after, she visited England, where she remained three years, and then returned by way of Holland to France in 1809. The Academy of France and the academies of all other European countries admitted her to membership.

Indefatigable as a worker during her long career, she produced an immense number of portraits; and while she painted comparatively few subject pictures, she arranged her models in so picturesque a fashion that, as in the example here given, her portraits have great charm of composition. With a virile grasp of form, tempered though it be with grace, Madame Lebrun offers an interesting example of woman's work in art; and, while she has nothing to concede to the painters of her time, is no less interesting as showing that by force of native talent the woman of the early part of the century had in her power the conquest of nearly all the desired rights of the New Woman. She has left extremely interesting memoirs of her life, written in her old age, and there are many anecdotes bearing testimony to her wit. One of these goes back to the time when Louis XVIII., then a youth, enlivened the sittings for his portrait by singing, quite out of tune. "How do you think I sing?" inquired he. "Like a prince," responded the amiable artist.

With Antoine Jean Gros we come to the last and the greatest of the pupils of David. Born in Paris March 16, 1771, he competed but once, in 1792, for the Prix de Rome, was unsuccessful, but undertook the voyage thither on his own slender resources the next year. Italy was in a troubled state--he who troubled all Europe in the early years of the century being there at the head of his army; and in 1796, at Genoa, Gros attracted the attention of Madame Bonaparte. It was she who proposed that Gros should paint Napoleon; and Gros consequently went to Milan, and after the battle of Arcole painted the hero carrying the tricolor across the bridge at the head of his grenadiers. The picture pleased Bonaparte, who had it engraved, and gave Gros a commission to collect for the Louvre the chief artistic treasures of Italy. These functions occupied him until 1801, during which period, however, he executed a number of successful portraits.

Returning to Paris after nine years, he painted the Hospital at Jaffa, representing Napoleon visiting the fever-stricken soldiers. The success of this picture, exhibited in 1804, was very great; and it remains Gros's best title to remembrance. In it is something of the reality poetized and seen through the eyes of an artist which characterizes the work of Eugene Delacroix.

The force of David, however, was too great for Gros; at fifty years of age we find him demanding counsel of the master, who sternly bids him leave his "futile subjects," and devote his time to great historical epochs of the past. When David was sent into exile in 1816, it was to Gros that he confided the direction of his school; and this task, and the production of immense canvases like the Battle of the Pyramids, filled his life. The picture here reproduced, the Visit of Charles the Fifth and Francis the First to the Tombs of the Kings in the Cathedral of St. Denis, was painted in 1812.

Between 1520 and 1545 all Europe was kept in distress and turmoil by a quarrel between Francis I. and Charles V., the chief subject of contention being the duchy of Milan, which Charles held and Francis claimed. Four separate wars were waged by Francis against Charles, all of them unsuccessful. But their majesties had intervals of outward friendship, and in one of these Francis invited Charles, then setting out from Spain for the Low Countries, to pass through France and visit him. The visit was duly paid, was one of great state and ceremony, and from it is derived the incident portrayed in the above picture. Francis is the figure in the centre; Charles, suited in black, standing at his right.]

The revolt which was already making itself felt in French art was a thorn in the flesh of the sensitive Gros. In vain were all the artistic honors showered upon him. In 1824 he was made a baron; since 1816 he had been a member of the Institute; and the crosses of most of the orders of Europe, and the medals of all the exhibitions were his. Nevertheless, about him younger painters revolted. In his secret soul, doubtless, he felt sympathy with their methods. But the commands of the terrible old exile of Brussels were still in his ears.

Finally a portrait of King Charles X., the decorations in the Museum of Sovereigns, and a picture exhibited in the Salon of 1835 were in turn harshly criticized by the press, which looked with favor on the younger men; and Gros, full of years, and of honors which had brought fortune in their train, was found drowned in a little arm of the Seine near Meudon, June 26, 1835. In despair he had taken his own life. With him died David's greatest pupil and a part of David's influence. But that portion of the teachings of the master most consonant with French character is not without effect to-day. Less strong than in the generation following David, absolutely extinct if we are to believe the extremists among the men of to-day, it yet remains a leaven to the fermenting mass of modern production. Perhaps its healthy influence is the best monument to the man who "restored to France the purity of antique taste."

From a photograph by Handy, Washington.]

THE DEFEAT OF BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

BY MURAT HALSTEAD.

The fame of Blaine does not decline, but increases and will endure. It was not his destiny to fill the greater office created by our Constitution, but with a distinction exceeding that of the majority of Presidents, he is enrolled, with Clay, Webster, and Seward, among the illustrious Secretaries of State. The defeat of James G. Blaine for the Presidency in 1884 will rank among the memorable disappointments and misfortunes of the people with that of Henry Clay, forty years before.

Late in the week before the meeting of the Chicago National Republican Convention in 1884, I received in Cincinnati a telegram from Mr. Blaine requesting me to call on him in Washington, where he lived on the opposite side of Lafayette Square from that of the celebrated old house where he spent his last days. He was engaged on his "Twenty Years in Congress." I called on him the day after his despatch reached me, making haste, for I was about to go to Chicago; and he first said he feared he had sent for me on an insufficient errand, and after a moment's pause began to speak of the approaching convention, and quickly used the expression--"I am alarmed."

This is accounted one of the best portraits of Mr. Blaine in existence. It is from a photograph taken at Bar Harbor in the autumn of 1891 by Mr. A. von Mumm Schwartzenstein, then _Charge d'Affaires_ of the German Empire at Washington, and is here reproduced by the kind permission of Mr. W.E. Curtis.]

"Concerning what are you frightened?" I inquired; and added: "You surely are not afraid you are not going to be nominated?"

He responded with a flash of his eyes and a smile: "Oh, no; I am afraid I shall be nominated, and have sent for you for that reason, and want you to assist in preventing my nomination." I shook my head, and Mr. Blaine asked: "Why not?"

I said I had not been so long in his confidence and known by his friends to be of them, to venture upon such an enterprise as working in opposition. If I should appear actively against him, no matter how I presented the matter, the easy answer to any argument of mine would be that I had relapsed into personal antagonism to him. I then said: "I have not heard of this;" and asked: "Are there many who know that you are against your candidacy?" He said he had talked freely to that effect, and mentioned William Walter Phelps as one who was fully acquainted with his views, and also Colonel Parsons, of the Natural Bridge, Virginia, then in the house. I said: "Mr. Blaine, I think it is too late. I have looked over the field, and your nomination is almost certain--the drift is your way. Why precisely do you object, and what exactly do you think should happen?" He replied in his rapid way with much feeling, and I believe his very words were: "The objection to my nomination is that I cannot be elected. With the South solid against us we cannot succeed without New York, and I cannot carry that State. There are factions there and influences before voting and after voting, such that the party cannot count upon success with me. I am sure of it--I have thought it all over, and my deliberate judgment is as I tell you. I know, too, where I am strong as well as where I am weak--and we might, if we should get into the campaign with my name at the head of the ticket, think we were going to win. We would get to believing it, perhaps, but we should miss it in the end, if not by a great deal, just a little. With everything depending on New York," he continued, "it would be a mistake to nominate me. This is not new to me--I have weighed all the chances. Besides"--and here he kindled--"why should we let the country go into the hands of Democrats when we can name a ticket that is certain to be elected--one that would sweep every Northern State?"

"What is it?" I asked.

The answer came with vivid animation: "William T. Sherman and Robert T. Lincoln." This idea was instantly amplified. "The names of Sherman and Lincoln put together would be irresistible. That ticket would elect itself. We should have a campaign of marching and song. We need the inspiration, and 'Marching Through Georgia' and 'We Are Coming, Father Abraham,' would give it. We must not lose this campaign, and I am alarmed by the prospect of losing it in my name."

"But," I interposed, "it is the report and the public opinion that General Sherman would not consent to be a candidate; that he would throw the party down that would nominate him. Why not try the other Sherman?"

Mr. Blaine's response was that John Sherman would have the like difficulty in carrying New York that he would have himself. The element of military heroism was wanting. He had written to General Sherman on the subject, and of course the General thought he could not consent to be President--for that was what it amounted to--but his reasoning was fallacious. If General Sherman had the question put to him--whether to be President himself or turn the office over to the Democratic party, with the Solid South dominant--he would see his duty and do it, though his reluctance was real.

I said General Sherman could not consent to appear in competition with his brother John at Chicago, though he had a funny way of looking on John in West Point style as a "politician," and that was an insuperable difficulty; and that, Mr. Blaine did not seem to have thought of as a serious element in the case, but he realized the force of it. I was anxious to hear more about the correspondence between Blaine and General Sherman; but was only told that the letter to the General was a call to consider that circumstances might arise, and should do so, in which the General's sense of duty could be appealed to, and be as strong as that to take up arms had been when the Union demanded defenders.

From a photograph by Miss F.B. Johnston.]

Arrived at Chicago, I soon ascertained that Mr. Blaine had been doing a good deal of talking of the same kind I had heard, but he had not been able to impress the more robust of those favorable to his nomination with the view that he should be heeded. They insisted that he was not wise, but timid; that he did not like war and would do too much for peace; that he especially miscalculated when he said he could not carry New York, for he was the very man who could carry it; that his personal force was far beyond his own estimation; that his intuitions were like those of a woman, but were not infallible; that his singing the campaign was a fancy; that "Marching Through Georgia" would wear out, and was of the stuff of dreams. Mr. Blaine's accredited friends felt that things had gone too far to permit a change to be contemplated. They were half mad at Blaine for his Sherman and Lincoln proposal, which was confidentially in the air, regarding it as not favorable to themselves. They said they could carry the country more certainly with Blaine than Sherman, for Sherman was an uncertain political quantity, and might turn out to be almost the devil himself. Some of them said he would proclaim martial law and annihilate the Constitution! They were sure the force of the celebrity of General Sherman in a campaign had been overestimated by Blaine, who had the caprice and high color in his imagination that produce schemes too fine for success. In a word, Sherman and Lincoln were not practical politicians. Blaine's idea was not politics, but poetry. What they wanted was the magnetism and magic of Blaine. The country was at any rate safely in the hands of the Republican party. They had nearly lost the election because they had not nominated Blaine eight years before, and won with Garfield because he was a Blaine man. The wisdom of the Republican politicians was thus against Blaine's ticket so far as it was known; and those favorable to President Arthur, John Sherman, John A. Logan, and George F. Edmunds did not give the least credit to the statement that Blaine did not want the nomination. His rumored objection to making the race--of course the real reasons were not known--was regarded as a mere "play" in politics, if not altogether fantastic; and they pursued their own courses heedless of the real conditions. There was a singular complication of errors of judgment in the Blaine opposition. The friends of Arthur took the complimentary resolutions from a majority of the States to mean his nomination. In truth, the significance of that unanimity was quite otherwise. Ohio was not solid for Sherman. It is a State that has been very hard to manage in national conventions--was so in the time when Chase was the Republican leader--divided in '60, nominating Lincoln, and rarely presented a front without a flaw for a national candidate. The energy of Logan's friends was not sufficiently supported to give confidence. The reformers by profession and of prominence were for Edmunds; and they were a body of men who had force, if judiciously applied, to have carried the convention, provided they divested themselves of the peculiarities of extreme elevation that prevent efficiency. While they assumed to have soared above practical politics and to abhor the ways of the "toughs" in championing candidates, they subordinated their own usefulness to a sentiment that was limited to a senator--Mr. Edmunds. It was clear at an early hour that the nomination of Mr. Edmunds was impossible. He was put into the combat by Governor Long with a splendid speech, and the mellow eloquence of George William Curtis was for him, and Carl Schurz was a counsellor who upheld the banner of the lawyer statesman of Vermont. The conclusion was to stick to Edmunds; and they stuck until the last, and frittered away their influence. They were in such shape they might, by going in force, at a well-selected time and in a dramatic way, have carried the convention with them. They could not, however, get their own consent to go for Logan, or Arthur, or either of the Shermans; and so Blaine was overruled and nominated.

He did a wonderful work in the campaign, and was himself apparently satisfied at last that his apprehensions as to New York had been unwarranted. Still his words came back to me often during the heat of the summer and the fierce contest. "I cannot carry New York; we shall lose it, perhaps by just a little--but we shall lose it;" and so we did. As the vote was counted the plurality of Mr. Cleveland over Mr. Blaine in the decisive State was one thousand and forty-seven. Gail Hamilton says, in her "Life of Blaine," of the New York election, that there was a plurality claimed on election day for Cleveland of fifty thousand, and "the next day the figures came down to seventeen thousand; then to twelve thousand; the next day to five thousand, and at length dwindled to four hundred and fifty-six." The election was on the 4th, and it was nearly two weeks before a decision was announced. General Butler "openly proclaimed that the New York vote for himself was counted to Cleveland." The "just a little" by which Blaine was beaten was on the face of the returns one thousand and forty-seven, and John Y. McKane was ten years afterward convicted of frauds that were perpetrated as he willed, that amounted to thousands. There was a fraud capacity in the machines of many times the plurality by which Blaine was defeated, and there never was a rational doubt that it was exerted. A change of six hundred votes would have given the Plumed Knight the Presidency, and outside the Solid South he had a popular majority, "leaving out the protested vote of New York and Brooklyn, of nearly half a million." Mr. Blaine, when it became known that the New York vote was held to be against him, and civil war was threatened if the returns were rectified, telegraphed to friends asking their opinion of the New York situation; and I had the honor to be one consulted. My reply was that the New York influences that had prevailed to cause the declaration of a plurality for Cleveland would be sufficient to maintain that determination. Then came the opportunity of those unkindly toward Mr. Blaine to charge him with forcing himself on the Republican party and ruining it with his reckless candidacies, and I thought the facts within my knowledge should be given the public, and wrote to General Sherman, asking him to allow me to publish the correspondence between himself and Blaine, proving that the nomination, instead of being forced by Blaine for himself, was forced upon him; and I wrote to Blaine also, to the same effect. I received from the General the remarkable letters following:

GENERAL SHERMAN TO MR. HALSTEAD.

912 GARRISON AVENUE,

ST. LOUIS, MO., _November 17, 1884._

DEAR HALSTEAD:--After my former letter, when I went to put the
newspaper slip into my scrap-book, I discovered my mistake
in attributing the article to the "Louisville" instead of the
"London Times." My opinion is nevertheless not to contest the
matter, as the real truth will manifest itself.[I]

I think Arthur could have carried the Republicans past the
last election[J]--but no man can tell what issues would have
been made in case of his nomination. So the wisest conclusion
is to accept gracefully the actual result, and to profit
by the mistakes and accidents sure to attend the new
administration, handicapped as it will surely be by the hot
heads of the South. Truly yours,

W.T. SHERMAN.

912 GARRISON AVENUE,

ST. LOUIS, MO., _November 21, 1884._

DEAR HALSTEAD:--I have yours of the 19th. The letter of Blaine
to me was meant as absolutely confidential, and of course I
would not allow any person to see it without his consent. I
am not sure that I would, even with his consent, because
I believe the true policy is to look ahead and not behind.
Blaine's letter without any answer would be incomplete, and
surely I will not have my letter published, as it contained
certain points purely personal which the public has no right
to. New questions will arise, and these will give you plenty
of occupation without raking up the past.

Wishing you always all honor and fame, I am,

Truly yours,

W.T. SHERMAN.

The letters that passed between Blaine and Sherman have appeared in Gail Hamilton's "Biography of Blaine," but have not commanded attention according to their interest, because they have not been framed by the relation of the circumstances that gave them significance and that are supplied in this article.

MR. BLAINE TO GENERAL SHERMAN.

(Confidential.)

Strictly and absolutely so.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _May 25, 1884._

MY DEAR GENERAL:--This letter requires no answer. After
reading it carefully, file it away in your most secret drawer,
or give it to the flames.

At the approaching convention in Chicago it is more than
possible--it is indeed not improbable--that you may be
nominated for the Presidency. If so you must stand your hand,
accept the responsibility, and assume the duties of the place
to which you will surely be chosen if a candidate. You must
not look upon it as the work of the politicians. If it comes
to you, it will come as the ground-swell of popular demand;
and you can no more refuse than you could have refused to obey
an order when you were a lieutenant in the army. If it comes
to you at all, it will come as a call of patriotism. It would,
in such an event, injure your great fame as much to decline it
as it would for you to seek it. Your historic record, full
as it is, would be rendered still more glorious by such an
administration as you would be able to give the country. Do
not say a word in advance of the convention, no matter who may
ask you. You are with your friends, who will jealously guard
your honor.

Do not answer this.

JAMES G. BLAINE.

GENERAL SHERMAN TO MR. BLAINE.

ST. LOUIS, _May 28, 1884._

HON. J.G. BLAINE.

MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received your letter of the 25th;
shall construe it as absolutely confidential, not intimating
even to any member of my family that I have heard from you;
and though you may not expect an answer, I hope you will not
construe one as unwarranted. I have had a great many letters
from all points of the compass to a similar effect, one or
two of which I have answered frankly; but the great mass
are unanswered. I ought not to subject myself to the cheap
ridicule of declining what is not offered; but it is only fair
to the many really able men who rightfully aspire to the high
honor of being President of the United States to let them know
that I am not, and must not be construed as, a rival. In every
man's life there occurs an epoch when he must choose his
own career, and when he may not throw the responsibility,
or tamely place his destiny in the hands of friends. Mine
occurred in Louisiana when, in 1861, alone in the midst of a
people blinded by supposed wrongs, I resolved to stand by the
Union as long as a fragment of it survived to which to cling.
Since then, through faction, tempest, war, and peace, my
career has been all my family and friends could ask. We are
now in a good home of our choice, with reasonable provision
for old age, surrounded by kind and admiring friends, in a
community where Catholicism is held in respect and veneration,
and where my children will naturally grow up in contact
with an industrious and frugal people. You have known and
appreciated Mrs. Sherman from childhood, have also known each
and all the members of my family, and can understand, without
an explanation from me, how their thoughts and feelings should
and ought to influence my action; but I will not even throw
off on them the responsibility. I will not, in any event,
entertain or accept a nomination as a candidate for President
by the Chicago Republican convention, or any other convention,
for reasons personal to myself. I claim that the Civil War,
in which I simply did a man's fair share of work, so perfectly
accomplished peace, that military men have an absolute right
to rest, and to demand that the men who have been schooled in
the arts and practice of peace shall now do their work equally
well. Any senator can step from his chair at the Capitol into
the White House, and fulfil the office of President with more
skill and success than a Grant, Sherman or Sheridan, who were
soldiers by education and nature, who filled well their office
when the country was in danger, but were not schooled in
the practices by which civil communities are, and should be,
governed. I claim that our experience since 1865 demonstrates
the truth of this my proposition. Therefore I say that
"patriotism" does not demand of me what I construe as a
sacrifice of judgment, of inclination, and of self-interest.
I have my personal affairs in a state of absolute safety and
comfort. I owe no man a cent, have no expensive habits
or tastes, envy no man his wealth or power, [have] no
complications or indirect liabilities, and would account
myself a fool, a madman, an ass, to embark anew, at sixty-five
years of age, in a career that may, at any moment, [become]
tempest-tossed by the perfidy, the defalcation, the
dishonesty, or neglect of any one of a hundred thousand
subordinates utterly unknown to the President of the United
States, not to say the eternal worriment by a vast host of
impecunious friends and old military subordinates. Even as it
is, I am tortured by the charitable appeals of poor distressed
pensioners; but as President, these would be multiplied beyond
human endurance. I remember well the experience of Generals
Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes and Garfield, all
elected because of their military services, and am warned, not
encouraged, by their sad experiences. No--count me out. The
civilians of the United States should, and must, buffet with
this thankless office, and leave us old soldiers to enjoy the
peace we fought for, and think we earned.

With profound respect, your friend,

W.T. SHERMAN.

There is intrinsic evidence that these letters were not written with a thought of possible publication. That which General Sherman says about Catholicism could only have been told to a close and sympathetic friend. Mrs. Sherman and Mr. Blaine were cousins, and their mothers were Catholics. Mrs. Sherman was one whose devotion to the Church was intense; and General Sherman could not endure the thought that her religion should be subjected to such discussions as were certain to arise in a Presidential campaign. She was a very noble and gifted woman, and the happiness of herself and husband in their domestic life was beautiful and elevated.

James G. Blaine was nearer the Presidency than any other man who did not reach the office. It was by a very narrow margin that he missed the nomination in Cincinnati in 1876; and the opposition he encountered there from Republican editors was regretted by all of them, because they believed when the storm ceased that he had been accused excessively, sensationally, and maliciously, and condemned--by those who did not appreciate his vindication--on evidence that was indicated but not presented--on letters supposed to have been taken from the original package, and that were not produced because they never existed. The investigations were largely instigated and carried on to continue agitation with the purpose to strike down a brilliant man whose genius gave him almost incredible promotion, and to assail him because he was lofty and aspiring. The personal fight that he made in Congress when cruelly set upon was one of the most effective that ever took place in a public body. A competent observer, who was a spectator of the scene in the House when the Mulligan letters were read, said as Blaine came down the aisle, the letters in his hand, and called upon all the millions of his countrymen to be witnesses: "I thought his fist was going right up through the dome." Unhappily, his exciting experiences in the course of these fierce controversies, with the conduct of his Cincinnati campaign, and the sultry weather, caused his prostration, attended with hours of unconsciousness, just at the critical time when the delegates were assembling in national convention. The local influences; the Republican editorial antagonism; the enthusiastic efforts for Bristow; the strenuous perseverance of Morton of Indiana; the prestige of Conkling, backed with the high favor of Grant; the solidity of Ohio for Hayes--all would have been overwhelmed but for the incident of the fall of Blaine in a swoon at the door of the church which he was in the habit of attending and that he was about to enter with his wife. It is reasonable to believe, if he had been the candidate that year, he could have carried the election unequivocally, and that his administration would have vastly strengthened the Republican party. It is due President Hayes, however, to say that his administration of the great office was an era of good for the country, and that he was succeeded by a Republican; but the fact of a disputed Presidency had a far-reaching evil influence, and prevented showing fair play in New York in 1884. Blaine lost in his illness coincident with the Cincinnati convention the confidence of the country in his firm health and strength, and that handicapped him to his grave. Perhaps it is even more important that he lost faith in himself as a strong man, and had almost a superstition that if he became President it would be for him personally a fatality. And yet he was intellectually a growing man for fifteen years after his Cincinnati defeat. His greater works, his most influential ideas, the full fruition of his gifts, were after that catastrophe.