Honore de Balzac

Vendetta Honore de Balzac

Servin, one of our most distinguished artists, was the first to conceive of the idea of opening astudio for young girls who wished to take lessons in painting. About forty years of age, a man of the purest morals, entirely given up to his art, he had marriedfrom inclination the dowerless daughter of a general. At first the mothers of his pupils bought theirdaughters themselves to the studio; then they were satisfied to send them alone, after knowing themaster's principles and the pains he took to deserve their confidence. It was the artist's intention to take no pupils but young ladies belonging to rich families of goodposition, in order to meet with no complaints as to the composition of his classes. He even refusedto take girls who wished to become artists; for to them he would have been obliged to give certaininstructions without which no talent could advance in the profession. Little by little his prudenceand the ability with which he initiated his pupils into his art, the certainty each mother felt that herdaughter was in company with none but well-bred young girls, and the fact of the artist's marriage, gave him an excellent reputation as a teacher in society. When a young girl wished to learn to draw, and her mother asked advice of her friends, the answer was, invariably: "Send her to Servin's."Servin became, therefore, for feminine art, a specialty; like Herbault for bonnets, Leroy forgowns, and Chevet for eatables. It was recognized that a young woman who had taken lessons fromServin was capable of judging the paintings of the Musee conclusively, of making a striking portrait, copying an ancient master, or painting a genre picture. The artist thus sufficed for the educationalneeds of the aristocracy. But in spite of these relations with the best families in Paris, he wasindependent and patriotic, and he maintained among them that easy, brilliant, half-ironical tone, andthat freedom of judgment which characterize painters. He had carried his scrupulous precaution into the arrangements of the locality where his pupilsstudied. The entrance to the attic above his apartments was walled up. To reach this retreat, assacred as a harem, it was necessary to go up a small spiral staircase made within his own rooms. Thestudio, occupying nearly the whole attic floor under the roof, presented to the eye those vastproportions which surprise inquirers when, after attaining sixty feet above the ground-floor, theyexpect to find an artist squeezed into a gutter.