The Harris-Ingram Experiment Part 19

Railways surround Paris, thus enabling the public to reach easily the many pretty suburbs and villages.

Both Mrs. Harris and Gertrude on their return to the Grand Hotel were glad to find letters from the men they loved. George wrote Gertrude that he was amazed at the enormous capacity of the manufacturing plants which he and Colonel Harris were visiting; that both labor and capital were much cheaper than in America. His closing words were, "Learn all you can, darling, I shall soon come to claim you."

Gertrude had read of the laundries on the Seine, so she left the hotel early with her mother and Alfonso to see them, while Leo, Lucille, and May went to study contemporaneous French masterpieces in the Luxembourg palace and gallery. The public wash houses on the Seine are large floating structures with gla.s.s roofs, steaming boilers, and rows of tubs foaming with suds. Hard at work, stand hundreds of strong and bare armed women, who scrub and wring their linen, while they sing and reply to the banter of pa.s.sing bargee or canotier.

If the sun is s.h.i.+ning and the water is clear, the blue cotton dresses of the women contrast prettily with white linen and bare arms busily employed. Though they earn but a pittance, about five cents an hour, yet they are very independent; mutual a.s.sistance is their controlling creed, and few, if any, honor more loyally the republican principle of liberty, equality and fraternity. The women seemed to do all the hard work, while the men in snowy s.h.i.+rts and blue cotton trousers, with scarlet girdles about their waists, pushed deftly to and fro the hot flat or box irons over white starched linen.

Each ironer has a bit of wax, which he pa.s.ses over the hot iron when he comes to the front, the collar, or the wrist-bands, and he boasts that he can goffer a frill or "bring up" a pattern of lace better than a Chinaman.

Alfonso and his party drove along the handsome Rue de Rivoli, with its half-mile of arcades, attractive shops, and hotels of high grade, and up the Rue Castiglione, which leads to the Place Vendome. Here in one of a hundred open places in Paris rises the Column Vendome in imitation of Trajan's column in Rome. The inscription records that it is to commemorate Napoleon's victories in 1805 over the Austrians and Russians.

On the pedestal are reliefs which represent the uniforms and weapons of the conquered armies. The memorable scenes, from the breaking of camp at Boulogne down to the Battle of Austerlitz, are shown on a broad bronze band that winds spirally up to the capital, and the shaft is surmounted by a bronze statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes.

Fortunately Alfonso's carriage overtook Leo's party, and they visited together the pretty arcades and gardens of the Palais Royal. In the open courts are trees, flowers, fountains, and statues, and on the four sides are inviting cafes and shops which display tempting jewelry and other beautiful articles. On summer evenings a military band plays here.

Returning, the ladies stepped into the Grand Magasin du Louvre. At a buffet, refreshments were gratis, and everywhere were crowds, who evidently appreciated the great variety of materials for ladies' dresses, the fine cloths, latest novelties, exquisite laces, etc. The ladies planned to return here, and to make a visit to the famous Au Bon Marche, where cheap prices always prevail. Most of the afternoon was spent in the Louvre, a vast palace of art, and the evening at the Theatre Francais, the ceiling of which represents France, bestowing laurels upon her three great children, Moliere, Corneille, and Racine. The Theatre Francais occupies the highest rank. Its plays are usually of a high cla.s.s, and the acting is admirable. The government grants this theatre an annual subsidy of about fifty thousand dollars.

Early next morning, the Harrises took carriages to the Halles Centrales, or union markets. These markets consist of ten pavilions intersected by streets. There are twenty-five hundred stalls which cover twenty-two acres, and cost fifteen million dollars. Under the markets are twelve hundred cellars for storage. The sales to wholesale dealers are made by auction early in the day, and they average about a hundred thousand dollars. Then the retail traffic begins. The supplies, some of which come from great distances along the Mediterranean, include meat, fish, poultry, game, oysters, vegetables, fruit, flowers, b.u.t.ters, cream cheese, etc. Great throngs of people, mostly in blue dresses and blouses, with baskets and bundles constantly surge past you. The whole scene is enjoyable. Everything they offer is fresh, and the prices usually are reasonable. When you make a purchase, you are made to feel that you have conferred a favor and are repeatedly thanked for it.

The few days that followed in Paris were days of rest, or were spent in planning for the future. The art galleries and the shops on the boulevards were repeatedly visited, theaters and rides were enjoyed, and on Friday morning, the ladies went to the railway station to take leave of Alfonso and Leo, who left Paris for the study of art in the Netherlands. Colonel Harris and George Ingram were expected to arrive in Paris on Sat.u.r.day evening.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN BELGIUM AND HOLLAND

Reluctantly Alfonso and Leo left Lucille and May in Paris. Both were well educated and beautiful women. It is possible that Alfonso might have loved May Ingram had he been thrown more into her company, and so known her better in early life, but the Harrises and Ingrams rarely met each other in society. As for Leo, he loved Lucille, but she had erected an impa.s.sable barrier in her utterance on the steamer, "First love or none."

Leo in a thousand ways had been kind to her, because he hoped eventually to win her favor, and possibly because he fully appreciated the value of money. Fortunes in Europe are not so easily made, but once won, the rich of the old world as a rule husband their resources better then they of the new world. On the whole Alfonso and Leo were glad to cut loose from society obligations and be free to absorb what generations of art development in the Netherlands had to offer.

Leaving Paris they took the express via Rheims for Brussels. Entering this beautiful capital of the Belgians in the northern part of the city, they took a cab that drove past the Botanic Garden down the Rue Royale to the Hotel Bellevue which is near the Royal Palace and overlooks a park, embellished with sculptures, trees, flowers, and smooth lawns. One of the most enjoyable and profitable things for tourists to do in their travels is to climb at least one tower or height, as the views and correct information thus obtained will cling longest to the memory.

Brussels is Paris in miniature. The royal palace and park may be compared to the Tuileries. The beautiful drive down the Boulevard de Waterloo and up Avenue Louise leads directly to the Bois de la Cambre, a lovely forest of four hundred and fifty acres, which resembles the Bois de Boulogne of Paris. Nearly six miles of old and new boulevards encircle Brussels, pa.s.sing through the upper and lower portions of the city. The pleasing variety of some of the more handsome buildings is due to the compet.i.tion for large premiums offered for the finest facades. The resemblance of Brussels to Paris is perhaps more apparent in the cafes, shops, and public amus.e.m.e.nts along the busy boulevards. West of the Royal Palace is the picture gallery owned by the state, and by judicious and repeated purchases, the collection of pictures is considered superior to that of the famous gallery in Antwerp. In this gallery the two young artists spent several pleasant half-days comparing the early Flemish and Dutch schools. Especially did they study portrait work by Rubens, Frans Hals, and Van der Helst. All the work by the blacksmith artist Quinten Matsys in color or iron proved of great interest to the young Americans.

Finally Leo, who knew much of the old masters of Europe, took Alfonso to see the Musee Wiertz, which contains all the works of a highly gifted and eccentric master. In a kind of distemper Wiertz painted Napoleon in the Infernal Region, Vision of a Beheaded Man, A Suicide, The Last Cannon, Curiosity, and Contest of Good and Evil, Hunger, Madness and Crime, etc.

As Brussels is located near the center of Belgium, the city is very convenient to several cities that contain many works attractive to painters and architects.

On arrival at Antwerp Alfonso and Leo rode to one of the stately cathedrals, near which a military band was playing. Before the church stood a bronze statue of Peter Paul Rubens. The scrolls and books, which lie on the pedestal, with brush, palette, and hat, are allusions to the varied pursuits of Rubens as diplomatist, statesman, and painter.

The two young artists hastened into the cathedral to see Rubens's famous pictures, The Descent from the Cross, and The a.s.sumption. His conception and arrangement were admirable, his drawing carefully done, and his coloring harmonious and masterly.

Rubens, the prince of Flemish painters, was knighted. He was handsome and amiable, and his celebrity as an artist procured for him the friends.h.i.+p and patronage of princes and men of distinction throughout Europe.

Not far from the cathedral the young artists came to the museum, in front of which rises a statue to Van Dyck, pupil of Rubens. "Here, Alfonso," said Leo, "is encouragement for you, for Van Dyck like yourself was the son of a wealthy man or merchant of Antwerp. He was educated in Italy, where he executed several fine portraits which I saw in Genoa as I journeyed to Paris." Charles I. of England appointed Van Dyck court-painter and knighted him. Van Dyck's ambition was to excel in historical works, but the demand upon him for portraits never left him much leisure for other subjects. How often "man proposes, but G.o.d disposes."

Alfonso and Leo reached Dort or Dordrecht, which in the middle ages was the most powerful and wealthy commercial city in Holland. Huge rafts float down from the German forests, and at Dordrecht the logs are sawed by the many windmills. The Dutch province of Zealand is formed by nine large islands on the coast of the North Sea, and it has for its heraldic emblem a swimming lion with a motto _Luctor et Emergo_.

Most of the province, which is created by the alluvial deposits of the Scheldt, is below the sea-level, and is protected against the encroachments of the sea by vast embankments of an aggregate length of 300 miles. Willows are planted along the d.y.k.es, the annual repairs of which cost $425,000. An old proverb says, "G.o.d made the land, we Dutch made the sea."

This fertile soil produces abundant crops of wheat and other grain. Near Dort is a vast reed-forest, covering more than 100 islands, which is also called, "Verdronken land," drowned land. This area of forty square miles, once a smiling agricultural tract, was totally inundated on the 18th of November, 1421. Seventy-two thriving market towns and villages were destroyed, and 100,000 persons perished. Leo made a sketch of the tower of Huis Merwede, the solitary and only relic of this desolate scene.

The two artists visited Rotterdam, the second commercial city in Holland, which is fourteen miles from the North Sea and on the right bank of the Maas. An attractive quay a mile in length is the arriving and starting point for over 100 steamboats that connect Rotterdam with Dutch towns, the Rhine, England, France, Russia, and the Mediterranean.

Alfonso and Leo studied the collection of portraits at Boyman's Museum, and sketched in the River Park the happy people who were grouped under trees, by the fish ponds, and along the gra.s.sy expanses. Alfonso bought a photograph of the ill.u.s.trious Erasmus. It is about ten miles to Delft, once celebrated for its pottery and porcelain, a city to-day of 25,000 inhabitants. Here on the 10th of July, 1584, William of Orange, Founder of Dutch independence, was shot by an a.s.sa.s.sin to secure the price set on William's head by Farnese.

Our two artists visited a church in Delft to see the marble monument to the memory of the Prince of Orange, which was inscribed "Prince William, the Father of the Fatherland." Not far is Delft Haven which Americans love to visit, and where the pious John Robinson blessed a brave little band as it set sail to plant in a new world the tree of Liberty.

At length the artists reached The Hague, which for centuries has been the favorite residence of the Dutch princes, and to-day is occupied by the court, n.o.bles, and diplomatists. No town in Holland possesses so many broad and handsome streets, lofty and substantial blocks, and s.p.a.cious squares as The Hague.

Alfonso and Leo hastened to Scheveningen, three miles west of The Hague, on the breezy and sandy sh.o.r.es of the North Sea, a clean fis.h.i.+ng village of neat brick houses sheltered from the sea by a lofty sand dune. Here bathing wagons are drawn by a strong horse into the ocean, where the bather can take his cool plunge. Scheveningen possesses a hundred fis.h.i.+ng boats. The fishermen have an independent spirit and wear quaint dress. A public crier announces the arrival of their cargoes, which are sold at auction on the beach, often affording picturesque and amusing scenes, sketches of which were made. The luminous appearance of the sea caused by innumerable mollusca affords great pleasure to visitors, twenty thousand of whom every year frequent this fas.h.i.+onable sea-bathing resort.

The second evening after the artists' arrival at Scheveningen, as they sauntered along on the brick-paved terrace in sight of white sails and setting sun, Alfonso was agreeably surprised to meet in company with her mother, Christine de Ruyter, a young artist, whose acquaintance he had made in the Louvre at Paris.

Christine's father, prominent for a long time in the vessel trade, had recently died, leaving a fortune to his wife and two daughters, one of whom, Fredrika was already married. They were descended from the famous Admiral de Ruyter, who in 1673 defeated the united fleets of France and England off the coast of Scheveningen, which fact added much of interest to their annual visit to this resort. While Leo talked with the mother, Alfonso listened to Christine, as she told much about the historic family with which she was connected, and in return she learned somewhat of young Harris's family and their visit to Europe.

Christine, who was about Alfonso's age, had fair complexion, light hair, and soft blue eyes. Her beauty added refinement that education and wide travel usually furnish.

It was seen in Alfonso's face and in his marked deference that Christine filled his ideal of a beautiful woman. Christine and her mother and the young artists were registered at the Hotel de Orange, so of necessity they were thrown into each other's company. They drove to The Hague, compared the statues of William of Orange with each other; rode along the elegant streets, south through the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, through the park, and to the drill grounds. A half-day was spent in visiting the "House in the Woods," a Royal Villa, one and one-half miles northeast of The Hague. This palace is beautifully decorated, particularly the Orange Salon, which was painted by artists of the school of Rubens.

Alfonso and Leo enjoyed their visits to the celebrated picture gallery, which contains among many Dutch paintings the famous pictures by Paul Potter and Rembrandt. Paul Potter's Bull is deservedly popular. This picture was once carried off to Paris, and there ranked high in the Louvre, and later the Dutch offered 60,000 florins to Napoleon for its restoration.

Christine, who was well conversant with art matters, knew the location and artistic value of each painting and guided the young Americans to works by Van Dyck, Rubens, the Tenniers, Holbein, and others. She was proud of a terra-cotta head of her ancestor, Admiral de Ruyter. The party soon reached Rembrandt's celebrated "School of Anatomy," originally painted for the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Tulp is in black coat with lace collar and broad-brimmed soft hat, dissecting a sinew of the arm of the corpse before him. He is explaining, with gesture of his left hand, his theory to a group of Amsterdam surgeons. No painter ever before succeeded in so riveting the attention of spectators in the presence of death. The listeners appear altogether unconscious of the pallid corpse that lies before them on the dissecting table.

Invited by Christine's mother, the young artists accompanied the De Ruyters to Amsterdam, the commercial capital of Holland, with 300,000 inhabitants. They live on ninety islands formed by intersecting ca.n.a.ls, which are crossed by three hundred bridges. The buildings rest on foundations of piles, or trees, which fact gave rise to Erasmus's jest, that he knew a city where the people dwelt on tops of trees, like rooks.

Alfonso took Leo into the suburbs to see diamond polis.h.i.+ng. The machinery is run by steam, and the work is done largely by Portuguese Jews. These precious stones are cut or sawed through by means of wires covered with diamond dust, and the gems are polished by holding them against rapidly revolving iron disks moistened with a mixture of diamond dust and oil.

Christine's people lived in a red brick mansion, the gable of which contained a portrait in relief of Admiral de Ruyter, and fronted a shaded street on a ca.n.a.l. Here the American artists were handsomely entertained.

They were driven to the picture galleries and the palace or town-hall in the Dam Square, where Louis Napoleon and Hortense once resided. From the tower which terminates in a gilded s.h.i.+p the artists obtained fine views of Northern Holland. Christine pointed out the Exchange and other objects of interest in the city, which abounds in narrow streets and broad ca.n.a.ls, the latter lined with fine shade trees. Many of the tall, narrow houses have red tile roofs, quaint fork-chimneys, and they stand with gables to the ca.n.a.ls. The docks show a forest of masts.

The environs of the city are covered with gardens; trees adorn the roads, while poplars and willows cross or divide the fields, which are studded with windmills and distant spires, and everywhere are seen fertile corps, black and white cattle, and little boats creeping slowly along the ca.n.a.ls.

A Hollander's wealth is often estimated by his windmills. If asked, "How rich?" The reply comes, "Oh, he is worth ten or twelve windmills."

Holland seems alive with immense windmills. They grind corn, they saw wood, they pulverize rocks, and they are yoked to the inconstant winds and forced to contend with the water, the great enemy of the Dutch. They constantly pump water from the marshes into ca.n.a.ls, and so prevent the inundation of the inhabitants. The Hollander furnishes good ill.u.s.tration of the practical value of Emerson's words, "Borrow the strength of the elements. Hitch your wagon to a star, and see the ch.o.r.es done by the G.o.ds themselves."

To the west are seen the church spires of Haarlem, and its long ca.n.a.l, which like a silver thread ties it to Amsterdam. To the east the towers of Utrecht are visible, and to the north glitter in the morning sun the red roofs of Zaandam and Alkmaar.

Far away stretched the waters of the Zuider Zee, which Holland plans to reclaim by an enbankment from the extreme cape of North Holland, to the Friesland coast, so as to shut out the ocean, and thereby acquire 750,000 square miles of new land; a whole province. At present 3,000 persons and 15,000 vessels are employed in the Zuider Zee fisheries, the revenues of which average $850,000 a year. It is proposed to furnish equivalents to satisfy these fishermen. It is estimated that this wonderful engineering feat will extend over 33 years and cost $131,250,000.

Christine now conducted her artist friends out of the Palace and over to the Rijks Museum to see Rembrandt's largest and best work, his "Night Watch." It is on the right as you enter, covering the side of the room.

It represents a company of arquebusiers, energetically emerging from their Guild House on the Singel. The light and shade of the Night Watch is so treated as to form a most effective dramatic scene, which, since its creation, in 1642, has been enthusiastically admired by all art connoisseurs.

Rembrandt was the son of a miller, and his studio was in his father's wind-mill, where light came in at a single narrow window. By close observation he became master of light and shade, and excelled in vigor and realism. At $50 a year he taught pupils who flocked to him from all parts of Europe, but, like too many possessed of fine genius, he died in poverty. Later, London paid $25,000 for a single one of his six hundred and forty paintings. The Dutch painters put on canvas the everyday home-life and manners of their people, while the Flemish represented more the religious life of the lower Netherlands.

These journeys in Belgium gave Alfonso and Leo enlarged ideas as to the possibilities of portrait painting. In Alma Tadema, of Dutch descent, and Millais they saw modern examples of wonderful success, which made clear to them that the high art of portrait painting once acquired, both fame and fortune are sure to follow.

Christine de Ruyter had taken lessons of the best masters in Holland, Italy, and France. Few, if any women artists of her age, equalled or excelled her. Her conversations on art in the Netherlands charmed her two artist friends. She said, "The works of art of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands seemed to grow out of the very soil of the low countries. Our old artists revelled in the varied costumes and manifold types that thronged the cities of the Hanseatic League. The artist's imagination was fascinated by the wealth of color he saw on st.u.r.dy laborers, on weather-beaten mariners, burly citizens, and sagacious traders.

"Rubens delighted often in a concentrated light, and was master of artistic material along the whole range. He painted well portraits, landscapes, battles of heroes, gallant love-making of the n.o.ble, and the coa.r.s.e pleasures of the vulgar. Nearly a thousand pictures bear the name of Rubens.