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The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment: couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the bombé fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The smaller and more elegant cabinets, called Bonheur du jour (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a gueridon; the encoignure, or corner cabinet; the étagère, or ornamental hanging cabinet, with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The chaise
I recall one charming little room in an old French house that was barely eight feet by eleven, but it contained a fireplace, two windows, a day bed, one of those graceful desks known as a bonheur du jour, and two arm-chairs. An extremely symmetrical arrangement of the room gave a sense of order, and order always suggests space.
Rosa Bonheur was too independent and original to follow any particular school or master, for her only inspiration and guide were her models, always living near by and upon intimate terms with her. Thus, in all her paintings, we instinctively feel that she painted from conviction, from her own observation, nothing being added for mere artistic effect.
The soup is liquified bliss; the cotelettes d'agneau are cotelettes de bonheur; and as for that broad dish of Syrian larks Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now, filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So closes the first day of our incarceration.
"Alec knows that after you there is no one in the world whom I like as well as I like him, so if he sometimes feels snubbed it won't hurt him." "A la bonheur!" I cried, "who says there are no thunderstorms in April?" "Are you ready?" chanted Boris. "Aye ready;" and arm-in-arm we raced into the dining-room, scandalizing the servants.
She has a well-earned fame as an artist; an abundant fortune gained by her own industry and used as honorably as it has been gained; and she has troops of friends drawn to her by her solid worth of character. Of the great number of pictures Rosa Bonheur has painted, by far the most are of subjects found in France, but a few of the best were painted in Scotland.
Edna pointed to the peaceful picture, and said: "If Rosa Bonheur could only put that on canvas for me, I would hang it upon my walls in the great city whither I am going; and when my weary days of work ended, I could sit down before it, and fold my tired hands and look at it through the mist of tears till its blessed calm stole into my heart, and I believed myself once more with you, gazing out of the study-window.
It was an old man singing, the air perhaps that of some old chanson of his own country, sung by villagers long before: "Souvenirs du jeune age Sont gravis dans mon coeur, Quand je pense au village, Revenant du bonheur " The old voice halted, at length resuming, idly: "Quand je pense quand je pense."
Among the unusually large number of prominent French women which the nineteenth century produced, possibly not more than a half-dozen names will survive,—Mme. de Staël, George Sand, Rosa Bonheur, Sarah Bernhardt, Mme. Lebrun, and Rachel.
As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva. In a simple home in Paris could have been seen, in 1829, Raymond Bonheur and his little family, Rosa, seven years old, August, Isadore, and Juliette.
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