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It met in the study of Stephane Pichon, the French Foreign Minister, which opened on to the garden of the French Foreign Office, and which, with its panelled walls, covered with gorgeous Gobelins picturing Ruben's story of Marie de' Medici, its stately brocaded chairs, and old-rose and gray Aubusson carpets, was redolent of old-time diplomacy.
There was even a full-sized mounted charger on the topmost point of a seven-story building. The Cathedral, with its tall sculptured tower, was no doubt an architectural marvel. A brief visit was made to the art gallery, "full of Ruben's fat women," as Uncle Gilbert expressed it. "'Anvers," read the minister from a post-card. "I thought this was Antwerp?"
In his person he gave me the idea of a discharged life-guardsman; but from his face you might have supposed that he had sat for one of Ruben's satyrs.
"Bribe a seraph to fetch you a coal of fire from heaven, if you will," said I, "and with it kindle life in the tallest, fattest, most boneless, fullest-blooded of Ruben's painted women leave me only my Alpine peri, and I'll not envy you." With a simultaneous movement, each turned his back on the other. Neither said "God bless you;" yet on the morrow the sea was to roll between us.
And it is observable, that though the birthright was Ruben's, and, for his foolishness, given to the sons of Joseph, yet Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the Messias; 1 Chron. v. 1, 2. There is a heavenly subtilty to be managed in this matter. "Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing."
Ambrogio, in the Via del Sellag, is rich in pictures: Ruben's "Circumcision," and his "St. Ignatius," healing a man possessed of an evil spirit, and also Guido's "Assumption." It is splendid in colouring and wonderful in the elaboration of detail. These to some may appear too extravagant. The Santa Maria di Carignano, or Church of the Assumption, in the same street, is one of the finest in Genoa.
"Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the Descent from the Cross, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a Christian and a Catholic." So ran the will. "This is ruin!" mused Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes. Ha!
"Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the Descent from the Cross, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a Christian and a Catholic." So ran the will. "This is ruin!" mused Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes. Ha!
Thackeray seems to have been well aware of the limitations of his own power as a draughtsman. In one of his "Roundabout Papers" he described the method the secret so to say of Rubens; and then goes on to lament the impotence of his own hand, the "pitiful niggling," that cannot reproduce the bold sweep of Ruben's brush.
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