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A footman led me into an immense, well-lighted hall crowded with pictures and statues in marble and bronze; sedan chairs in Vernis Martin set with porcelain plaques; Peruvian mummies; a dozen dummy figures of men and horses in full armour, over which, by reason of their great height, towered a Polish cavalier with white wings on his shoulders and a French knight equipped for the tournament, his helmet bearing a crest of a woman's head with pointed coif and flowing veil.
They are feared and disliked in those places, as too severe, if not smoothed and introduced by the graces; but of these graces, of this necessary 'beau vernis', it seems there are still 'quelque couches qui manquent'. Now, pray let me ask you, coolly and seriously, 'pourquoi ces couches manquent-elles'? For you may as easily take them, as you may wear more or less powder in your hair, more or less lace upon your coat.
French artists took up the Oriental style, and produced some very successful lacquer work, striking out in an entirely distinct style, which, as Vernis Martin decoration, became famous. The varnish or lacquer forming the foundation for those delightful little pictures was not unlike in effect the Oriental lacquer which to some extent it was intended to imitate.
Need we add that after the death of his father he soon wasted a fortune? But the reckless bohemian in him was subjugated by necessity. He set to work to earn his bread. Nearly three thousand plates he etched, lithographed, or engraved, not including his paintings or his experiments in various mediums, such as vernis mou and wood-engraving.
Among the lost arts of that time are inlaying as done by Boule and the finish known as Vernis Martin. This large studio is a marked example of comfort and interest where the laws of appropriateness, practicableness, proportion and balance are so observed as to communicate at once a sense of restfulness.
Has per umbras omnis ales plus canora quam putes Cantibus vernis strepebat et susurris dulcibus: Hic loquentis murmur amnis concinebat frondibus Quas melos vocalis aurae, musa Zephyri, moverat: Sic euntem per virecta pulcra odora et musica Ales amnis aura lucus flos et umbra iuverat.
Your panegyrist allows you, what most fathers would be more than satisified with, in a son, and chides me for not contenting myself with 'l'essentiellement bon'; but I, who have been in no one respect like other fathers, cannot neither, like them, content myself with 'l'essentiellement bon'; because I know that it will not do your business in the world, while you want 'quelques couches de vernis'. Few fathers care much for their sons, or, at least, most of them care more for their money: and, consequently, content themselves with giving them, at the cheapest rate, the common run of education: that is, a school till eighteen; the university till twenty; and a couple of years riding post through the several towns of Europe; impatient till their boobies come home to be married, and, as they call it, settled.
In Bishop Pallegoix's excellent work, Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam, I*. 144, he says: "L'arbre a vernis qui est une espece de bananier, et que les Siamois appellent 'rak, fournit ce beau vernis qu'on admire dans les petits meubles qu'on apporte de Chine."
As for Panpan, his street wanderings terminated in his finding employment in a lace manufactory, and it soon became evident that his natural talent here found a congenial occupation. He came by degrees to be happy in his new position of a workman. Then occurred the serious love passage of his life—his meeting with Louise, now Madame Panpan. It was the simplest matter in the world: Panpan, to whom life was nothing without the Sunday quadrille at the barrière, having resolved to figure on the next occasion in a pair of bottes vernis, waited upon his bootmaker—every Parisian has his bootmaker—to issue his mandates concerning their length, shape, and general construction. He entered the boutique of Mons. Cuire, when, lo! he beheld in the little back parlour, the most delicate little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped to measure on the grass. He would say nothing of the owner of this miracle; of her face—which was full of intelligence; of her figure—which was gentille toute
In all the bedrooms the dressing-tables were covered with dentelle de Binche of the epoch, and all the mirrors and various little boxes for powder, rouge, patches, and the hundred accessories for a fine lady's toilette in those days, were in Vernis Martin absolutely intact.
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