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Updated: June 13, 2025
There is, however, no valid reason for doubting that this is the very picture owned for a time by Charles I., and which busy intriguing Gerbier afterwards bought, only to part with it to Cardenas the Spanish ambassador.
At Le Moine's I made the acquaintance of Gerbier, the noted advocate, and of his daughter Mme. de Roissy, who was very beautiful, and one of the first women I made a portrait of. Grétry and Latour, an eminent pastellist, often came to these dinners at Le Moine's, which were highly convivial and amusing. It was then the custom to sing at dessert.
In 1649 a courtly parasite, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, who used to be a miniature painter, an art-critic, and Master of Ceremonies to Charles I., being sadly thrown out of occupation by the Civil War, opened an academy at Bethnal Green.
The Infanta consented to have Rubens undertake this delicate piece of statesmanship, but Philip of Spain did not like the idea of an artist a wandering fellow, as an artist was then thought to be entering into such a dignified affair. The real negotiator on the English side, was Gerbier, by birth also a Fleming, and strange to tell, he too had been an artist.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle assume that not this picture, but a replica, was the one which found its way into Charles I.'s collection, and was there catalogued by Van der Doort as "the Emperor Charles the Fifth, brought by the king from Spain, being done at length with a big white Irish dog" going afterwards, at the dispersal of the king's effects, to Sir Balthasar Gerbier for £150.
From that vessel landed Gerbier, and rode straight to Paris, carrying the Queen of France the duplicate studs, which were to replace those which she had sent to Buckingham. Twenty-four hours later the ports of England were unsealed, and commerce was free and unhampered once more. But it was twenty-four hours too late for Richelieu and his agent, the Countess of Carlisle.
But Gerbier was a flimsy character, and without a Court to support him, or money, his academy dissolved after a gaseous lecture or two. Faubert, however, another French Protestant refugee, was more successful with an academy he managed to set up in London in 1682, "to lessen the vast expense the nation is at yearly by sending children into France to be taught military exercises."
He was born about 1591, at Middelburg in Zeeland, the son of Anthoine Gerbier, a baron of Normandy, and Radegonde, daughter-in-law to the Lord of Blavet in Picardy. 'It pleaseth God, writes Sir Balthazar, 'to suffer my parents to fly the bluddy persecutions in France, against those which the Roman Catholics call the Huguenots.
Many would be wronged, much harm would be done, the liberties of some thousands of freeborn Englishmen would be trampled underfoot. What did it matter? It was necessary that his Grace of Buckingham should cover up an indiscretion. "Set ink and paper yonder," he bade his gaping valet. "Then go call M. Gerbier.
Other works relate to architecture and fortifications, the languages, arts, and noble exercises taught in his Academy, or contain advice to travellers, or deal with political affairs. Mr. Pepys records in his diary, under date the 28th May 1663: 'At the Coffee House in Exchange Alley I bought a little book, Counsell to Builders, by Sir Balth. Gerbier.
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