Butterfield Paula - La Luministe

Contents

EPILOGUE: JULIE

La Luministe

Berthe Morisot: Painter of Light

Paula Butterfield

Regal House Publishing

Copyright 2019 by Paula Butterfield

Published by

Regal House Publishing, LLC

Raleigh, NC 27612

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781947548022

ISBN -13 (epub): 9781947548039

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911296

All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any cirmstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologized if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

Interior, cover image and design by Lafayette & Greene

lafayetteandgreene.com

Jeune fille au bal by Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot, Muse Marmottan, Paris - Public Doman Royalty Free/CCO

Regal House Publishing, LLC

https://regalhousepublishing.com

The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

For my grandmother, who knew how to make anything a little more beautiful.

Introductory Quote

I wondered if all creatures were drawn to what was

dangerous or if we merely wanted light at any cost and were willing to burn for our desires.

- Alice Hoffman

The Marriage of Opposites

PART ONE

La Luministe

The Painter of Light

Chapter One

Paris

September 1858

B arbarian!

Madman!

The mutterings from two men hunched behind their easels had broken the silence in the Great Gallery and hung in the air for an instant before echoing up the walls to the soaring, arched, glass skylights of the Louvre. My sister and I had been immersed in our work, copying the paintings of the Renaissance Masters, before their outburst, which was followed by the approaching tap-tap-tap of a silver-tipped cane on the parquet floor. Id looked up to see the most revered and reviled artist in Paris swagger the length of the gallery.

Edma! I hissed to my sister, Its douard Manet. She slipped me a look out of the corner of her eye and gave the slightest of nods in acknowledgement.

I recognized Manet from our friend Fantins portrait of him, but he was more handsome in person, with a long, narrow nose and wavy, dark blonde hair and whiskers. With his proud carriage, he needed only a red sash and a white ruff around his neck to resemble the Dutch Captain of the Guard in Rembrandts Night Watch. He was talleven taller in his glossy black silk top hatdressed in well-cut clothes with fine leather gloves and boots and carrying a wooden paint case tucked under his arm. The haunting sea chantey he whistled contrasted with his eleganceand sent shivers up my arms.

Comment a va , mon ami ? Manet greeted Fantin, not ten feet away from us, with a vulpine grin, ignoring the malicious murmurs of those around him. Manet and Fantin bantered and joked for a bit, their deep laughter resounding up to the skylights. I had never known anyone to make the earnest Fantin laugh. And then the men turned toward Edma and me, the shift sudden enough for the men to catch me staring. Although he appeared to be no more than ten years older than I, Manet smiled at me as one smiles at a precocious child. True, on his side of that decade divide was a life of independence, even decadence, while on my side I still lived the life of a sheltered jeune fille . But I was not a young girl; I was almost a woman.

My sister, Edma, and I were eighteen and seventeen years old, and we were determined to become Great Artists. Our older sister, Yves, had once shared our ambition, but shed succumbed to marriage, a fate I planned to evade. On that fresh, breezy morning in September of 1858, when the Louvre, like the rest of Paris, re-opened after closing for the month of August, Edma and I were eager to resume the copying routine we had begun in the spring , mastering the techniques that would enable us to reach our own artistic eminence.

Think how glorious it will be to be celebrated, independent artists, I had whispered to Edma that morning as we left our home in Passy on the western edge of Paris, dressed in bonnets and short capes, toting palettes and paints. We traversed two worlds twice-weekly when we left our village of tile-roofed white houses and marched down the Trocadero Hillrows of trees had replaced the windmills on the rue de Moulinsto catch a horse-drawn tram. Leaving behind open spaces and wide skies as the tram rattled on its tracks, we followed the curve of the Seine past bridges, barges docked at the quais , and solitary fishermen angling for a perch or a pike to take home for dinner.

Think of how marriageable my accomplished daughters will be, came our mothers voice from behind as we stepped off the tram into the bustle of the Place de la Concorde. Maman escorted us between the golden-tipped Egyptian obelisk and the sea-themed fountain where naiads held fish spouting water into the large, lower stone basin. The upper basin was supported by figures personifying the arts, but we never lingered long enough for me to determine which writhing nude represented painting. I didnt want Maman to suspect my interest in the naked male form. So, eyes straight ahead, I marched on past les palais surrounding the square and rounded the corner on to the rue di Castiglione, where a gilded statue of Jeanne dArc sparkled in the morning sun.

We continued past the shops under the arcade along the long rue de Rivoli . First, Gaglianis Bookstore, that narrow shop with dark depths lined floor-to-ceiling in mahogany shelves and filled with tables piled high with still more books. Then we were enveloped in the intoxicating scent from the Chocolat Mexicain Masson chocolate infused with cinnamon and cayennethe only advantage to Frances rule of Mexico that I could see.

I remembered when, as a child, we would only traverse this street by carriage, for fear of stepping in the sewage that had run down every road in Paris until a few years ago. Edma and I had made a game of scattering sofa cushions on our drawing room floor and jumping from one to the next, pretending that missing a cushion would land us in the sludge of a city street. Now the rue de Rivoli was wide, airy, and clean enough for fashionable people to cross. In fact, at that moment, a fastidiously attired flneur strolled down the middle of the street. I observed his gray plaid trousers and double-breasted black frock coat with just enough cravat protruding above the top button to require a stick-pin. He was the height of fashion, although his umbrella and dainty shoes struck me as less than manly.

The flneur stopped to contemplate a pretty flower vendor, a girl my age or perhaps younger. There were no match sellers to be found here in the elegant center of the city, and it was too early in the autumn for the roasted chestnut vendor, so this girl with her arms around a basket of posies and boutonnires had the broad boulevard to herself. The cuffs of her fresh white blouse were frayed, but her copper hair caught the shimmering sunshine, and in the Jardin de Tuileries the leaves of the plane trees behind her flickered in the breeze from green to gold like daubs of paint, creating an appealing portrait.