Read Online Guide to Animal Behaviour by Douglas Glover - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Douglas Glover
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saying, âHe preaches all day and paints all night.â Which made me ill to hear.
Pierron specialized in miniature scenes, mostly genre pieces illustrating the vices and the virtues, Heaven and Hell, the Temptation of Eve, and so on, which he used for Bible classes among the savages, who were apparently much illuminated on this account.
My triumph came upon the death of Sister Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin in the Hôtel-Dieu. (She was a nun famous for the production of miracles: on February 4, 1663, while working in the hospital, she had seen four demons shaking Québec like a quilt with the Lord Jesus restraining them; a year later, she converted a recidivist Huguenot with Brother Brebeufâs charred thigh bone.)
Apparently, she had admired my Martyre des Pères Jésuites which reminded her of the great paintings (Raphael, Guido Reni) that hung in her fatherâs house in Rennes. (Also Father Pierron was out of town.)
At this time, I was undergoing treatment â a decoction of sassafras being a sovereign specific, according to the savages â from an old, Christianized Tobacco Indian named Nickbis Agsonbare, for an ailment I had contracted from Jean Boisdonâs servant girl.
The Hôtel-Dieu concierge found me fast asleep on a pile of young Boisvertâs illegal beaver hides in a corner of Arletteâs kitchen (though it was midday and hot as Hades, with the weather outside and the brick-faced mistress sweating over her bake-oven â the hides stank atrociously).
I had not painted for upwards of a year, my classes had fallen off and I had said mass but five times. The sole upshot of my labours since the Martyre set-back was the fact that the Boisverts were soon to be blessed with a third child, a circumstance which delighted everyone since the government had embarked on a system of royal grants for the fathers of large families.
Sister Marie-Catherine had been dead a week when I was summoned. She was dry as a nut and a sickening shade of gray-green, with her old white hair hanging in ribbons. I had to work quickly for the smell, and used my imagination liberally.
For once I had access to the best brushes and paints to be found in the colony. The concierge kept me supplied with cognac (I was once nearly caught napping with my feet upon the coffin lid). And I finished in two days, with only an hour or two for sleep.
After the funeral, I stayed on at the Hôtel-Dieu to add some finishing touches, a flight of cherubim, two corner scenes illustrating life among the savages left over from the Martyre, and a golden halo with rays.
Sister Marie-Catherineâs eyes proved the most difficult test of my art (because they had been closed in death). I painted them upwards of twenty-nine times, till I gave up and bade the concierge sit for me in an attitude of prayer. I gave her his eyes, one brown, one hazel, both slightly squint, with yellow sclerae, gazing heavenward.
Mother Marie de lâIncarnation said she had never seen such a likeness. (This was music to my ears.) It was a vision, she exclaimed. On first entering my studio, she said, she had half-expected my Marie-Catherine to step out of the frame and address her (they used to call each other âlittle cabbageâ).
The sisters hung the Marie-Catherine in the public room at the Hôtel-Dieu where the bishop chanced to see it. I thought this would soften his heart toward me, but it did not.
Instead, I was summoned before the master of the seminary. Houssart, the bishopâs valet, read a list of offences (including indolence, idolatry, blasphemy â that requiem mass in the bathtub â drunkenness and excessive personal vanity). I lost my job at the seminary and was exiled to Boucherville, near Montréal, where it was hoped curatorial duties would mend my soul, or I would find a martyrâs end.
Among the Anderhoronerons
Boucherville was a one-year-old village of eight log hovels, a two-room,
Pierron specialized in miniature scenes, mostly genre pieces illustrating the vices and the virtues, Heaven and Hell, the Temptation of Eve, and so on, which he used for Bible classes among the savages, who were apparently much illuminated on this account.
My triumph came upon the death of Sister Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin in the Hôtel-Dieu. (She was a nun famous for the production of miracles: on February 4, 1663, while working in the hospital, she had seen four demons shaking Québec like a quilt with the Lord Jesus restraining them; a year later, she converted a recidivist Huguenot with Brother Brebeufâs charred thigh bone.)
Apparently, she had admired my Martyre des Pères Jésuites which reminded her of the great paintings (Raphael, Guido Reni) that hung in her fatherâs house in Rennes. (Also Father Pierron was out of town.)
At this time, I was undergoing treatment â a decoction of sassafras being a sovereign specific, according to the savages â from an old, Christianized Tobacco Indian named Nickbis Agsonbare, for an ailment I had contracted from Jean Boisdonâs servant girl.
The Hôtel-Dieu concierge found me fast asleep on a pile of young Boisvertâs illegal beaver hides in a corner of Arletteâs kitchen (though it was midday and hot as Hades, with the weather outside and the brick-faced mistress sweating over her bake-oven â the hides stank atrociously).
I had not painted for upwards of a year, my classes had fallen off and I had said mass but five times. The sole upshot of my labours since the Martyre set-back was the fact that the Boisverts were soon to be blessed with a third child, a circumstance which delighted everyone since the government had embarked on a system of royal grants for the fathers of large families.
Sister Marie-Catherine had been dead a week when I was summoned. She was dry as a nut and a sickening shade of gray-green, with her old white hair hanging in ribbons. I had to work quickly for the smell, and used my imagination liberally.
For once I had access to the best brushes and paints to be found in the colony. The concierge kept me supplied with cognac (I was once nearly caught napping with my feet upon the coffin lid). And I finished in two days, with only an hour or two for sleep.
After the funeral, I stayed on at the Hôtel-Dieu to add some finishing touches, a flight of cherubim, two corner scenes illustrating life among the savages left over from the Martyre, and a golden halo with rays.
Sister Marie-Catherineâs eyes proved the most difficult test of my art (because they had been closed in death). I painted them upwards of twenty-nine times, till I gave up and bade the concierge sit for me in an attitude of prayer. I gave her his eyes, one brown, one hazel, both slightly squint, with yellow sclerae, gazing heavenward.
Mother Marie de lâIncarnation said she had never seen such a likeness. (This was music to my ears.) It was a vision, she exclaimed. On first entering my studio, she said, she had half-expected my Marie-Catherine to step out of the frame and address her (they used to call each other âlittle cabbageâ).
The sisters hung the Marie-Catherine in the public room at the Hôtel-Dieu where the bishop chanced to see it. I thought this would soften his heart toward me, but it did not.
Instead, I was summoned before the master of the seminary. Houssart, the bishopâs valet, read a list of offences (including indolence, idolatry, blasphemy â that requiem mass in the bathtub â drunkenness and excessive personal vanity). I lost my job at the seminary and was exiled to Boucherville, near Montréal, where it was hoped curatorial duties would mend my soul, or I would find a martyrâs end.
Among the Anderhoronerons
Boucherville was a one-year-old village of eight log hovels, a two-room,
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