Mention has already been made of the overweening vanity which was Greuze’s most pronounced personal characteristic. He had, above all, the highest possible opinion of his own talent, and could not brook the slightest adverse criticism of his work.

Even when he first came to Paris and had not proved his abilities, he made enemies by stupid remarks like his reply to Natoire, who had suggested some alteration in a detail of one of his pictures. “Monsieur, you would be only too happy if you were able to do anything so good yourself.” Later, when success had come and he was surrounded by admirers, the desire for praise became a mania, and he fell into a violent passion if any one made a remark that suggested anything but flattery. A great friend of his, and one of his patrons, a Madame Geoffrin, at whose house he had met many of his most influential friends and kindest critics, said laughingly, and with truth, that there was a “vÉritable fricassÉe d’enfants” in “La MÈre Bien-aimÉe.” Some one repeated this to Greuze.

“How dare she venture to criticise a work of art,” he cried violently. “Let her tremble with fear lest I immortalise her by painting her as a schoolmistress, with a whip in her hand and a face that will terrify all children living or to be born.”

Under the influence of his infatuation for himself, he lost all sense of the proportion of things—witness the scene when the Dauphin, delighted with his own portrait, asked him to begin one of the Dauphine. The presence of the lady did not prevent Greuze, ordinarily well-mannered, and particularly so to women, from replying shortly that he did not know how to paint heads of the kind, making reference to the paint and powder all society women wore at the time. Small wonder that thereafter royal favours were scarce, and he had to wait several years longer than was necessary for the logement in the Louvre to which his position entitled him.

This same trait played a prominent part in his historic quarrel with the Academy over his diploma picture. It was the rule for every member to present to the Academy on his election some representative work, but Greuze, satisfied that the honour was theirs, and that he was in a position to form his own precedent, let years go by without offering the expected chef d’oeuvre. It was only when the delay had lasted fourteen years, and they wrote saying they would be obliged to forbid him to show his pictures in the Salon unless he fulfilled his obligation, that he conceded to the rule, and having replied by a letter that was “a model of pride and impertinence,” set to work on the picture.

Believing he could do any form of subject equally well, he chose a grandiloquent historical subject, a style absolutely unsuited to his limitations. “Septime SÉvÈre reprochant À son fils Caracalla d’avoir attentÉ À sa vie dans les dÉfilÉs d’Écosse, et lui disant, Si tu dÉsires ma mort, ordonne À Papinien de me la donner” was its title; and if you look at it where it hangs skied in the Louvre above the violently outstretched arms of “La MalÉdiction paternelle,” you see that it is a most faulty and insignificant production. The Academy could not refuse it, but they told him frankly what they thought of it.

“Monsieur,” said the Director, calling him in from the room where he awaited the congratulations of the associates, whose approval he believed he had now fully earned, “the Academy receives you as peintre de genre. It has taken into account your former productions, which are excellent, and has shut its eyes on this one, which is worthy neither of them nor you.”

The disappointment of Greuze, who had counted on the dignity and material advantages conferred by the title of Historical Painter, can be imagined, but amazement and fury dominated. For days he could neither sleep nor eat; and he covered reams of paper in writing to the papers to prove by technical laws and logical arguments that the picture was not only good, but a masterpiece. But for once the adoring public remained unresponsive. The last straw was his friend Diderot’s criticism, published in the usual way.

“The figure of Septime SÉvÈre is ignoble in character. It has the dark, swarthy skin of a convict; its action is uncertain. It is badly drawn, it has the wrist broken; the distance from the neck to the breast-bone is exaggerated. Neither do you see the beginning of the right knee nor where it goes to beneath the covering of the bed. Caracalla is even more ignoble than his father, a wooden figure, without suppleness or movement. Those who force their talent do nothing with grace.”

Having exhausted all other means of protest, Greuze took refuge in the sulkiness of a naughty child, and more or less independent now that he was at last to have the coveted logement in the Louvre, he declared he would never again send a picture to the Academy.

Nor did he, for when, years later, he was obliged to fall back on its aid, the Academy as he had known it was swallowed up in the whirlpool of the Revolution.

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