Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1886-09-22
ROSA BoNHEUR's YOUTH.
In a Sewing Establishment TO Be-
come n Seamstress.

and his little family-Rosa, years old,
Auguste, ISadore and Juliette. He was
a man of fine talent in painting, but
obliged to spend his time in giving
drawing lessons to support his children.
His wife, Sophia, gave lessons on the
piano, going from house to house all
day long and sometimes sewing half the
night to earna 4 little more for the necessi-
ties Of life.
Hard work and poverty soon bore Its
usual fruit, and the tired young mother
died in 1888. The three eldest children
went to board with plain woman, la
Mere Catherine, " in the Champs Elysees,
and the Youngest was placed with rel
atives. For two years the good woman
cared for the children, sending them TO
school, though she WAS greatly troubled
because Rosa persisted in playing in the
woods of the Bois de Boulogne, gather
ing her arms full of daisies and mari
Colds. rather than to b shut up IN Z
schoolroom. Il never spent an hour of
fine weather indoors during the whole
of the two years she has often said
since those days.
Finally the father married again and
brought the children home. The two
bows were placed in school and Mr..
Bonheur paid their way by giving draw
ing lessons three times week in the
institution. II Rosa did not love school,
she must be taught something useful,
and she was accordingly placed in a
sewing establishment TO become seam
stress.
The child ha,ed sewing, ran the needle
into her fingers at every stitch, cried for
tie fresh ar and sunshine, and finally
becoming pale and sickly wastaken back
to the Bonhem home The anxious
painter would try his child once more
in school; so he arranged that she should
attend, with compensation met i'll the
same way rs for his boys. Rosa soon
became a fayorite with the girls at the
Fauborg st. Antoine school, especially
because she could draw such witty
caricatures of the teachers, which She
pasted against the wall with bread
chewed into the consistency of putty.
The teachers We're not pleased, but so
struck were they with the vigOr and
originality of the drawings that they
carefully preserved the sketches in an
album
The girl was fIr from happy. Natu-
rally sensitive, as what poet or painter
was ever born otherwise, she could not
bear to wear calico dress and coarse
shoes and eat with an iron spoon from
tin cup when the other girls wore hand
some dresses and had silver mugs and
spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected
her books ard finally became so Ill that
she was obliged to be taken home.
And now Raymond Bonheur very
wisely decided not TO make plans for his
child for time, but see what was her
natural tendency. 1t was well that he
made this decision in time before she
had been spoiled by his well meant but
poor intentions. Left to herself she
constantly hung about her fathers
studio, now drawing, now modelling,
copying whatever she saw him do. She
seemed never to be tired, but sang at
her work all the day long.
Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to
the fact that his daughter had great tai
ent. He began to teach her carefully
to make her accurate in drawing and
correct in perception. Then he sent
her to the Louvre to copy the works of
the old masters. Here she worked with
the greatest industry and enthusiasm,
not observing anything that was going
on around her. said the director of the
Louvre, II have never seen an example
of such application and such ardor for
work"
One day an elderly English gentleman
stopped beside her easel and said: Your
copy, my child is superb, faUltlessl Per-
severe as you have begun and prophesy
that you will be great artist" How
glad these few words made her. She
went home thinking over to herself the
determination she had made in the
school when che had eaten with an iron
spoon, that sometime she would be as IA
nous as her schoolmates, and have some
Of the comforts of life.
Her copies of old masters were soon
sold, though they brought small prices;
she gladly gave the money 10 her father,
who needed it now more than ever. His
second wife had two sons when he mar
ried her, and now they had a third,
Germain, and every cent that Rosa could
earn was needed to help support seven
children. LA Mamiche," as they cal
led the new mother, was an excellent
manager of the meager finances, and
filed her place well.
Rosa was now Il, loving landscape,
historical and genre painting, perhaps
equally, but happening to paint a goat
she was so pleased in the work that she
determined TO make animal painting Il
speciality. Having no money toprocure
models, she must needs make long
walks into the country on foot TO the
farms. She would take piece of bread
in her pocket and generally forget to eat
it After working all day she would
come home tired, often drenched with
rain, and her shoes covered with mud.
She took other means to study animals.
In the outskirts of Paris were great
abattorIs or slaughter pens. Though the
girl tenderly loved animals and shrank
from the sight of suffering, she forced
herself to see the killing that she might
know how to depict the death agony on
canvas. Though obliged to mingle
more or less with butchers no indignity
was ever offered her. As she sat on a
bundle of hay with her colors about her
they would crowd around TO look at the
r,iat,,ra orl ,-oo,rI bor