The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-12-27
QUEER and GIFTED.
An Artist Who Paints Money Like the
Real Thing.

q Soldier, Socialist, Artist and Journalist,
and He Eas Hobby-His Great Regard
Tor Eabelais-Sonae of His Remarkable
Paintings Described.
Poor Victor Dubreuil, who lives in
Forty fourth street, paints United States
currency SO that it looks real, and yet he
rarely has in his pocket two coins to
jingle together.
Over tho bar CT a Seventh avenue sa-
loon hang several Of his pictures. One is
called Barrels O Money" The barrels,
Or kegs, are of good. stout oak. set in a
row three deep, and from their yawning
mouths 81, SIS, $40, $40, se5 and $50 and
800, 5000 and $500 bank notes, apparent
ly fresh from the United States treasury,
are escaping by hundreds. The bills in
some of the barrels are weighted down
with heaping shovelfuls of gold coin of
the larger denominations. These seem
to glitter in the light, and so do the dia-
monds and turquoises which have fallen
from the kegs and lie sparkling beside
them on the floor. With them are large
bank note sandwiches done up in paper
wrappers, over the edges of which crisp
new edges of the bills curl temptingly.
To the left of this painting hangs an
other of about the same size, which, as
it not only tells story of it's own, butt
tho key to the life, struggles and aims of
the man who produced it, is the most i'm
portant and interesting in the place. The
spectator appears to be standing inside
the railing of bank or large mercantile
counting house. Before him is the tell
er's or bookkeeper's desk, upon which,
cleverly foreshortened and painted, lies
ledger, the ruling and writing on the
pages of which are well simulated. To
the left of the book is bottle of ink,
from which pen protrudes. Under the
desk lies an overturned stool. The cash
drawer, with its brazen handles, is open,
and desperate looking man, with I'M
kempt, tawny brown hair and long
beard, squints along the glistening barrel
of loaded seven shooter on the other
side of the grating around the desk,
while an aged crone in a red cloak stands
beside him, and with her skinny arm
thrust through the open window in the
grating transfers, with a greedy and tri-
umphant leer, bulky packages of realis-
tic bank notes from the drawer to fold
of her skirt.
Stand in what part of the room you
will, you are compelled to gaze down
the barrel of the revolver, which covers
the spectator at all points, and to shud-
der at the hungry leer of the woman,
which, strange to say, is Enthusiastically
seen to linger upon her careworn face,
although her eyes, those windows of the
soul, are hidden by her blood red cloak.
The woman is the artists ex-washer-
woman. now gathered to her fathers.
Her desperate looking accomplish with
the pistol is the artist himself, and the
entire picture is the key to the aspira-
tions, disappointments, joys and sorrows
Of Victor Dubreuil, ex-fnancier, soldier,
journalist, organizer, porter and stable
man, and at present artist, author and
socialist agitator.
This will be better understood when it
is explained that the title of the picture
is "a Prediction For 1900; or, Warning
to Capitalists
81 am vat you peeps call vairsateel,"
said the artist. 81 paint re steel life, re
genre, re landscape, re portrait any-
zing vatevare. Igome to Amerique. 7
have no monnaie. I go to Theophile
Keeck, re bankaire on Clinton place.
I work zere as stapleboy dwendy-two
hours a day for four mons. 1 get dwell
dollaire a mons. By my economic safe
forty-fve dollaire. Zen say: .Dubreuil,
you owe monnaie. You must pay heem.
You cannot get reech as stapleboy.
Vat, zen, will you do? salt, L will Pc
COON one arteest. So do so.''
Besides being an artist, M. Dubre11il
has been soldier, serving with the
French army in Mexico. He was clerk
in a banking house and then went into
the business on his own account. He
became interested in the formation of a
company which should do for. France
and Africa what the East India company
did for England and India, with the diff
ference that through Dubreuil's company
the workingman, not the capitalist, was
to reap the reward. To further this
scheme, he became newspaper man.
and for six months published La Polit-
ique d'Action. Judging by his own state
ments, this journal was so searchingly
and caustically truthful as to arouse
first the ire and then the fear of capital
lists, who, according to his story, ruined
him.
During his good fortune and his bad
there has been one occupation that has
always engrossed this soldier-banker-
socialist-artist. 1t has been the study of
Rabelais, with the intention of explain
bng him to his fellow countrymen and
the world.
In the quiet retirement of his studio,
on West Forty-fourth street, the self
taught artist tolls day and night to fin
ish the annotations on Rabelais works,
which are nearly done, and at which he
has been laboring for IS long years.
These, he declares, will open wide the
eyes of the entire world, and with in
ventions at which he has been toiling