French society; the French being most truly, as has been said, the "Chinese of Europe," and liking nothing less than the intermixture with themselves of anything foreign. But Gérard was one of those essentially superior men who are able to influence those around them, and bring them to much whereto no one else could have persuaded them. Gérard, like many celebrated persons, was infinitely superior to what he _did_. As far as what he _did_ was concerned, Gérard, though a painter of great merit, was far inferior to two or three of whom France has since been justly proud; but in regard to what he _was_, Gérard was a man of genius, who had in many ways few superiors. Few men, even in France, have so highly deserved the reputation of _un homme d'esprit_. He was as _spirituel_ as Talleyrand himself, and almost as clear-sighted and profound. Add to this that nothing could surpass the impression made by Gérard at first sight. He was strikingly like the first Napoleon, but handsomer; with the same purity of outline, the same dazzlingly lustrous eyes, full of penetration and thought, but with a certain _sympathetic_ charm about his whole person that the glorious conqueror of Marengo and Dictator of Gaul never possessed.
Gérard was not entirely French; born in Rome in 1770, his father only was a native of France, his mother was an Italian; and from her he inherited a certain combination of qualities and peculiarities that at once distinguished him from the majority of his countrymen. Full of poetic fire and inspiration, there was in Gérard at the same time a strong critical propensity, that showed itself in his caustic wit and, sometimes, not unmalicious remarks. There was also a perpetual struggle in his character between reflection and the first impulse, and sometimes the _étourderie_ of the French nature was suddenly checked by the caution of the Italian; but, take him as he was, he was a man in a thousand, and those who were in the habit of constantly frequenting his house affirm loudly and with the deepest regret, that they shall never "look upon his like again."
Gérard had built for himself a house in the Rue des Augustins, near the ancient church of St. Germain des Près; and there, every Wednesday evening, summer and winter, he received whatever was in any way illustrious in France, or whatever the other capitals of Europe sent to Paris, _en passant_. "Four small rooms," says Mme. Ancelot, "and a very small antechamber, composed the whole apartment. At twelve o'clock tea was served, with eternally the same cakes, over which a pupil of Gérard's, Mlle. Godefroy, presided. Gérard himself talked; his wife remained nailed to a whist-table, attending to nothing and to nobody. Evening once closed in, cards were the only occupation of Mme. Gérard."
From Mme. de Staël down to Mlle. Mars, from Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo down to M. Thiers, there were no celebrities, male or female, that, during thirty years, (from 1805 to 1835,) did not flock to Gérard's house, and all, how different soever might be their character or position, agreed in the same opinion of their host; and those who survive say of him to this day,--"Nothing in his _salons_ announced that you were received by a great _Artist_, but before half an hour had elapsed you felt you were the guest of a distinguished Man; you had seen by a glance at Gérard's whole person and air that he was something apart from others,--that the sacred fire burned there!"
The regret felt for Gérard's loss by all who ever knew him is not to be told, and speaks as highly for those who cherished as for him who inspired it. His, again, was one of the _salons_ (impossible now in France) where genius and social superiority, whether of birth or position, met together on equal terms. Without having, perhaps, as large a proportion of the old _noblesse de cour_ at his house as had Mme. Lebrun, Gérard received full as many of those eminent personages whose political occupations would have seemed to estrange them from the wor
