The Illustrators of Montmartre/Chapter 7
VII
CHARLES HUARD
HUARD has done for the denizens of the godly, deadly dull French villages and provincial towns of France what Steinlen has done for Paris — and he has done it exceedingly well. It is difficult to conceive how these worthy people, so fully convinced of their own importance, so proud of their deviltries and or their little wickednesses, and so full of tittle-tattle about their neighbours could have been better introduced to us.
Huard's collection of one hundred sketches, published in book form, and entitled "Province," should prove a valuable document to future writers on the manners and customs of a section of French provincials at the commencement of the twentieth century. He interests himself mainly with the local official and petit commerçant (or tradesman) classes, deviating occasionally to draw within his net a few stray soldiers, or some dignified member of the old nobility of France. A man of healthy mien and fine physique, Huard is excessively reserved and retiring, seeking the companionship 
of very few, and entirely engrossed in his work. Moreover, he is most modest, and has in no wise been spoilt by the lasting success and renown his work has earned for him, at an age when others are but commencing to hammer at the door of Fame.
Huard was born in Paris, bt brought up in a provincial town, His schooldays, we are told, were marked by indomitable diligence in the successful finding of means of evading the tedium of one school after another. It is a ludicrous fact that although none of his humorous sketches are actual portraits, his own townspeople have taken such dire offence at what appeared to them as hits at themselves, that they have so far boycotted the satirist that he willingly banishes himself from the town in which he passed his youth, It is even reported that one old lady said, quite seriously, that if he ever dared to draw her she would disfigure him for life with vitriol, Possibly this is the marvellous person, in a good temper, whose physiognomy appears on the cover of the Huard number of "L' Album."
Of course it is not to be denied that Huard has "made game" of the provincials; and, knowing the inherent pettiness of the classes he has held up to ridicule, it is small wonder that they resent fun poked at their expense by one who to them can appear to be no less than a traitor, Huard, however, is never spiteful or malicious; he sees better and further than his neighbours, and he knows how to tell the truth about what he has seen, without being warped by local influences.
A perusal of "Province," and other works to be mentioned, will, I am sure, prove the truth of these remarks.
His figures are as a rule set in fitting urban landscapes, every whit as truthful as the personages they frame. Look at the drawing among those classed Les Officiels, entitled Midday Mass is far the most aristocratic — wherein a procession of regular church-goers debouches out of a picturesque, half-hearted, somnolent High Street into the blazing sunlight of the "Grande Place." The local member and his wife, the lawyer, and all the other pious scandalmongers of the town are going to make their daily penitence. We can see these good folk, we can feel the sunshine, and we can even hear the clangour of the bells in the church tower. Then look in another sketch at the two editors of The Revenge. Were ever such chauvinistes, such firebrands? Getting on in years — true; but as dangerous as not yet extinct volcanoes, they reek of pistols for two and coffee for one.
A drawing labelled The Express conveying the President will pass at five o'clock, is most amusing. There, on the little railway platform, is gathered all the official rank and society of Tilliere-Sur-Ruron. Inflated, yet nervous, they fidget about, awaiting impatiently the proudest moment of their lives. We know them all; the mayor with his address is there, surrounded by his satellites of the Municipal Council, all arrayed in heirloom dress suits, members of the Gymnastic Society are there — some lithe, some burly — then there are ces braves pompiers, and the stern gendarmes; and behind them, dressed in their best, but shut out from view and from seeing, are the townspeople in their thousands. No matter, they are about to receive a main topic of conversation for many a weary year to come.
Then there are the poor, dear, terrible old ladies, to whom Huard introduces us under the heading "Les Vieilles Dames," — thin-lipped, moustachioed, bigoted, deadly-dull personages are they, most of them; but they do not think so. They are contented, and are even conceited, as to the furs they cut, 'despite their shocking clothes; for is not each of them so much more Parisian in appearance and manners than "Madame Chose" — round the corner, and just out of hearing.
Here and there, however, we are presented to some real dignity, the dignity which pertains to old parchment. For example there are the portraits of the Mlles. Petanville de Grandeourt, in whom will 'expire the most purple blood of the country.
Under Soirs de Province we ave shown with quaint humour the nocturnal dissipations of a provincial town, "Two troopers, one as drunk as the other, are zig-zagginge an erratic course home to barracks. One says to the other; "Vidalène — you hurt me to the quick ... you won't wait for me because you think 'm drunk ...you are ashamed of me!" Again, the musical genius of the place has brought his violin to an at-home, and says: "What I prefer in music is imitations. Listen, I'll give you first 'Mother-in-Law in hysterics,' and then 'The Nightingale.'"
Then amongst the group of drawings headed Rentiers et Retraités look at the two retired tradesmen, chatting in the middle of a deserted square. In bated breath one of these busybodies relates to the other — "You know the whole town ts agog with it. Mrs. Lepingon visited the new dentist three times in the same day!"
A splendid set of drawings is included in the group Au café. We can see that they are so many resumés of the hurried sketches, for ever being made in the sketch-books which are Huard's never-failing companions. The handling, whether in pen and ink or in chalk, is always frank and bold, and occasionally is like that of Raffaëlli. Among the Raisonneurs et Sentimentaux are two old gossips seated on their favourite bench on the me of the town; it is evident that neither of them, even in his palmiest days, could have set the local brook on fire, Yet one of them explains that "there have only been two men who have understood the proper course for France to pursue — M. Thiers and J. M. Thiers is dead, and they will not listen to me!" A joyful break in the monotony of life in the provincial town is most admirably rendered in Market day at Pavigny-le-Gras, Everyone and everything is fat, and hot, and smiling. Joy and plenty are the key notes of the harmony; éxuberant good nature exudes from every pore. Even the houses around the Place de la Cathédrale seem to beam and bulge in purring contentment.
A review of Huard's work leads one to regret that he does not render his survey of provincial types more complete, by occasionally including studies of that manly and womanly beauty which exists in even the most forsaken community, to leaven the predominant ugliness. However, it may be that such forms of rustic beauty do not attract Huard, and we must rest grateful for his view of such types as do interest him deeply.
M. Huard — equally with several others of the illustrators mentioned in this little volume — has been honoured by having an entire number of "L' Album" devoted to his work. Therein we learn that to the few Huard is known as a most able oil and pastel painter of seafaring folk; and the etchings and chalk drawings reproduced convince us that it is a well-earned reputation. The double-page centre drawing of the number consists of a masterly Return from Mass, in which we see the good souls repairing homewards in the moonlight, soothed and contented in mind and in spirit. A few pages further on we come to two piou-pious, or "tommies," enjoying their Plaisir du Dimanche: they are seated, and one of them smokes a cheap cigar. The comment runs, "You wanted to come here so as to show yourself off smoking a cigar; but we could have had much more fun at the station watching the trains go through,"
Le Rire has published a quantity of Huard's work, the strength and vigour of which never seems to fail. The subjects are frequently drawn from the quays of Paris, or from cafés and restaurants patronised by visitors from the provinces to the gay city. The humour of a drawing called Plages, in which a rather vulgar Paris tripper to the seaside, paddling with her friends, exclaims in astonished appreciation "By Jove, sand like at Charenton" (shall we translate Putney?), is apparent to all. In these, as in all his sketches, whether drawn from a low Paris "pub," or from an innocent village café, indoors or out, the entire truth to nature of the type chosen, the very cut and hang of every garment is absolutely convincing, and unerringly put in with a few bold touches of the pen.
A pathetic drawing is that of the poor workwoman, who has tramped out to the sordid wastes of the fortifs, or fortifications of Paris; and, in her enjoyment of the faint echo of the real country, there to be found, exclaims — "If I were rich I'd come here every day!"
Huard has drawn for L' Assiette au Beurre, L' Image, Le Rire, and Cocorico some remarkable military subjects, in which he has depicted the French soldier to the life. Here, we have him disclosing to a comrade on the quay his modest dreams of fortune — there, he is discussing rations with his colonel, and in another splendid double-page drawing we see him at night, shouting some rude refrain, and painting the town scarlet generally; but the finest of all is perhaps a vivid drawing in colour of a squad on a drill ground, — red caps, white suits, and a yellow background, — the whole making a most striking page. Huard is very successful with these coloured illustrations, many of which appear in "Le Rire", and charm us with their quaint breadth and simplicity. of treatment. Nothing in this way could be better than the old "concièrge" and his dumpy wife, who are painting a cast of the "Venus of Milo" with canary yellow, and decide that it is much prettier like that, and much less indecent.
For the exhibition of "La Demi Douzaine," the little group of artists among whom he exhibits his marine work, Huard has done an excellent poster.
