THE MEDAL

I had lost sight, for a respectable period of time, of a good companion with whom I had once lived bohemian years, alternately gray or sunny, the history painter Alcibiade Lefauché, when public rumor took charge of m I learned that the aforementioned Lefauché had just obtained, at the Salon des Artistes Français, a first medal for his painting “Autumn Evening; a Truffière in Périgord”.

With the serene joy of a soul free from envy, I was literally happy with this result. It was there ! Alcibiade Lefauché was heading for glory and, at the height of joy, I immediately chartered a car to present to the new medalist the little spiel, as emotional as it was laudatory, de rigeur in the circumstances .

Sacred Lefauché! He still perched in his workshop on Rue des Martyrs, a real eagle's nest to which a ladder gave access, compared to which Jacob's legendary ladder would have seemed like a child's toy. The first outpouring having passed, we noted without bitterness, but with a touch of melancholy, that ten years had passed since our last interview, had settled our bones and made our skulls as hoary as the summit of Mount Pilatus.

Then we talked about the famous medal-winning painting at the Salon and stuffing his archon's beard, which, like many people, he wore with salt and pepper, Lefauché said to me:

Time to get through my routine and I'll go down with you. We are going to water the medal and have a nice little snack in the shade of the Sacré-Cœur. And, for dessert, I will tell you the genesis of this masterpiece: “Autumn Evening; a Truffière in Périgord”.

Alcibiades had just filled a superb pipe with foam, the artistically crafted bowl of which represented a biblical scene: the "chaste Suzanne between two old men", and while lapping up his mocha in small sips, he attacked the story of "Le Soir d'Automne ; a Truffière in Périgord".

Four years ago, I sent to the Painting Salon a "Battle of Mantinea" which, you remember, caused quite a stir. However, no reward. No doubt the masculine and haughty profile of my Epaminondas had displeased these Gentlemen of the Jury. Without being discouraged, I replaced a few helmets with morions and helms, I threw over the breastplates a few cloaks decorated with vair and ermine, stuck above the fray a few fleur-de-lis pennons, and the following year , the ship of my hopes sailed towards the Grand Palais, with this sensational send-off: “Le Soir d’Azincourt”.

Alas! the austere beards of the pictorial Areopagus were quick to recognize in the facial features of King Henry V of England, the Greek and compromising nose of the conqueror of Mantinea. Le Soir d'Azincourt received a rather warm welcome, and returned to my household by bringing me, in terms of reward, what we picturesquely summarize with the classic expression: Bale skin and horsehair broom!

It was bad! But bath! I had good humor and philosophy. On the Evening of Azincourt I sowed a few snowflakes, I completed the helms and morions with the furry caps of the grenadiers of the Grande Armée, I erected in the perspective a cordon of anemic fir trees, and in the middle of all this , I planted a flamboyant, terrible Murat, sweating courage, killing, and brandishing a curved scimitar dripping with Muscovite blood... With exquisite casualness, I titled this formidable machine: Le Soir d'Eylau.

On the way again to the Pont Alexandre... This time again, it was a useless journey: the Soir d'Eylau picked up a masterful shovel. It didn't even get a common mention and had to return to its home port, my current little workshop where it is stored now, like an old ship's hull in a refit basin!

Workshop gossip had taught me that I had to blame my successive failures at the Salon des Artistes Français on the President of the Painting Jury, fat Mahulot, who, in memory of the numerous pranks perpetrated by me during his painting class, the School of Fine Arts, had devoted me to a Caribbean hatred.

I resolved to take revenge, and this time abandoning the brush of battles for an infinitely more peaceful genre, I attacked this Autumn Evening; a Truffière in Périgord, to which the jury has just awarded the first medal of this year.

You know the web! A clearing dotted with oaks and in which a herd of pigs, in search of truffles, indulges in crazy somersaults, under the guidance of a swineherd to whom my perfidious brush has given the features of Mahulot. When they saw this they made themselves a damn pint, the jurors; it seems that they all hate this bitch Mahulot, that they twisted like
the gods of Homer at the thought of the good trick they were going to play on their President! The funny thing is that Mahulot sent me his warmest congratulations and that, alone in Paris, he persists in not recognizing himself in Soir d'Automne; a Truffière in Périgord.

AUGUSTE FAURE