Rosa Bonheur, After the War

"A Limier Briquet Hound" by Rosa Bonheur

"The next twenty years of her life were passed in uninterrupted work, and with little incident save the anxiety caused her by the failing health of her devoted friend and companion Mlle. Micas. In order that Mlle, Micas should escape the cold winters at By, Rosa Bonheur built a villa Nice, and there she carried her friend every year until she died in 1889. The blow was a terrible one for the painter, and during the ten remaining years of her own life she never regained her old brightness of spirits and natural gaiety which had given her somewhat rugged temperament so much charm. 

Nevertheless she continued her work as industriously as ever, and when President Carnot went to her studio in 1893 to present her personally with the Cross of an officer of the Legion of Honour, he found her surrounded by the pictures which she was sending to the Chicago Exhibition.

'I may perhaps be suspected of vanity,' she wrote of this new honour, 'if I say I have received several decorations and other distinctions. In 1865 the Empress Charlotte and the Emperor Maximilian sent me the Cross of San Carlos of Mexico; in 1867 the Academy of Fine Arts at Antwerp made me one of its members; Alfonso XII gave me the brevet of Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic; the King of the Belgians the Cross of Leopold; the King of Portugal in 1884 that of the most Noble Order of Saint-James; but of all these dignities that which made my heart beat most was my nomination as officer of the Legion of Honour.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Rosa Bonheur" by Frank Hird.)