The Princess Marie knew the slender tenure by which her father held his place, and although her heart was wrung by the separation from her lover, she was loyal to duty as she saw it, and made no sign that might embarrass the Citizen King.

Arnold and Henri Scheffer were each married, and working out careers.  Ary and his mother lived together, loving and devoted.  And into the keeping of this mother had come a grandchild—­a beautiful girl-baby.  They called her name Cornelie.  About the mother of Cornelie the grandmother was not curious.  It was enough to know that the child was the child of her son, and upon the babe she lavished all the loving tenderness of her great, welling, mother heart.  She had no words but those of gentleness and love for the son that had brought this charge to her.  And did she guess that this child would be the sustaining prop for her son when she, herself, was gone?

All this time the poor Princess Marie was practically a prisoner in the great palace, wearing out her heart, a slave to what she considered duty.  She grew ill, and all efforts of her physicians to arouse her from her melancholy were in vain.

Her death was a severe shock to poor Scheffer.  For some months friends feared for his sanity, for he would only busy his brush with scenes from Faust, or religious subjects that bordered on morbidity.  Again and again he painted “Marguerite in Prison,” “Marguerite Waiting,” “Marguerite in Paradise” and “Mignon.”  Into all of his work he infused that depth of tenderness which has given the critics their cue for accusing him of “sentimentality gone mad.”  And in fact no one can look upon any of the works of Scheffer, done after Eighteen Hundred Thirty, without being profoundly impressed with the brooding sadness that covers all as with a garment.

From the time he met the Princess of Orleans there came a decided evolution in his art; but it was not until she had passed away that one could pick out an unsigned canvas and say positively, “This is Scheffer’s!”

In all his work you see that look of soul, and in his best you behold a use of the blue background that rivals the blue of heaven.  No other painter that I can recall has gotten such effects from colors so simple.

But Scheffer’s life was not all sadness.  For even when the Little Mother had passed away, Ary Scheffer wrote calmly to his friend August Thierry:  “I yet have my daughter Cornelie, and were it not for her I fear my work would be a thing of the past; but with her I still feel that God exists.  My life is filled with love and light.”

* * * * *

It was a curious circumstance that Ary Scheffer, who conducted the Citizen King to Paris, was to lead him away.

Scheffer was a Captain in the National Guard, and when the stormy times of Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight came, he put away his brushes, locked his studio, and joined his regiment.