The fact of there being two young women in the house by one name has led to confusion among the biographers.  And thus it happens that at least four encyclopedias record that Ernest Renan married the daughter of Ary Scheffer.  Renan married the niece, and the fact that they named their first child Ary helped, possibly, to confirm the error of the biographers.

Scheffer’s life was devoted to providing for and educating these young women.  He himself gave them lessons in the languages, in music, painting and sculpture.  The daughter was a handsome girl; and in point of intellect kept her artist-father very busy to keep one lesson in advance.  Together they painted and modeled in clay, and the happiness that came to Scheffer as he saw her powers unfold was the sweetest experience he had ever known.

The coldness between himself and the King had increased.  But Louis Philippe did not forget him, for commissions came, one after another, for work to cover the walls of the palace at Versailles.  With the Queen his relations were friendly—­even intimate.  Several times she came to his house.  Her interest in Cornelie was tender and strong, and when Scheffer painted a “Mignon” and took Cornelie for a model, the Queen insisted on having the picture and paying her own price—­a figure quite beyond what the artist asked.

This picture, which represents so vividly the profound pathos and depth of soul which Ary Scheffer could put upon a canvas, can now be seen in the Louvre.  But the best collection of Scheffer’s portraits and historical pictures is at Versailles.

In the gentle companionship of his beloved daughter, Scheffer found the meed of joy that was his due.  With her he lived over the days that had gone forever, and those other days that might have been.

And when the inevitable came and this daughter loved a worthy and suitable young man, Scheffer bowed his head, and fighting hard to keep back the tears gave the pair his blessing.

The marriage of Doctor Marjolin and Cornelie Scheffer was a happy mating; and both honored the gifted father and ministered to him in every kindly way.

But so susceptible was Scheffer’s nature that when his daughter had given her whole heart to another, the fine edge of his art was dulled and blunted.  He painted through habit, and the work had merit, but only at rare intervals was there in it that undefinable something which all can recognize, but none analyze, that stamps the product as great art.

* * * * *

When, in the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty, Scheffer married, it was the death of his art.

The artist does business on a very small margin of inspiration.  Do you understand me?  The man of genius is not a genius all the time.  Usually he is only a very ordinary individual.  There may be days or weeks that are fallow, and sometimes even years that are years of famine.  He can not conquer the mood of depression that is holding him to earth.