I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old man, as, leaning on the pedestal, with his cap in his hand, and his long grey hair waving round his face, he looked up at his work with a mixture of reverence and exultation, saying, in his imperfect and scarce intelligible French, "Oui, quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la terre!" meaning, I suppose, that this statue had ensured his immortality on earth. He added, "They ask me often where are the models after which I worked? and I answer, _here_, and _here_;" laying his hand first on his head, then on his heart.
I remember that when we first entered his room he was at work on one of the figures for the tomb of the late Queen Catherine of Wurtemburg. You perhaps recollect her in England when only Duchess of Oldenburg?
Yes; I remember, as a youngster, joining the mob who shouted before the windows of the Pulteney-hotel, and hailed her and her brother Alexander as if they had been a newly descended Jupiter and Juno! O verily, times are changed!
But in that woman there were the elements of a fine nature. She had the talents, the strength of mind, and far-reaching ambition of her grandmother, Catherine of Russia, but was not so perverted. During her short reign as Queen of Wurtemburg, the influence of her active mind was felt through the whole government. She founded, among other institutions, a school for the daughters of the nobility connected with the court,--in plain English, a charity-school for the nobility of Wurtemburg, who are among the most indigent and most ignorant of Germany. There are a few, very few, brilliant exceptions. One lady of rank said to me, "As to an English governess, _that_ is an advantage I can never hope to have for my daughters. The princesses have an English governess, but _we_ cannot dream of such a thing." The late queen really deserved the regrets of her people. The king, whose sluggish mind she ruled or stimulated, is now devoted to his stables and hunting. He has married another wife, but he has erected to the honour of Catherine a splendid mausoleum, on the peak of a high hill, which can be seen from almost every part of the city; and on the summer evenings when the red sun-set falls upon its white columns it is a beautiful object. The figure on which Dannecker was occupied, represented Prayer, or what he called, "La triomphe de la Prière;" it recalled to my mind Flaxman's lovely statue of the same subject,--the "Our Father which art in Heaven," but suffered by the involuntary comparison. On the rough base of the statue he had tried to spell the name of Chantrey, but not very successfully. I took up a bit of chalk and wrote underneath, in distinct characters, FRANCIS CHANTREY.