About eight years ago Duret’s definitive biography of Manet appeared, Histoire de Edouard Manet et de Son Oeuvre.  No one was better qualified to write of the dead painter than Theodore Duret.  A critic of perspicacity, his enthusiasm was kindled during the birth throes of impressionism and has never been quenched.  Only a few years ago, after a tribute to Whistler, he wrote of Manet in the introduction to his volume on Impressionism, and while no one may deny his estimate, yet through zeal for the name of his dead friend he attributed to him the discoveries of the impressionists.  Manet was their leader; he would have been a leader of men in any art epoch; but he did not invent the fulminating palette of Monet, and, in reality, he joined the insurgents after they had waged their earlier battles.  His “impressionistic” painting, so called, did not date until later; before that he had fought for his own independence, and his method was different from that of Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Cezanne and the rest.  Nevertheless, because of his notoriety—­fame is hardly the word—­he may be fairly called the leader of the school.

As a rule he was not an irascible man, if the unpleasant nature of the attacks upon him is taken into consideration.  With the exception of Richard Wagner and Ibsen, I know of no artist who was vilified during his lifetime as was Manet.  A gentleman, he was the reverse of the bohemian.  Duret writes of him that he was shocked at the attempt to make of him a monster.  He did not desire to become chef d’ecole, nor did he set up as an eccentric.  When he gave his special exhibition his catalogue contained a modest declaration of the right of the artist to his personal vision.  He did not pretend to have created a new school, and he asked the public to judge his work as that of a sincere painter; but even that mild pronunciamento was received with jeers.  The press, with a few exceptions, was against him, and so were nearly all the artists of influence.  Zola’s aggressive articles only made the situation worse.  Who was this Zola but a writer of doubtful taste and sensational style!  The whole crowd of realists, naturalists, and impressionists—­the Batignolles school was the mocking title given the latter—­were dumped into the common vat of infamy and critical vitriol poured over them.

The main facts of Manet’s career may be soon disposed of.  His mother was Eugenie Desiree Fournier; she was the goddaughter of Charles Bernadotte, King of Sweden.  Her father, a prefect at Pau, had rendered services to Bernadotte which the latter did not forget.  When she married, in 1831, Auguste Manet, a distinguished judge of the Seine tribunal, Bernadotte made her many valuable presents and a dowry.  Her three sons were Edouard, Eugene, and Gustave.  They inherited from their rich grandfather, Fournier.  Edouard was born at Paris, Rue Bonaparte, January 23, 1832.  His brother Eugene became a doctor of medicine and later married one of the most gifted of women painters,