It is an exceptional manuscript which has just joined the collections of the Gustave Courbet museum in Ornans, in the Doubs, a letter written by the famous painter in 1871 while he was in prison for having participated in the Paris Commune and brought down the Vendôme column. Seven pages where he declares that he is ready to pay for the reconstruction of the monument that he was wrongly accused of having had destroyed.
An episode that will give a new turn to the life of the artist. It is the association of new patrons of Courbet who bought this document to donate it to the Ornans museum.
In the fall of 1870, just after the fall of the Second Empire, Gustave Coubet had the misfortune to propose to the government of national defense to move the cumbersome symbol of Napoleonic tyranny to the Invalides. He even launched a petition in this direction. On May 16, 1871, the Communards put down the Vendôme column. The painter, elected by various insurgent committees, will sustainably bear the responsibility for a destruction that he had not wanted.
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At first, his notoriety protects him. He only received six months in prison, while many activists were sentenced to prison or death. In these seven pages, he somehow prepares his defense. “Indeed, he submits in the last lines of this manuscript the idea that he is ready to pay his expenses, a bit like a sacrificial victim, the reconstruction of the Vendôme column”, explains Benjamin Foudral, director-curator of the museum and Pôle Courbet in Ornans.
But in 1873, when President Mac Mahon came to power, the sanction fell. Courbet will actually have to pay for the reconstruction of the Vendôme column. The invoice is estimated at the time at some 323,000 francs. It’s expensive. Consequence: the painter will go into exile in Switzerland and will remain there until the end of his life. “The episode of the column is a major and disruptive episode since following his imprisonment, Courbet will have a rather normal life, he will return to Ornans and paint a lot and the conviction comes, which pushes him to l ‘exile because he is unable to pay this colossal fine’, further explains the curator.
As for the column, it was restored in 1875 on the square of the same name in its imperial luster by Marshal Mac Mahon, the second president of the Third Republic. It also underwent extensive restoration in 2014-2015 financed by the Ritz Paris hotel, also located on Place Vendôme.
Gustave Courbet’s manuscript will be briefly exhibited at the Musée d’Ornans before being restored. Open to the public every day except Tuesday October to May: Monday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Rates: 4 to 6 €. Free for children under 18.