Married for a quarter of a century, the couple, now nearing the sixties, lived near the Institute, at No. 30 Quai Malaquais, the former home of the Marechal de Saxe, the pink and white facade of which still stands today, a few yards from the Rue de Seine.
The second floor, on which they lived, was undoubtedly less imposing than the first-floor apartment occupied by the painter Vien. But not everybody is a Senator of the Empire. And for their fifteen hundred francs rent the couple enjoyed a good deal of space. The two principal rooms, drawing-room and bedroom, overlooked the embankment. At the rear were two other bedrooms, a kitchen and two ante-rooms, one of which could be used as a dining-room. On the floor above there were two more small rooms, not to mention the 'amenities', which would have deserved the name better if they could have been reached without going through the kitchen and climbing a staircase as steep as an Alpine pathway.
Where did they wash? Probably in some dark cubby-hole. The French of those days were not much spoilt in that respect, and the Moittes could consider themselves lucky in possessing-for use on grand occasions-a bath tub shaped like a sabot; a near relation, that is, of the one in which Marat was murdered.
There was not much to be said of the furniture, for to the eye the chief luxury was displayed on the walls. His fellow artists had presented Moitte with a number of fine works of art, including a picture by David, paintings by Carle van Loo, and drawings by Vincent Norblin, Bouchardon and Fragonard, all of which must have been worth a great deal more than the mahogany bookcase, the chest of drawers with griffin feet, the Tronchin table and even the marriage bed with its curtains of blue taffetas. A number of little painted wooden beds, made up here and there in the other rooms, owed their existence to the fact that Mme Moitte augmented her resources by taking in boarders, little girls of the neighbourhood whose education she superintended.
She herself had had no children; their place had been taken by Louise, a sweet-natured creature they had taken charge of long ago, and who had grown up in the house. She played a double role there. Paid monthly for her services — doioag needlework, looking after the little boarders, giving lessons in sol-fa - she was treated so much as a daughter of the house that she addressed her adoptive mother with *thee' and *thou*, and lived in exactly the same way as her hosts. When the Moittes went out to dinner, they not only took Louise along with them, but she was generally asked to bring her music case with her, for she had a pretty voice and played the piano agreeably.
There were many occasions of the sort in this little circle of artists. In which hospitality was practised with as much simplicity as charm. People entertained one another without ceremony, for the pleasure of spending a few hours together, venturing twenty sous in a game of As courant, or playing parlour games that amused even the most serious among the guests. Houdon, for instance, the great Houdon, was seen one day playing spillikins with Mme Moitte's young boarders. And one Sunday Louis David and his wife invited the whole family, including the schoolgirls, to come to supper, and dance till two in the morning, in their grand house in the Rue de Seine.
The regular gatherings at the Quai Malaquais, which took place every Friday, were of course far less pretentious. Consisting of a mere handful of intimate friends - the Viscontis, the Van Loos, the Taunays, sometimes the Viens or Ber-thelemy the historical painter, they were mere gossip parties round a few glasses of syrup. But the menu was more substantial when there was a birthday or some other happy date to be celebrated. On November 10, 1806, for instance, two anniversaries coinciding — the Moitte's wedding day and the sculptor's birthday - provided a splendid opportunity for our hostess to put a leaf in her table and give herself an enormous amount of trouble.
Early in the morning we see her starting out to buy provisions in her little grey dress spotted with brown. She runs to the butcher, ransacks the fruit shop, returns laden with victuals, puts the pot on the fire, runs off again to the pastrycook and the confectioner, and after working like mad, discovers she has only just time to make herself presentable.
Now the little grey dress is exchanged for a handsome red one a la turque, with a taffeta skirt and a lace tucker. The table is laid, and Mme Moitte awaits her guests, a little feverishly, as befits the occasion. Will no one be late? Will the dinner be cooked to a turn?
By good luck all the guests were punctual, and the feast could proceed without a hitch. The menu, given in detail in the diary, allows us to appraise the digestive capacities of middle-class circles. *Meat soup, radishes, butter, gherkins, boiled beef, two chickens, little pasties, cutlets, fowl with truffles, two partridges, salad, cauliflowers, charlotte, sponge cakes, tartlets, cheese, jams, coffee and liqueurs, meringues, macaroons, sponge fingers, sweets and peach preserves.'
After this one was justified in considering that the wedding anniversary-the 're-marriage' as it was called-had been celebrated in due form. But the most touching family festivals are not enough to restore harmony to an old partnership when things are not as they should be. And it is now time to confess that this was the case with the Moittes.
Though they were really very fond of each other, husband and wife quarrelled all day long. It was the eternal little drama of associates who have seen too much of each other, who know each other's defects too well and can no longer put up with them. Everything becomes a subject of disagreement between them: a meal served too late, too long a walk, a badly chosen menu, a pot of mustard that can't be found, or worse still, an Academician who snores, tosses about in bed and prevents his wife from sleeping! We must pity these two martyrs to life in common, though, selfishly, we cannot regret their quarrels, since without them the famous diary would lose much of its flavour.
If old Moitte had always been in a good temper, we should have lost the picturesque vocabulary that his wife invented to picture his ups and downs. If he tries to be funny, she says he's playing the nana^ the sottasse. If he grumbles more than usual, he's mioumiou, quinquin or grimaudin. And when she talks of patauderie [loutishness] the Moitte barometer is decidedly pointing to a storm.
This happened only too frequently, as often as not for some purely futile reason. Nor was the fault entirely on one side. Moitte was certainly a difficult man, but why accuse him, without the slightest justification, of running after the women of the Palais-Royal like his friend Barttelemy? Why, he wanted to know, was his wife in such a fluster? Why was the room in a mess, with piles of old papers all over the sofa? Why cook the stew on the bedroom fire?
Madame Moitte retaliates by reproaching her husband, in bitter terms, for leaving his overcoat lying on the bed, on the side where she herself would be sleeping. Upon which he retorts, 'My overcoat hasn't got the itch!' A delightful existence, as may be seen.
The most serious of all Mme Moitte's grievances was Monsieur's craze for always imagining he was ill. C I had to get up at six because of one of Moitte's patauderies. He never considers me, and was insufferably insulting about it. His inflammation, which was nothing, has kept him in bed at an awkward time, and now he's got stomach trouble! That makes nineteen days on whey, and he won't touch it now. On top of all that, the piles! He declares I'm the cause of all his troubles!*
A few weeks later he has influenza. 'Moitte coughs a lot. As usual, he behaves under this indisposition with the greatest cowardice IVe ever seen. I've written to M. Portal against my wish, but if he had the whole Faculty to see him te wouldn't be satisfied. I shudder to see him growing old with such bad grace. Is he expecting his youth to start all over again?'