Chapter 19 I The Anarchists on the Montmartre Hill (2) The Mona Lisa was stolen

... A Republican guard followed him, Apollinaire in handcuffs.We deeply regret such a harsh control system in prisons. Le Paris, Wednesday, September 3, 1911 The Picassoes moved. The moving company shipped the last of their furniture from the "laundry boat" to their new home on Cressy Street, never to return.For the couple, this was an important turning point in their fate.What miracle enabled them to leave a squalid, quaint log cabin and live in a house that only a bourgeoisie could live in?On one side of the house there are workshops facing the Sacre Coeur, on the other side the living area: a living room, a bedroom, a dining room.Great view, quiet and very comfortable.

It was a dream. Everything has changed, the original furniture has been pieced together, and now a whole new set of mahogany materials in classic style, Italian processing technology; oak cupboards, sofas from the Louis Philippe era, pianos... The bedroom is truly beautiful. bedroom, the bed is a real bed with a copper headboard.Crystal and ceramic items are everywhere.And even better: Mrs. Picasso entered the bedroom and began to write to Gertrude Stein, asking her to let her cook find a "maid" for them: food, accommodation, 40 francs a month . After finding this rare bird, Mrs. Picasso gave her a bedroom with a round table, a brown wardrobe and the best daily furniture in the "laundry boat"...

Young people like this kind of life, but this is not the life of an artist.The hostess required the maids to wear beautiful aprons when they served the table, and to clean all the rooms every day, except the husband's workshop.In Mr.'s studio, there are canvases, brushes, paints and easels everywhere, black African art masks, statues, musical instruments and patchwork furniture, not to mention various collections: blue knick-knacks, mugs , bottles, recycled rug heads, boxes, old picture frames...why the monkey, the dog and three cats? Mr. Strictly forbids to move anything in his house, especially the dust there, because when the dust falls there, it will not move; but when you dust it with a duster, the dust that is dusted falls on his On oil painting, that would be dangerous.In order to avoid disputes, people simply don't go in.This prohibition must be absolutely enforced. The sanitation of this room is only cleaned once a quarter.The cleaning of other parts of the house can only be started after the husband and wife wake up, that is, most of the time, it must be late in the morning.The maid had to use the spare time to iron their clothes.To the hostess' dissatisfaction, the maid didn't care enough to serve her master.

According to Fernand, after moving to his new home, Picasso became irritable and easily lost his temper.He hides in the studio that has been completely restored to its original state on the "laundry boat" all day long, and rarely goes out.He also became very particular about his diet, establishing a fixed diet system, eating only foods that are good for the body, such as fish, vegetables and fruits, drinking more water and less alcohol.His mood is depressed day by day, depressed, and he hesitates and evasively speaks.Why?Was it because he was only in contact with former acquaintances?Franck Havilang, a potter specializing in Limoges ceramics, was both an amateur of black African art and a painter.One day he invited the great painter Picasso to his studio in the Rue d'Orleans.The well-known costumer Paul Puvale also invited him, and his scene and style were very luxurious.Although Paul hadn't reached the top of the fashion industry at the time, he will always have this day.Thanks to him and the beautiful dresses he made, women in Paris stopped wearing corsets.Paul Poiret loves art and artists.One day, he came to Picasso's studio on the Avenue de Crissy and admired everything there.He felt that all the paintings displayed there were unique, flowery, dazzling and beautiful.

For Picasso, who preferred fat calves to lean old ones, these invitations and associations may have satisfied him.But everything that is too much will make him angry and angry.Only on Sunday, the day when he reunited with his friends Salmon, Apollinaire and Max Jacobs, can he be in a good mood.Or he was also happy when he saw his old friend Manoru who had migrated to Celet again. Celette is a small Catalan village in the Eastern Pyrenees.Picasso visited Cellettes for the first time in the summer of 1911, as he had done in Gossoles a few years earlier.Picasso found himself again in the orchards, countryside and old houses there.

When he first went there, he lived in a hotel, and later rented a lonely house in the mountains.Braque came here from the south of Paris, and then Fernand also came.Every night, Picasso stayed with them, which was less deserted.For a period of time, Picasso and Fernand regained a little harmony between the original husband and wife.Picasso was engaged in painting and creation every day, just like when he was in Gossole.If he persists in this way, his painting skills will definitely have new developments when he returns to Paris.However, their comfortable life here is interrupted by a sudden and totally unexpected event.

In 1906, Picasso left Gorsol in a hurry because of a typhoid epidemic, and in 1911 he left Celette because of an article with a catchy headline on the front page of the Paris newspaper: "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre The palace was stolen. On August 29, a man named Geri-Pierrit admitted in the same newspaper that he had stolen three statuettes from the Louvre Museum.Picasso and Fernand packed their bags in a hurry and hurried back to Paris.The situation was serious. Picasso was familiar with this Geri-Pierrit, even too familiar.This is a Belgian adventurer, a friend of Apollinaire, and also his secretary.The poet Apollinaire met him when he was a reporter for the Renter's Guide and introduced him to Picasso. In March 1907, Picasso bought from him two ancient Iberian heads carved in stone from the Louvre for 50 francs.At that time, the Louvre Museum was like a colander. If you take it, he will take it too, and no one manages it.Much of the art treasures there have been lost.Francis Calco said: Laurent Dorgelais placed a bust of one of his sculptor friends in the ancient art gallery of the museum for weeks without anyone finding it.One day, Picasso himself said to Marie Lorenson on a whim: "I'm going to the Louvre, do you want me to bring you something back?"

Things may not be as simple as Bryce Sandras portrayed, because he has always had problems with exaggeration, out of nothing and wanton fabrication.He said: Belgian adventurer Gerly Pierret is an optimist who always speaks and does things as he pleases.One day, he made a bet with others: If he steals a treasure from the Louvre Museum, he will win a bottle of champagne.His method is to hide the treasures in his coat, shake hands with the guards at the exit, and he can pass smoothly.So Gerly-Pierrit often went to the museum. But in any case, it is absolutely true that the scheming Gerly-Pierrit gave Picasso two heads.After the "Mona Lisa" was lost, he sold a head to "Paris" for 150 francs (this is naturally not comparable to the price of 50,000 francs proposed to recover the "Mona Lisa").The newspaper displayed the head with great fanfare before returning it to the museum, giving the newspaper a free and successful advertising campaign.It seems obvious that the poet Apollinaire's former secretary also admitted that he stole the "Mona Lisa". Le Parisien published an incendiary opinion piece, slamming the huge loopholes in the management of museum entrances and exits. On August 24, Apollinaire also published an article.The beginning of the article said: "The Mona Lisa is so beautiful that the pursuit of a more perfect expression has become an endless topic in the art world." At the end of the article, he criticized the protection work of the Louvre and said: "The Louvre The palace doorman is worse than a museum in Spain."

His comment once again proved how naive Apollinaire is, because it is entirely possible that the judicial department believed that he was also involved in this theft, and now he jumped out of it himself.In a way, he was an intermediary between the Belgian adventurer Gerly-Pierrit and his painter friend Picasso. In 1907, Apollinaire did try to persuade Picasso to return the statue.Picasso refused, on the grounds that he had already damaged both heads in search of the mysteries of ancient art and barbaric art.These two ancient Iberian heads are undoubtedly one of the foundations for Picasso's research on primitivism, and in the process of creating "The Girl of Avignon", he did partially adopt the creation techniques of these two heads (right The round mouths of the women, the big ears of three of them, the asymmetry of the whole picture...).

Picasso and Fernand hurried back to Paris from Celette, because since the "Paris" has handed over the third head hidden by Geri-Pierrit, the police of the Louvre will definitely be in Paris. With the assistance of the police station, an investigation into the whereabouts of the other two portraits began.And these two portraits are in his hands. Apollinaire was also very aware that he was in danger, so he went to the train station to pick up his friend in person.The three went to Picasso's house on the Avenue de Crissy together.The first question before them is: How to get rid of the stolen items?

The poet Apollinaire fell into a desperate situation. He blamed himself for his carelessness and cursed his friend's unethical behavior.Picasso was not in a much better mood than his companion.Fernand Olivier was calmer than them who were dejected. At this moment, she was acting colder than the two men, thinking that they were like "frightened children with regret and embarrassment on their faces". In such grave jeopardy, the two artists almost forgot another, all-important handicap: they were foreigners.Thinking of this, they suddenly feared being deported. At night, they did not take a step off the Crescent Street and had to find a solution to the problem.They imagined a thousand or ten thousand ways, but none of them worked.In the end, Fernand thought of the least dangerous way: throwing the head into the Seine. Just do it.Mrs. Picasso found a large suitcase, put the two statues in it, and then pushed the two artists carrying the suitcases out the door.Bryce Sandras, who was extremely imaginative, later described it vividly: They clinging to the base of the wall, their eyes watching the movement around them, bent over under the weight of the heavy boxes, and rushed forward in a hurry.An unusual sound came out from nowhere, scaring the two artists' hearts to pounding, and they hid under a bridge hole.After listening for a while, there was no movement, and they continued to walk towards the Seine River one after the other.The one in front pays attention to the movement in front, and the one in the back closely watches the situation behind.A black figure suddenly appeared in front of them, and the two of them turned around in fright and ran back along the way they came from.At 2:30 in the morning, when Fernand opened the door for them, he saw that the two were pale, sweating, out of breath, and still carrying the suitcase in their hands. "Is it empty?" "No." Picasso whispered. They went through the door and were again helpless.In the end, they decided to adopt the method that Geri-Pierrit had already used: send the ancient Iberian head to the newspaper "Paris", and asked that only a few people be allowed: the president of the newspaper, Chisette, and the same at the newspaper Andre Salmon, who works, knows about it. Apollinaire lay on the couch in the living room until dawn.Just after dawn, he picked up his suitcase and went to carry out the plan he had made.According to Albert Glaize, Picasso accompanied him to the newspaper office.The two detoured from the outside Linyin Avenue to Gare de l'Est, deposited the suitcase in the luggage storage, and waited patiently for the working hours of the Paris newspaper office.On the third day, the Louvre received the two portraits through the intermediary Le Parisien newspaper. Ah, Picasso and Apollinaire can finally breathe a sigh of relief. However, things are far from over. On the morning of September 7, during the milk delivery time, someone knocked on Apollinaire's door. It's a few policemen. This was followed by a rummage search of his residence. Apollinaire was arrested. The poet Apollinaire was taken to Quai des Offevres, the seat of the French Judicial Police. , charged with harboring villains and assisting in theft, and taken directly to Prison de la Sante in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. "I feel like I'm going to be cut off from the rest of the world and die here." He gets no respect for his personality.The jailer issued him a shirt, a towel, bed sheet and quilt.Take him through the blue passage to Cell 15 in Block 11.The door was closed and the latch was barred. Before entering the cell, I was forced to strip naked. What miserable voice is crying? Apollinaire, what have you become? He was confused and his mind went blank.On one leg of the bed he discovered the identity of the man who had occupied the unfortunate bed before his arrival: Didi de Mesnilmontant, the murderer. He waited and waited. How slowly time flies! I seem to have been buried! Picasso's house on Crissy Street was quiet, and he didn't dare to make it public.A day passed and nothing happened.He felt hopeful.However, early the next morning, there was an urgent knock on the doorbell.A judicial policeman in plain clothes showed his ID.He asked Pablo Picasso to accompany him to the Paris police station. The painter went back to the bedroom and took off his pajamas. "Picasso was shivering and dressed quickly, but he was so dazed with fear that I finally helped him get dressed." [Excerpt from Fernand Olivier's "Picasso and His Friends", published in 1952 "] This was understandable: he was Spanish, and the French police suspected him of anarchist sympathies.The dangers that await him: arrest at worst, deportation at best... Fernand Olivier watched him in Cerbere, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell in mythology.Accompanied by her, she left her on the Linyin Avenue in front of her.They boarded the bus at Picard al-O-Vance station.Picasso swore to the gendarmes escorting him that he had nothing to do with it, and he had no idea what was going on.But the gendarme said there was nothing he could do about it, it was not his remit. In the examining magistrate's office, the judge heard him as a witness.It was of no use that he repeated over and over that he knew nothing about the matter.The judge has intelligence in his hands. "what?" "A poet said he was your friend." "But I don't know the poet." Picasso stammered to answer.The judge stated the poet's confession in detail: he said Picasso's name before he named Geri-Pierrit. Leigh-Pierrit personally went to the home of the painter Picasso and sold him two heads. "But I don't know anything about these." Picasso replied, but his tone already showed his guilt. "He also said that you don't know the origin of the treasure..." "..." "We have a witness." The witnesses they say are being held in Justice Department cells.Four hours earlier, he had been pulled out of his cell, handcuffed, and taken to an adjoining room in the judge's office.He had been waiting for four hours with his hands on the bars.The judge opened the door and the witnesses entered.He was pale, sunken, frightened, red-eyed, unshaven in two days, with a tie on one side and a loose false collar.He sat down on the chair pointed to him.Picasso glanced at him, and immediately looked away, staring at the opposite wall. "Do you know this gentleman?" asked the judge. "I don't know." Pablo Picasso replied solemnly. Guillaume Apollinaire hiccupped on the chair. "I don't know. I have never seen this gentleman." Picasso repeated. However, after a while, he began to stutter and overturn his confession just now, and Apollinaire was completely confused and couldn't say a word. The judge, who was as stable as Mount Tai behind the desk, stared at these poor lambs in his hands with his fiery eyes. They were so frightened that they were at a loss as if the sky was about to fall and send them to the eighteenth level of hell.He decided to send one home and the other to prison. On the same day, Geri-Pierrit wrote to the Ministry of Justice in the name of Inias Ormesan (the pen name Apollinaire used in the poem), proving that Apollinaire who was imprisoned was innocent. crime. During this period, Paris was in turmoil.Friends of Apollinaire, led by André Salmon, René Dalize, André Dudesc and André Billy, hold a left hand petition calling for the release of the poet Apollinaire book (Franz Jourdin, president of the Autumn Art Fair, refused to sign the petition), held aloft a racist newspaper in his right hand, followed by Leon Daudet (1867-1942), French writer, journalist, political Home, in 1908 co-founded the "French Action" newspaper with Charles Moras.and the torch held by Urban Goyer shouted: That vile secretary is a Belgian, a London robber, When you get to know the gang, they're just foreigners, gringos. [Excerpt from "Works" magazine, September 1911] Those gringos behind bars are exhausted: Every morning we walk like bears in prison, We spin, spin, spin all day long, The sky is as blue as the ocean, Every morning, we walk like bears in prison. ... Fortunately, this situation did not last long. On September 12, Guillaume Apollinaire was released, however, the case was not closed.Under the introduction of the middleman Glaise, the poet called on the acting inspector general Granier.The words of the acting inspector general did not completely reassure Apollinaire. He said that he protected a person who stole state property and harbored precious cultural relics from the National Museum. "What is the punishment for such a crime?" "Go to misdemeanor court." "anything else?" "Sentencing." The poet is desperate. "The ideal way is to go to felony court..." "Excuse me, what did you say? I didn't understand." "You can't deny your crime. In misdemeanor court, the judge enforces the law and there's no courtroom debate. In felony court, you can explain..." Apollinaire didn't want to explain anything at all. "Is there no other way?" "Yes. No prosecution." "Is it possible for me not to be sued?" "Let's see..." Apollinaire was lucky, he won the non-prosecution. In January 1912, doubts about him were completely lifted.However, this disastrous event left him with some after-effects.Even if he didn't say it, there was always a question in his heart: he was Picasso's friend, but the other party didn't recognize him, why didn't he feel pain for the other party's betrayal? Didn't one of his best friends deny knowing him during a confrontation?Whenever he talks about this matter, he always has infinite bitterness in his heart, unable to hide his ambivalence of excitement and helplessness. [Excerpt from "Apollinaire, Justice and I" by Albert Glaize, published in 1946] Glaize, who had always hoped to be recognized as the founder of Cubism, hated Picasso very much, so he was very happy for Apollinaire's helplessness. The painter Picasso was sometimes treated coldly by the friends of the poet Apollinaire.While Picasso was being neglected, he also experienced the growing fear that accompanied it: for a period of time, he refused to take a bus at the Picard-al-O-Vance station; , looking back from time to time, worried about being followed; when the doorbell rang at his house on Clichy Street, he was on tenterhooks. Fifty years later, Picasso admitted to a reporter from Le Parisien newspaper who asked him questions about the theft of the Mona Lisa that he had indeed been ashamed of the attitude he had taken in the matter.This is completely understandable.Because Apollinaire made countless sacrifices to maintain Picasso's reputation and resist the public's attacks on Picasso, he never promoted himself on any occasion, and never boasted of the relationship between the two of them in his works.André Billy was a witness and an indirect participant in that unfortunate event.In his preface to Guillaume Apollinaire's book, he did not attack Picasso by name, he only talked about certain painters... The lost Mona Lisa was found in 1913.It turned out that it was stolen by an Italian who was working in the Louvre at the time, and he wanted to return the work to his home country.This is the end of the matter. For others, this may be the case; but for Apollinaire, this is not the case. A year later, World War I broke out.The poet Apollinaire immediately joined the battle.All his friends thought there was something vindictive in his so willingly defending a country that was not his own.Apollinaire seems to have to use the color of the tricolor flag to wash away the shame that the shackles left him. This is the only way to make him completely forget the smiling Mona Lisa that brought him disaster.