Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Tuesday, 12 February 1884

The painting.
The Marshal came to see his daughter's work and was left a little astonished but delighted. Between half past four and five I paint almost the entire bodice of Villevieille's flower-seller. It is I who set the pose, etc., etc. In any case —
In any case... After my death, these ladies will do as the collaborators (?!!!) of Alexandre Dumas père. Each will say: it was I who gave her the idea for this! It was I who helped her carry that out!
Go right ahead, my friends. So I am generous... for Villevieille can be of no use to me whatsoever...
In any case.
I cannot model because I gave myself a bad blow on the thumb three days ago.
And it hurts horribly, the first hour above all — but I am Spartan: I put the finger in arnica and with my left hand accompanied myself on the organ to sing Hérodiade. Apropos of Hérodiade — it is very beautiful, but everything melodic is very familiar. He has pillaged two bars here, a phrase there, a page-ending somewhere else.
To a degree... But no one is spared — La Fille de Mme Angot, Offenbach, Aida, Wagner, and even familiar romances, the sonnet of Duprato.
A superb orchestration and a few rhythmic changes, then filler. It is all the same very beautiful — but it is not honest. You think I invent; study the score. Others, for that matter, have been struck as I was.
What is clever is to pillage Offenbach etc. — there are ravishing tunes there, and serious people will never believe that the learned Massenet of the Institut... In any case.

Notes

Alexandre Dumas père (1802–1870) was notorious for employing a workshop of ghost-writers, most famously Auguste Maquet, for his prolific output. ↩
Allusion to the Spartan boy who stoically concealed a stolen fox beneath his cloak rather than cry out in pain. ↩
La Fille de Mme Angot: wildly popular 1872 operetta by Charles Lecocq. ↩
Massenet was elected to the Institut de France (Académie des Beaux-Arts) in 1878, giving him the prestige of official recognition. ↩