Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Friday, 22 February 1884

Dina's head, begun yesterday, is painted — except for the accents in the eyes.
It seems too good to me — it will probably turn out very bad.
[Blacked out: This idiot] Gavini drove me to fury at luncheon by uttering nonsense about the Meissonier-Mackay affair.
Mme Mackay (the super-rich) goes to Meissonier and commissions her portrait. After some hesitation — it seems — Meissonier says yes, but it will be seventy thousand francs, exactly double what he charged for the portrait of Baron de Guntsbourg (same dimensions) some years ago; but Guntsbourg is far less rich than Mme Mackay. This portrait is exhibited at the Triennial — and found mediocre!
Mme Mackay requests retouches; Meissonier refuses. Mme Mackay threatens to refuse delivery; Meissonier says they will litigate. Mme Mackay, persuaded by some friends, pays, accepts the portrait — and hangs it in her WC.
The newspapers make an uproar, and Le Voltaire asks whether one finds Lamartine manuscripts there.
Mme Mackay destroys the portrait. End.
And all Paris attacks the foreigner.
And here is my opinion.
Mme Mackay lacked delicacy in showing her displeasure to an artist of Meissonier's stature — who had, after all, done everything he could, who is seventy-three years old and has produced masterpieces.
But! M. Meissonier entirely lacked dignity and nobility in forcing this ignorant woman — this bourgeoise (I grant you that) — to pay all the same. He behaved like a tradesman, which [blacked out: led] Mme Mackay to do what she did, without one's crying vandalism.
But Mme Mackay is a foreigner. She will be in the wrong.
Princess Karageorgevitch brings us Alexis, just returned from Vienna, Hungary, etc. He has spent nine months outside Paris, and I believe him to be extremely intimate with Mme Petzold née Soutzo, the Soutzo's sister; she married Petzold, a kind of very rich agent who is delighted to have a princess for a wife. I myself believe that the Slavic, Oriental Alexis accepts Mme Petzold's friendship with all the benefits that Rastignac derived from the Baronne de Nucingen.
Mme Karageorgevitch is delighted, even proud.
I have just had an idea of genius. The only thing that truly upsets my stupid family is seeing me without decent clothes or not eating.
When I do not eat, there is consternation.
I therefore want to try this method. I shall eat only a little soup — "so as not to die of hunger." And I have already worked out with Rosalie a system for smuggling in provisions — for as you can well imagine I have no intention of genuinely fasting. They will make a face!
I laugh at it alone.
And I shall tell them it will be like this [Crossed out: until such time as] as long as [Crossed out: as] we continue not to be introduced to Princess Mathilde at Munkácsy's and so on. But to be introduced one must ask — and they would be greatly honoured to be introduced.

Notes

The Meissonier-Mackay scandal: the celebrated academic painter Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891) painted a portrait of the wealthy American socialite Mrs. Mackay for the enormous sum of 70,000 francs. She found it mediocre, demanded retouches, was refused, and eventually paid — then hung the portrait in her water closet and later had it destroyed. The scandal became a cause célèbre in Paris. ↩
Eugène de Rastignac and the Baronne de Nucingen: characters from Balzac's La Comédie humaine; Rastignac was maintained financially by the wealthy Nucingen. ↩