CHAPTER VII
A Great Artist and a Great Hero
Before the days of the Great War, there lived in Breton, France, an artist whose beautiful pictures had caused people to think of him as one of the greatest of French painters. His name was Jean Lemoidant, and he loved to paint pictures of the quaint villages of Brittany where lived the simpleminded fisher-folk who braved the dangers of the deep. Jean Lemoidant’s first pictures were of fishermen mending their nets; of little children romping in the sand; of peasants wending their way to the churches they so loved; of anxious women waiting for the return of the fishing boats, and sometimes of angry seas that in their fury hurled themselves against the rocks. Jean Lemoidant loved the simple people among whom he lived, and they in turn gazed in wonder at his paintings and told each other that some day there would be a great artist in France and his name would be Jean Lemoidant.
Then the artist was given a task which occupied him every day for two whole years. In an old village hotel there were fine large panels on the wall, and he was asked to paint a suitable design for the entire wall, which was sixty feet long, thirty feet wide, and fifteen feet high. So exquisite was the design that Jean Lemoidant conceived that when it was completed admiring crowds came great distances to see it and the fame of the artist spread to Paris. He was given the contract to paint the interior of the magnificent municipal theatre at Rennes. He had almost completed this important task when the Great War broke out, and although he was thirty-seven years of age and could have remained in the Home Defence Corps, he enlisted in one of the regiments soon to go to the front, and before the war was many weeks old he was in the trenches facing the Germans.
Jean Lemoidant proved himself as capable a soldier as he had been a painter, and led his men in many daring engagements, where his courage was put to the test. He was badly wounded at Charleroi, and in spite of advice he refused to go to the hospital at the base. Later he was wounded at the Marne, and a third time at Artois. At Artois his right arm was rendered useless; he was wounded in the leg, and his knee was smashed, and the joint was made stiff so that he walked in a halting fashion.
In spite of these gruelling experiences he still refused to leave the firing line and insisted on staying with his men and joining them in the attack before Arras. In that attack he was struck by a bullet. Afterwards he said that it seemed at the time as if his head had been completely smashed. For forty-eight hours he lay unconscious, and when he came to himself he lay among the dead and the dying, scarcely able to move. He heard around him the groans of dying men. Even then his great courage showed itself, for when he saw a Breton lad dying he crawled to him and comforted him in his last moments.
When, at last, Jean Lemoidant was found, along with others he was taken to a German hospital and placed among the serious cases. Then the darkness came—that terrible darkness which put an end to his fondest hopes. At first he did not know what was the matter with him. Anxiously he asked the nurses: “Why does the night last so long? It seems as if the morning will never come.” When the news was told him that he was blind, he was staggered. “I had thought of death,” he said, “and even thought I might be maimed for life, but I never thought of having to live in the dark all my days.”
Then he showed that supreme courage which caused even the brutal Germans to wonder and admire. He moved among his fellow prisoners and partly to while away the time and partly in order to help them, he began to give lectures on painting. Then a great hope came to him. His eyes were put back into their place and he began to see a little—not much more than a glimmer at first—but enough to make him radiant with hope. Each day he told himself that his eyesight was just a little better than the day before, then one day a terrible thing happened and his hopes were dashed to the ground.
He was in the midst of a lecture when something seemed to snap, and instantly every ray of light vanished. Then he knew that he was blind. It was a terrible disappointment, but he did not stop speaking. He continued his lecture. Those who were listening were aware that something had happened although they did not know what it was. At the close of the lecture they rushed forward, only to make the discovery that Jean Lemoidant’s hopes were vain—he was totally blind.
Blind, lame, and with all his hopes of ever being a great artist now completely gone, Jean Lemoidant faced the world again. When at the conclusion of the war he turned his face towards his beloved France he began to hope once more. He thought that the instant the train passed on to French soil there might be a miracle and his sight would be restored. He became greatly excited and asked the nurses not to forget to tell him the instant that the border was passed. In one sense there was no miracle when at last Jean Lemoidant entered France, but in another way there was a miracle, for the courage and cheerfulness of this brave man became almost more than human. No sooner did he get settled down in his beloved France than he began to lecture on the art he so much loved, that of painting. Soon he had large classes of appreciative students to whom he lectured daily on the subject, and the amazing knowledge and cheerfulness of this maimed and blinded soldier aroused his hearers to reverence and enthusiasm. As they gazed into his pale face with the sightless eyes, their hearts were strangely moved.
An English traveller tells of a visit he paid to Brittany after the war, and of a quaint village festival he attended. Hundreds of peasants moved around the village green clad in their spotless holiday attire. Among the laughing maidens and jovial men he saw one man who seemed to radiate sunshine wherever he went. Then he discovered that this prince of fun-makers was the blinded artist—Jean Lemoidant.
For several years now he has been lecturing on art, and in 1919 he visited the United States of America in order to have conferred upon him a very great distinction, the Howland Prize. This prize is only conferred upon such as have displayed extraordinary skill in some branch of science. The condition reads that it can only be conferred on “The citizen of any country in recognition of some achievement of marked distinction in the field of literature, fine arts, or the science of government.”
In years to come no doubt the Howland Prize will be conferred upon many great men; deservedly distinguished for their great gifts as authors, musicians, statesmen or soldiers, but one would feel safe in saying that it is improbable that the great honour will ever be conferred upon any braver man than Jean Lemoidant, who, although maimed and blinded, just when he seemed to be nearing the goal of his ambition, faced the world with a smile upon his lips and a song of hope and cheer in his brave heart.