Louis Émile Benassit (20 December 1833 – 9 August 1902) was a French artist and raconteur. He cut a colorful figure in the literary and artistic circles of Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, known equally for his satirical drawings and for his barbed wit. His updated versions of the fables of La Fontaine were widely reported in the French press. After his own military service in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he frequently depicted soldiers, often enduring snow or inclement weather. Eventually, thanks in part to the influential art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, his work began to fetch high prices; Benassit's depictions of courtiers and ladies of the 1700s became especially popular. But beginning in 1882, a progressive paralysis that started in his right arm cut short both his career and his appearances in café society, though by at least one account he learned to paint using his left hand. The last twelve years of his life were spent in relative seclusion away from Paris.
Education, early career, café society in Paris Benassit was born in Bordeaux to a French father and English mother, was taken at a young age to London, and returned to France to study painting in Paris under François-Édouard Picot. He made his debut at the Paris Salon of 1859 with a painting entitled Clair de Lune. From 1859 to 1888, he would exhibit thirteen works at the annual Salons.
In the 1860s, having spent his inheritance, Benassit turned to the publishing world to make ends meetXau, Fernand (1884): "Lorsqu'il eut dévoré son patrimoine, il fit de l'illustration—pour vivre." and became a prolific caricaturist and illustrator for periodicals and books. He provided illustrations for Paul Arène's Jean-des-Figues, Alphonse Daudet's Tartarin,Daudet, Alphonse (1896), p. 157: "The story of Tartarin was not written till long after my journey in Algeria. The journey took place in 1861-62, the book was written in 1869. I began to publish it in parts, in the Petit Moniteur Universel, illustrated with amusing sketches by Emile Benassit. It was an absolute failure." The novel would become a classic. Alfred Delvau's Du pont des Arts au pont de Kehl, 's Propos littéraires et pittoresques de Jean de La Martrille, Louis Figuier's Vies des savants illustres du dix-septieme siècle, Félix Hément's Menu Propos sur les Sciences and La Toilette d'Alice, and Charles Monselet's Les créanciers: oeuvre de vengeance.
Jules-Antoine Castagnary gave high praise to Benassit's 25 illustrations (one for each hour of the day, plus a frontispiece) for Alfred Delvau's Les heures parisiennes, saying the artist, a "Parisian (not by birth, but by temperament and mentality)" displayed "all the finesse and all the crumpled grace that can be possessed by a pretty pencil-line subject to an expeditious hand. Fantasy and observation mingle in Bénassit's work, with that sort of shadowy elegance that adapts so well to the depiction of our diverse demi-mondes. No one knows better than he how to raise a skirt around two little trotting feet, nor to maliciously roll up a nose in the middle of a beggar's face. What charming pages to flip through!"Castagnary, Jules-Antoine (1866): "Encore un gentil Parisien, celui-là (non de race, mais de tempérament et d'idée), et qui a apporté à l'interprétation de l'œuvre toute la finesse et toute la grâce chiffonnée que peut posséder un joli brin de crayon assujetti à une main expéditive. La fantaisie et l'observation se mêlent, chez M. Emile Bénassit, à cette sorte d'élégance interlope qui s'adapte si bien à la peinture de nos divers demi-mondes. Nul mieut que lui ne sait relever une jupe à l'entour de deux petits pieds trottant, ni retrouser malignement un nez au beau milieu d'une figure de gueuse. Aussi que de charmantes pages à feuilleter!" Before it was published, censors tried (and failed) to ban the book.The censorship battle is recounted in Lemer, Julien (1872).
Benassit produced several original watercolors for an extra-illustrated edition of Aloysius Bertrand's prose-poem collection Gaspard de la Nuit, published by Pincebourde in 1868, now in the collection of the Bibliothèque patrimoniale et d'étude de Dijon.
Benassit also produced a number of notable lithographs, including (for the first issue of Carjat's Le Boulevard in 1861Fallaize, Elizabeth (1987), pp. 84-86.) Maître Courbet inaugurant l'atelier des peintres modernes, and also the allegorical series Le Vin, L'Eau-de-Vie, and L'Absinthe!, "which Baudelaire and Murger declared pure masterpieces."Xau, Fernand (1884).
During this period Benassit moved in the Left Bank literary circles that included Paul Arène, Hippolyte Babou, , Léon Cladel, Alphonse Daudet, Alfred Delvau, Georges Duval, , , Louis Lemercier de Neuville, Charles Monselet, Henri Murger, and Aurélien Scholl. Benassit induced the circle of photographer and poet Étienne Carjat to join his group at the Café de Madrid;Calmettes, Fernand (1902), p .129 and "according to legend, he sometimes met at the café in the Rue des Martyrs with Baudelaire."Arène (1885): "d'après une légende, il se rencontrait quelquefois rue des Martyrs, au café, avec Baudelaire."
Paul Arène vividly described the young Benassit and his ability to amuse and enthrall listeners: Small but strong, stocky and broad of face, high-spirited and strong-willed, with a pile of curly hair that gave him a Byronic air—when Bénassit entered, invariably followed by Sprinn, his faithful terrier, we gathered. And there were endless stories, anecdotes delivered by the basketful: his student days boarding with Pils, and the beautiful and abominable studio pranks his fellows played on him; and, from further back, the strange childhood of a little Frenchman brought up in London: the icy courtyard of his college, where gallophobic school children encircled him, leaping and shouting "Waterloo! Waterloo!"—and the little French boy, his national pride wounded, but not strong enough for revenge, going slyly every day for months to a hovel on the banks of the Thames, learning to box at the house of a boxer's widow, a toothless old witch, tall and stringy, who knelt to be at his height and pummeled his chest with clenched fists as yellow and hard as boxwood roots.Arène (1885): "Petit mais fort, carré dans sa taille, la figure pleine, spirituelle et volontaire sous un tas de cheveux bouclés qui lui faisaient un toupet à la Byron, quand Bénassit entrait, invariablement suivi de Sprinn, son terrier fidèle, on se groupait. Et c'étaient des histoires à n'en plus finir, des anecdotes vidées par corbeilles: son arrivée chez Pils; les belles et abominables farces d'atelier que lui avaient jouées lesrapins ses frères; et, prise de plus loin, une enfance étrange de petit Français, élevé à Londres; le préau glacial du collège, des rondes d'écoliers gallophobes dansant et hurlant 'Waterloo! Waterloo!' autour du petit Français qu'on houspille; et lui, blessé dans son orgueil national, mais pas assez fort pour la revanche, allant sournoisement tous les jours, pendant des mois, au fond d'un bouge des quais de la Tamise, apprendre à boxer chez la veuve d'un boxeur, vieille sorcière édentée, maigre et longue, qui se mettait à genoux pour être à la taille du gamin et lui bourrait la poitrine de ses poings fermés, jaunes et durs comme des racines de bois."
Étienne Carjat gives another description in his poem "Émile Benassit," dated 1869:
Short in stature, a bit stocky, Square forehead, bushy hair, The half-closed eye of a well-sated cat, Wide chin and mouth that laughs... His incisive and cold mind suavely sharpens sarcasm... In the madcap supper-hour, He shows a strange tenderness... He becomes almost benevolent; We listen, admire, love him Until morning, when waking, He thinks only of himself.Carjat, Étienne (1883): De courte taille, un peu trapu, Front carré, cheveux en broussaille, L'oeil mi-clos d'un chat bien repu, Menton large et bouche qui raille... Son esprit incisif et froid Avec flegme aiguise un sarcasme... Aux heures folles du souper, Il a des tendresses bizarres... Il devient presque bienveillant; On l'écoute; on l'admire; on l'aime Jusqu'au matin, où s'éveillant, Il ne songe plus qu'à lui-même.
The journalist Maxime Rude remembered the young Benassit as ...short, stocky and already quite plump. The brown eyes were lively and sharp; the forehead, which lighted up at times, betrayed an irascible nature; the smile sparkled with mischief; the lips, which twisted a bit at one corner when he spoke, were charged with irony or bitterness. And some of Bénassit's words did in fact spring from bitterness or irony; others were quite cheerful, delivering what studio slang calls "la blague" (a joke)...Rude, Maxime (1877), pp. 269-270: "Il était court, trapu et déjà assez rondelet. L' œil brun avait de la vivacité et de l' acuité; le front, qui s' allumait, par instants, trahissait une nature irascible; le sourire pétillait de malice; la lèvre, qui grimaçait un peu, dans un de ses coins, quand il parlait, était chargée d' ironie ou d'amertume. Et Bénassit avait, en effet, des mots qui jaillissaient de l'amertume ou de l' ronie; d'autres assez gais, dans ce que le monde d' atelier appelle «la blague»…"
Spoofs and caricatures Benassit became a master of the caricature—and was himself the object of spoofing and caricature in the freewheeling French press.
The fables of Benassit Benassit achieved particular notoriety for his retellings of the fables of La Fontaine, with sly topical references, word-play, and Gallic wit that defy translation. Though friends begged him to do so, Benassit never made a book of his fables, and so, quipped Paul Arène, like "the songs of the Homerides, they are passed on from mouth to mouth through the generations."Arène, Paul (1885). Benassit's fables were recounted by numerous journalists, memoirists, and obituary writers.For example: Noriac, Jules (1873); Lemercier de Neuville, Louis (1911); Duval, Georges (1913), p. 162.; Parisis (1884); Sergines (1902). Arène cited Benassit's version of the dog that let go of its prey:A dog steals a steak. Passing over a bridge, he sees his reflection in the water: “What! Another dog with another steak! And his steak is bigger than mine! What if I take it from him? Ah, but this dog is also bigger than me. Let's eat our steak first; then we'll fight." The dog goes away to eat his steak, comes back, sees his image again in the water and cries: "Amazing! The other dog had the same idea as me!"
The puppeteer Louis Lemercier de Neuville, who recounts a number of these fables in his memoirs, recalls them as "the joy of the ateliers and the artistic and literary meetings. His way of telling them contributed greatly to their success; he said the funniest things, imparted with utmost seriousness, in a half-English, half-Gascon accent that doubled their hilarity."Lemercier de Neuville, Louis (1911), p. 133. Georges Duval writes of Benassit's English sense of humor.Duval, Georges (1913), p. 161: "…son humour anglaise…"
Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 In 1870, when the enemy laid siege to Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, Benassit put on uniform and served, along with many other writers and artists, in the 61st Battalion of the National Guard, based in Montmartre.Delalain and de Targes (1871), p, 218. Even under such circumstances, Benassit's prankish nature was irrepressible. His friend the writer Charles Monselet later admitted to having been a less than exemplary soldier, often missing the morning roll call. When Monselet's name was called out, and silence followed, Benassit would step forward, present his arms, and gravely intone: "Mort au champ d'honneur!" ("Death on the field of honor!") When Monselet later told this story on lecture tour, it never failed to get a laugh from the audience."Revue de la Presse," La Presse, 22 April 1882, p. 3.