Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's
statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's
sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound
ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle,
refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six
years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day,
he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night,
and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he
was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame
Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried
to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof
from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses
than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even
that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly,
always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in
his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some
catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie
Arnould made some witty remark on the subject.
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