| A stone's throw from Paris, facing the Isle of Beauty, facing the plant draperies woven on a blue horizon, artists, on the threshold of old age, continue to work happily, assured of living and food. It was in 1944 that Ms. Champion and her sister bequeathed the Nogent-sur-Marne estate to the State. (....)
Designed for new uses by our architectural services, these eighteenth-century buildings now house around fifteen painters and sculptors, some with their companions and their furniture, others alone or with only their memories . Three thousand francs monthly pension is all that is asked of them. (....)
Here then, it is permissible for old wrestlers, who lacked the gift of exploiting themselves, or who were badly served by chance, or who would have deserved more genius, to give the word retirement a happy meaning. (....) It was at Nogent that the good Girieud, faithful to his chickish visions, ended his days without feeling abandoned by glory, (....) |