Searching Paris and Giverny for Claude Monet by Stephanie Cowell Giveaway! Claude and Camille

In honor of the Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table Event, please welcome guest author Stephanie Cowell of the hot new release Claude and Camille.

Japanese bridge

Searching Paris and Giverny for Claude Monet

I went to Paris and Giverny in 2006 with a friend in search of Claude Monet. I wanted to write a novel about him and to walk where he had walked, which is one of the best things a novelist can do.

The first place I went to was the rue de Furstenberg where a small museum is dedicated to the artist Delacroix, one of the greatest painters a generation or two before Claude. Claude and his best friend Frédéric rented a studio in one of the surrounding buildings in 1865, but when I asked the museum attendant if he knew exactly where, he shook his head. Je ne sais pas, madame! I think he really shook his head at my appalling French!

Claude lived and worked where he could in the city and often left quickly because he could not pay his rent. He lived in the Batignolles district and Pigalle, both on the right bank. He took the train from Gare St. Lazare when he went home to Le Havre to ask his father for more money. He took it also to Argenteuil where he lived for a while later. I did not see that house, long part of the Paris suburbs. I did see one of his letters for sale on the rue Napoleon, likely now worth as much as he made in his early years as an artist. And at the Musée Marmottan, I saw the small original of his portrait by a fellow student when Claude was 25; he looks like a gypsy.

Claude at 25

Then of course my friend and I took the train to Giverny which he first rented at the age of forty-three but could not afford to buy until he was fifty. Then he began his upper gardens, conscripting his often unwilling kids and step kids to help him.

You take the train from Paris and then a bus and then you walk down a country road past a church where the artist and his family are buried. As the back of the house faces the road, we did not even notice it but continued on and had to turn back. It was mid-April and we walked at first through the house, which is not large, and then out into the gardens which were in wonderful bloom. I was amazed by the size of them. Far more was to come when we walked down to the water gardens. The lilies were not in bloom yet but it was a soft, lovely day. I kept expecting to see the old artist come out and inquire who all these people were.

I wondered which of the eager young artists painting in the streets of Paris or selling their work from little open shacks in Giverny would be the next Claude Monet. There was unfortunately no time to discover them. We bought calvados from a roadside stand and returned to Paris, with me scribbling notes for the novel on a pad in my illegible handwriting, much inspired.

Thank you Stephanie and .... 

Now the giveaway! Rules
Giveaway ends 4.18.2010 at midnight. 

    * For 1 entry leave me a comment with a way to contact you.
    * For 2 entries follow my blog. If you already do, thanks, and please let me know in the comments. You're eligible for the extra entry as well.
    * For 3 entries blog or tweet this giveaway to spread the word.

Sorry Us and Canada Only

Good Luck all and be sure and check out the HFBRT site for other cool Claude and Camille posts and giveaways on member sites.  

April 11 – Lucy’s Book Review at Enchanted By Josephine, Author Guest Post at Historically Obsessed, “Frederic Bazille – Medical Student by Day, Impressionist Painter by Night” at The Maiden’s Court.