Excerpt from Robert Pinnacle's Journals -
"... fell in with a dis-pirited Grady, a fine painter of exquisite rural scenes, bemoaning his lack of success, rueing the day he ever left England. Anything to cheer the poor fellow, I thought, and took him to the gaming hall with me though it did mean 'lending' him some more money and furnishing his excessive capacity for drink....
...the evening ended unpleasantly. On return to his miserable lodgings he became most objectionable, berating me for my country, my religion and for what he referred to as my 'sly,obsequious, creeping' manner. I, who had tried to be kind! My art was 'just a drivelling drooling of society's pet puppy, a thickhead who could only play roulette'. I could bear his insults no longer and gave him some sound advice - if he could refrain from being a provincial, intolerant zealot and a shambling drunken sot he might see that there were many fine persons whose acquaintance he could make via my introduction if I chose, if only he were not such a leaden weight in company. Moreover how would he sell his paintings which were all so unremittingly green, he without the christian decency to relieve them even with a dash of scarlet here or there? Besides I played roulette to leave free my faculties for conversing with and acquainting myself with the respected personages also gathered at the tables. Only this evening I had been given a letter of introduction to take to an estate in Kent.
With his bellows of "Open the bugger" echoing in my ears I left. Of course I did not debase myself by peeping into the letter. Besides I did not see how I could break the seal undetected, which I could see on close examination was grandly marked with a dagger and a lion rampant. .....
...my last evening the ale must have been putrid as I woke the morning of my journey home sick as the devil could make me swearing never to go carousing again. My friend Grady came to bid farewell, helped to get me on my feet and into the carriage, begging me to take one of his canvases to London where he was sure I could secure a purchase... the wretched thing, even rolled, was enormous but he thrust it onto the roof himself and I had not the strength or resolve to counter his insistence...
The terrible jolting of the carriage had a violent effect upon me causing me to call the coachman to halt often so that I could vomit by the wayside. He became very rude, cursing me, insisting that I travel on top of the vehicle wedged between the baggages, giving the other passengers some peace and enabling him to get the coach through the Forêt de Maraîgne before dusk. It was fiendishly cold and I lay shivering atop the contraption begging the heartless fellow while he swore at me, refusing to stop even to allow me to extricate a cloak from my bag. I am ashamed to admit I felt forced to unravel Grady's canvas and wrapped myself in it, and heaven knows how - slept.
I awoke, instinctively knowing we were attacked by brigands, hearing shouts and screams, the horses neighing and rearing, the carriage rolling and pitching with such force that I was hurled, canvas and all, into the undergrowth. I lay stunned, paralysed with shock, until a horrifying silence had descended upon the forest for quite some measure of time.
Though in a state of terror I compelled myself to survey the scene. The coachman was vanished; the two occupants had their throats slit. Some attempt had been made to rob them of their jewels but by no means all had been taken. Two very fine pistols had been left, the owner's hand fixed in the act of reaching for them. The bags had been riffled through and my small wooden case had been forced; the bottles of pigment scattered and my notes and letters of introduction missing. Questions rushed upon me. Why had the blackguards not taken the valuables? Why would they take my insignificant papers? And why had these cut-throats not seen me in the bushes? Unless it was that Grady's canvas was so green...
I released one of the horses and rode for assistance. .....
...with the help of Stanton I mended Grady's damaged canvas, patching over the abraded area with a shepherd and shepherdess, two innocents in paradise, dressed becomingly in scarlets, ochres and hues of crimson. Together we made a fine picture of it, trading witticisms at Grady's expense and thinking ourselves very fine fellows.
I was amazed at the generosity of the offer that Stanton found for the painting, a good deal of which went in repayment of Grady's debts to us. The rest we will hold for him until his probably penniless return to England.
.....
A mixture of curiosity and optimism carried me to the estate of B [name scratched out] in Kent despite the loss of the letter of introduction. I had the notion of being duped but persisted upon this course with the hope that there might be some benefit in it. I was received by two gentlemen who made subtle enquiry as to my travels abroad and to how I had fared in the incident. They seemed impressed by my means of survival which, I confess, I portrayed as intended rather than from the hand of the god who shelters fools and drunkards. I left with my pockets unaccustomedly weighty and yet further letters, a circumstance which encourages me back to France despite these troubled times.
Returning to London a sudden vision of two corpses paling in the shadows of a carriage smote me, leaving me caught up in a melancholic darkness. I told myself that I would be the least of fellows in this business with a stain upon his immortal soul. Those stately gentlemen however must be so tarnished that another blot would merely jostle for position.
Besides, I am now informed of a method by which a seal can be broken and not appear to be so."
Editor's note: Robert Pinnacle made several journeys to France in the year following this meeting ostensibly to visit Aix-les-Bains where he painted several canvases for the circle of Alphonse de Lamartine.