Whilst Gauguin was spending the last stages of his life in Atuona, one of Luc Olivier Merson's ex-pupils from the School of Fine Arts, was arriving in Papeete : Charles Alfred Le Moine. He was in his thirties and was "a charming quick witted story teller. He introduced himself as one of Alfred de Musset's distant cousins. Not only did he look like him, but he even had the same beard". He began by giving drawing lessons to the young maidens in Papeete and started to paint. According to one of his contemporaries, "his works, landscapes, genre scenes, rough sketches and studies sold quite well, but at a modest price". In May 1903, an official receiver, Mr Vermesch, who was acting as auctioneer in the sale of Gauguin's belongings, asked for his assistance in this task. This was in Papeete. Due to his expert valuation for which he was harassed, Charles Le Moine entered into the anecdotic history of French Painting by the back door, but because of misfortune or modesty, his name never left the shores of Tahiti in the direction of glory. No museum in the world has exhibited any painting of his...

Even in Tahiti you have to earn your living. In order to survive, Le Moine managed to be appointed temporary Deputy Magistrate in Papeete (1903) because he had his baccalaureate and was given local protection. He was then sent as a special agent in the Gambier Islands (1906) before becoming a teacher in the Marquesas (1911). This is what an inspector; aid of him: "he was the type of school teacher who governed the school in Vaitaha in a light hearted manner and devoted his spare time to painting..." and this is what an American traveler wrote about him : "his life was reduced to painting" and he went on to say "he tried to render the typical atmosphere of the Marquesas, its beauty and its wild seductive power".

Since Le Moine was not teaching French to the Marquesan children, was he at least coming up with good Marquesan Paintings? This question is very difficult to answer, as Le Moine's works have never been collected for an exhibition. The few paintings of his to have been seen in Tahiti indicate that he can produce a portrait but enjoys delineating anecdotic pictures: Marquesan dances, "fêtes" in Tahiti, "washerwomen", "people selling fish", views of meals, outside or indoor scenes. He also did a fair amount of studies of Marquesan horses. Nothing but anecdotic scenes or various events. This is what was required at the time of the "beautiful era". He was far more interested in spontaneous subjects than in the core of things. He did not succeed in discerning the remains of this fading, wonderful civilizations: the last tattooers witchcraft, dances and gigantic orgy-like parties with orange wine flowing, a kind of activity which still took place at this time, the surviving splendors of the past, lying at the bottom of valleys where the police could not come and missionaries could not admonish the people upon these activities.

Le Moine could have been the illustrator of Victor Segalen's "Immemorials" of the past, but he merely opted for the vulgarity of daily life, which could be observed from a veranda, and he contended himself thus. These episodic paintings have their documentary value, but Le Moine decreases in our appreciation as, although he is incapable of recreating and transposing and paints with a servile retina, did he at least learn how to draw at the Fine Arts School?

Is the construction of his canvases good? He is good at composition; shadows and light are harmoniously balanced. Occasionally there are very lovely movements and characters are nicely laid out. His portraits are true to life.

Le Moine is also a painter of animals. The horses imported to the Marquesas have found a pleasant climate, and one should not be surprised to see groups of wild horses in the large valleys. The frantic galloping of stallions, their fights, their frenzied kicks, their curved shapes beneath a tropical sky are contrasted with the almost funeral-like appearance of the sea.

Le Moine obviously loved and understood horses. Consequently he painted a few canvases and proved his talent as a painter of animals. His oil painting of a white mare kicking two stallions who are fighting to gain her favors is an excellent scene of bravery where the entwined posture of the animals, the determination of the males during this fight and their aggressive behavior are all strikingly true.

Governor Bouge who was an eternal collector had been posted to Papeete when Le Moine returned to France in 1918 to die. He took several drawings, rapid sketches or more advanced studies in the artists' portfolios. Le Moine's drawings are very academic but are extremely detailed, precise and considerably elaborated. Although they are very different from Gauguin's, they are very close to the models, grasped on the spare of the moment and studied in their daily life. Le Moine does not omit anything in his drawings: the distant expression in the eyes of Tahitian women, their enigmatic smile, their particular complexion. His masterpiece was a bust of an old woman with a large straw hat on her head. Besides depicting her bony and emaciated body, Le Moine has succeeded in grasping that somewhat tired yet noble expression, that disabused but sharp eye which is typical of the mama, the Tahitian grandmother, as one would see her on a Sunday at the Protestant church, standing upright and proud at the foot of the pulpit, listening attentively to the minister endlessly talking. The drawings from the Bouge collection now belong to the Chartres Museum.