Vigée-Lebrun, 1755-1842 : her life, works, and friendships : with a catalogue raisonné of the artist's pictures

Front matter

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Chapter I Early Years

The influence of courts on art — Childhood of Elisabeth Vigee — At the convent school — Her father's eccentric behaviour — His untimely death — Elisabeth's friends — Rosalie Bocquet — Lessons in the Louvre — The Paris art galleries — Good commissions for the child-painter — A grasping step-father — A terrible public disaster — Evil omen for the Dauphin and his Austrian bride ........... pp. i-S

Chapter II The Girl-artist

propitious time for Elisabeth Vigee — The vogue of " prettiness " — The attractions of Elisabeth's studio — Disappointed admirers — Insulting proposals — A skirmish with the law — First public display of her works — Some of her sitters — Social success — Notable acquaintances — " Pleasures " of the country — First meeting with Queen Marie Antoinette — Elisabeth's gifts to the French Academy — A visit from D'Alembert ' . . pp. 9-15

Chapter III Marriage

M. Lebrun as lover — He marries Elisabeth Vigee — Reason for a secret wedding — Scandalous talk — Invoking the police — Want of money — An art school that failed — Scheme for a judicial separation — The plan abandoned — Habits of M. Lebrun — Art dealing — A valuable customer — The vanity of riches — An influential friend ..... pp. 16-23

Chapter IV Marie Antoinette

State of society amid which Vigee-Lebrun rose into fame — The frivolous crowd at Versailles — Less love and more gallantry — Outward decorum and light morality — Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette — The Queen's bad advisers — Ties of sympathy between Vigee-Lebrun and her royal patroness .......... pp. 24-28

CONTENTS

Chapter V The Queen's Portraits

A first sitting from the Queen — Marie Antoinette described by the artist — Were Vigee-Lebrun's portraits good likenesses ? — What Maria Theresa said of her daughter's portrait — Grand toilettes and simple dresses — The Queen sings duets with the artist — The Prince de Bauffremont's picture of the Queen by Vigee-Lebrun : how was it painted ? — The birth of Vigee- Lebrun's child — Madame de Verdun the " friend in need " — The Queen's considerate conduct — Vigee-Lebrun paints all the Royal Family except one — Scores of sitters waiting their turns PP- 29-35

Chapter VI Academician

Devotion to work — The artist goes to Belgium with her husband — Combining business and pleasure — The charming Prince de Ligne — Mutual attraction — From Brussels to Paris for the opera — Express travelling in the eighteenth century — The Flemish and Dutch painters — Vigee-Lebrun's imitation of Rubens — Her " chapeau de paille " — Return to Paris — She is proposed for election to the Academy of Arts — Difficulties in the way — The Queen's influence forces the doors — Ingenious " reasons " for breaking the rules — Vigee-Lebrun's portrait of the Queen en gaulle — Its withdrawal from exhibition — A joyful evening at the theatre — Convention versus fashion ....... pp. 36-44

Chapter VII Social Life

Vigee-Lebrun in society — Her intimate friends — The Marquise de Gr oilier — Wit without malice — The over-polite Madame d'Angiviller — A passion for verdure indoors — Benjamin Franklin : his silence and his popularity — A Parisian who knew everything — Strange way of discovering a lost wife — The Abbe Delille — Inconvenience of being " fond of everybody " — The " Snakes " and " Crabtrees " of Paris — Vigee-Lebrun's " evenings " — M. Doyen's opinion of geniuses — Music at home — Garat's lovely voice — The fascinations of the Comte de Vaudreuil — Afternoon rest and no dinner-parties ..... pp. 45-53

Chapter VIII Books And Theatres

Vigee-Lebrun's reading — No novels before marriage — " Clarissa Harlowe " — First experience of fiction — Going to theatres — Leading actors and actresses — Sophie Arnould — Mademoiselle Clairon in retirement — Mademoiselle Dumesnil — Madame Dugazon as " Nina " — Mole and Monvel — The ballet — " Two big dogs and a bone " — Vestris and his son . pp. 54-58

CONTENTS xi

Chapter IX Country-houses

Country visits — At Colombes with the financier Verdun — At Genevilliers with the courtier Vaudreuil — Private theatricals — Boredom at Raincy with the Due d'Orleans and his morganatic wife — Big house-parties of the Marquis de Montesquiou at Maupertuis — The Chateau of Mortefontaine as Liberty Hali — A difficult house to sleep in — A ridiculous beau — The " Belle-et-Bonne " of Voltaire — Montmartre — Moulin- Joli .... pp. 59-65

Chapter X Calonne

famous balloon-ascent — The manage Lebrun — Lovely women and pretty costumes — Vigee Lebrun's portrait of Calonne — Sophie Arnould's malicious mot — Gossip about Calonne and Vigee-Lebrun — The artist described as the Aspasia of Calonne's reign — Lebrun's belated defence of his wife's reputation — Banknotes in a snuff-box — Character of Calonne — Persistence of the scandal — The bogus " Comte de " Rivarol a possible enemy of the artist — A coat-turning poet .......... pp. 66-73

Chapter XI Replies To Defamers

Madame Vigee-Lebrun's reply to her calumniators — Her simple tastes — Why her carriage was in Calonne's courtyard at night — The Minister's periwig as evidence of her innocence — A point in her favour — Her husband's consolatory promise — The benefit of the doubt pp. 74-78

Chapter XII Madame Du Barry

A visit to Madame du Barry — Louveciennes then and now — The waterworks of Marly — The Pavilion above the Seine — Spoils of a king's mistress — The Due de Brissac — Madame du Barry as Lady Bountiful — The envoys of Tippoo-Sahit) — Dinner on the floor — Trouble about a portrait — Indian presents for Madame du Barry .... pp. 79-83

Chapter XIII The Coming Revolution

" Travels of young Anacharsis " — Vigee-Lebrun's " supper after the manner of the Greeks " — Her guests on that occasion — " Pindar " as Anacreon, and Julie Lebrun as a Greek slave — Cypriote wine — The reckoning — Calonne again — Moulin- Joli in the wrong hands — Vigee- Lebrun's portrait of Hubert Robert — His physical strength and agility — The wife of Philippe Egalite — Signs of the coming revolution — Misplaced charity — A prophecy of Vigee-Lebrun ..... ..... pp. 84-89 xii CONTENTS

Chapter XIV Flight From France

The artist's house threatened by the mob — Brimstone thrown into her cellar — She takes refuge with the Brongniarts — Mercenary rioters — Pamela and the mob — Madame Lebrun moves to the Saxon envoy's — She decides to leave France — Drunken national guards invade her room — Secret friends — Money for her journey — She and Julie leave in disguise — The Lyons diligence and its passengers — Incidents of the road — Friends at Lyons — Recognised by a postillion — Arrival in Italy pp. 90-96

Chapter XV Madame Lebrun' S Opinions

The environment of Vigee-Lebrun — Her religious sense — Her charity — Her easy view of moral obligations — The influence of Voltaire and Rousseau — The Comte d'Artois — The Mariage de Figaro — An insult to the Queen — The Bourbons for ever — The loyalty of Madame Lebrun — Her qualities of mind and of person ....... pp. 97-IC2

Chapter XVI The Art Of Vigee-lebrun

Her methods briefly considered — Dressing her sitters to please herself — Could she paint character ? — Her portraits of women — And of men — Her advice to young artists — Dr. Johnson's test of portrait-painting . . . . . . . . . . pp. 103-107

Chapter XVII The Tour In Italy, I789-92

Vigee-Lebrun in Italy — The sights of Florence — Rome and its art treasures — Michelangelo and Raphael — A visit to Angelica Kauffmann — Search for a quiet lodging — Varieties of nightly disturbances — Noisy worms in the rafters — Vigee-Lebrun's work in Rome — Some of her sitters — A prima donna with a chest like a pair of bellows — The passions of the Duchesse de Fleury — Napoleon's question and its answer — The Comtesse de Boigne's view of Madame Lebrun — Sir William and Lady Hamilton at Naples — Madame Lebrun's unfortunate choice of a bank for her savings — Disappointed of returning to France, she sets out for Vienna

CONTENTS xiii

Chapter XVIII Life In Vienna, I792-3

Social life in Vienna — Extraordinary number of pretty women — A romantic wedding — " Nor spinster, nor wife, nor widow " — The octogenarian Prince de Kaunitz — He exhibits Vigee- Lebrun's " Sibyl " portrait of Lady Hamilton — News of the execution of Marie Antoinette — Death of the Duchesse de Polignac — Madame Lebrun's feelings — The happy relations of rich and poor in Vienna — A court ball — Untiring dancers — A week in Dresden — Triumph of the " Sibyl " picture — Delightful Prince Henry of Prussia — Provisions for the journey to Russia — The start — Weary travellers ....... pp. 11 7-1 22

Chapter XIX

ST. PETERSBURG I795-180O

Commanded to Court — No time to get a dress made — Kindly reception from Catherine II — Comte Esterhazy reproaches Madame Lebrun for her forgetfulness of etiquette — Her supposed enemies at the court — Extravagant hospitality of the Russian nobles — The Princesse Dolgorouky and her hopelessly devoted lover — How Potemkin had stormed a fortress to amuse her — Tableaux vivants at the Princesse Dolgorouky's — Madame Lebrun is robbed by a servant, and loses ^1,800 through the failure of a Russian bank — The " Greek supper " story — A lie exposed — The artist paints the grandchildren of Catherine II — Trouble about the costumes — The grand-duchess Elisabeth — Stanislas Poniatowsky . . pp. 123-130

Chapter XX The Marriage Of Julie

A heavy blow — The marriage of Julie Lebrun to M. Nigris — Madame Lebrun's description of her daughter — A spoilt child — An unfaithful governess — The artist leaves for Moscow — The change does her no good, and she returns to St. Petersburg — Favour shown by the Emperor Alexander and his wife (the Grand-duchess Elisabeth) to Vigee-Lebrun — She leaves Russia — Visit to Queen Louise at Potsdam — Sketches the Queen's portrait — The Queen's candour about her plain children — Madame Lebrun detained in Frankfort by the rumour of Bonaparte's assassination .......... pp. 131 -135

CHAPTER XXI RETURN TO FRANCE, l8o2

The artist's return to Paris — Lost friends, but many left — A ball at Madame Recamier's — The desolation of Marly — The fate of Rosalie Bocquet — How M. de Verdun escaped the guillotine— Madame Lebrun resumes her old life — Beautiful women of the Revolution — Madame Tallien described ........... pp. 136-140 xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII IN ENGLAND, l8o2 -5

Why Madame Lebrun came to England — Crossing the Channel — The crowd on Dover jetty — The drive to London — A bad night in a Leicester Square hotel, and the cause of it — The " roc " of Portman Square — The house-troubles of Vigee-Lebrun — The streets of London in 1802 — First experience of London society — Bored by the lack of conversation — Her own soirees in Maddox Street — The singing of Madame Billington and Madame Grassini — The Prince of Wales's compliment — Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire described — The portrait of the Prince of Wales — Alleged jealousy of English artists — Mrs. Fitzherbert's picture-frame on wheels — The London Sunday — Lady Hamilton's visit — Her famous " attitudes " displayed in Madame Lebrun's drawing-room — The Chinnery family — Knole and the Duchess of Dorset — Twickenham — The Comte de Vaudreuil's young wife — The Orleans princes

Chapter XXIII English Friends

Lady Craven, Margravine of Anspach — Evil effects of " cookery and coaches " on the nobility — A trip to the Isle of Wight — Visits to Stowe and Donnington — No talking after dinner at Lord Moira's house — Windsor Park — Hampton Court — Bath and its amusements — Vigee-Lebrun might have painted Jane Austen — A visit to the Herschells — Recalled to Paris — Difficulties of getting there — Madame Grassini's forethought . . pp. 1 53-1 61

Chapter XXIV Paris Again, 1805

The new regime — Mother and daughter — Julie and her husband — Madame Lebrun resumes her musical evenings — Catalani — Lafont — Tableaux- vivants — " Only handsome men and pretty women " take part — Innocent diversions — Mademoiselle Duchesnois and Mademoiselle Georges — The portrait of Caroline Murat — Napoleon cuts down the price — A troublesome sitter — The punctuality of "real princesses" ...... pp. 162-166

Chapter XXV Visit To Switzerland, 1808

tour in Switzerland — Rousseau's Island — Madame Lebrun's trouble with foreign names — . Descriptions of Swiss scenery — " A thousand piquant anecdotes," and none recalled — Climbing the Wunschenstein — A dog which wept at the sunrise — A visit to Coppet — Madame de Stael at home — Amateur theatricals — Portrait of Madame de Stael as " Corinne " — The shepherds' festival ........... pp. 167-174

CONTENTS xv

Chapter XXVI The Restoration

Madame Lebrun buys a house at Louveciennes — Death of her husband — His debts — The Prussians at Louveciennes — Alarming experience of Madame Lebrun — The two returns of the Bourbons — Louis XVIII is gracious to the painter of Marie Antoinette — Princesse Natalie Kourakin in Paris — Her friendship with Madame Lebrun — Death of Julie Nigris — Mother and daughter.

Chapter XXVII Autumn And Winter

A visit to Bordeaux — Chateau of Mereville — Sham rocks and other " embellishments " of the gardens — Tours — The monastery of Marmoutier — Vandalic iron-founders — The hotel at Bordeaux — Disadvantages and advantages of a top-room — The fascination of the harbour — Madame Lebrun at sixty-five — " Settles down " in country and town for the rest of her life — The rivalry of her devoted nieces — A happy and uneventful old age — She prepares her souvenirs — Death of Madame Lebrun — Her will — Where her ashes lie — The sentinel above her grave ........... pp. 179-184

CATALOGUE OF MADAME LEBRUN'S WORKS . pp. 185-225

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The names in brackets {except in the case of public galleries) are those of the owners of copyright pictures or photographs who have permitted their reproduction in this book.

Louise, Duchesse d'Orleans (Versailles) ...... Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Vigee-Lebrun as a Girl (M. Charles Sedelmeyer) .....

Madame d'Augeard (M. Wildenstein)

Mademoiselle Therese Budan de Russe (William McKay, Esq.) Mademoiselle de Salverte (E. M. Hodgkins, Esq.) .....

Comtesse de Beon (William McKay, Esq.) .......

" Femme et l'Amour " (M. Wildenstein) .......

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (Versailles)

Marie Antoinette (M. Wildenstein) ........

Facsimile of a Letter from Madame Lebrun to the Prince de Bauffremont Marquise de Verdun (M. Wildenstein) .......

Madame Vigee-Lebrun (National Gallery, London) .....

"La Paix ramenant L'Abondance " (Louvre)

Marie Antoinette " en gaulle " (Grand-ducal Gallery, Darmstadt) . Louise, Comtesse de Provence (M. Wildenstein) .....

COMTE DE VAUDREUIL ..........

Madame Dugazon as " Nina " (Executors of the late Comtesse E. de Pourtales)

Julie Lebrun holding a Mirror (M. Feral) ......

Melanie, Duchesse de Piennes (Adolph Hirsch, Esq.) ....

Madame Vigee-Lebrun and her Daughter (Dr. Williamson, ior the Executors of the late J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq.) .......

From a miniature by Janvier.

14 18

14 26

30 32

34 36 39 43 46 48 52

57 60

64 68

Marie, Duchesse de Gramont-Caderousse (Dr. Williamson, for the Executors

of the late J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq.) ........ 68

From a miniature by Villers after the portrait by Vigee-Lebrun. b xvii xvm

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Charles Alexandre de Calonne

After the portrait of Vigee-Lebrun. From the European Magazine, 1789. Madame Vigee-Lebrun and Julie (Louvre) .....

Yolande, Duchesse de Polignac (Baron Edmond de Rothschild) . Exhibition of the Paris Salon (1787) at the Louvre .... Madame Vigee-Lebrun and Julie in "Greek" Dress (Louvre) Madame Grant, afterward Princesse de Talleyrand (M. Wildenstein) Madame Vigee-Lebrun (Wallace Gallery) ......

From the miniature by Dumont.

Vicomtesse de Suffren (E. M. Hodgkins, Esq.) .....

Hubert Robert (Louvre) .........

From a photograph by Giraudon, Paris.

Emma, Lady Hamilton, as a Bacchante (Messrs. Thomas Agnew & Sons)

Frederick, 4TH Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry (The Marquis of Bristol)

Emma, Lady Hamilton, as a Sibyl ......

Catherine, Comtesse Litta (M. Wildenstein) ....

William, 3RD Earl of Radnor (The Earl of Radnor) .

Madame Vigee-Lebrun (Otto Gutekunst, Esq.) ....

Comtesse de Fries, as " Sappho " (Messrs. Duveen Brothers)

Mrs. Chinnery (M. Charles Sedelmeyer) .....

George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. (The Dowager Portarlington) .........

Countess of

Arabella, Duchess of Dorset (Lord Sackville) ....

Madame Vigee-Lebrun at Work (M. Charles Sedelmeyer) . Madame Grassini (Musee de Rouen) ......

Isabella Marini, afterwards Contessa d'Albrizzi (E. M. Hodgkins, Esq.) Madame Vestris (M. Charles Sedelmeyer) .....

Julie (Lebrun), Madame Nigris (E. M. Hodgkins, Esq.) Madame Vigee Lebrun (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) ....

Portrait of a Lady (M. Wildenstein)

FAdNG PAGE 70

74 78 82 86 92 96

102 106

1755— 1842

Chapter I Early Years

The influence of courts on art — Childhood of Elisabeth Vigee — At the convent school — Her father's eccentric behaviour — His untimely death — Elisabeth's friends — Rosalie Bocquet — Lessons in the Louvre — The Paris art galleries — Good commissions for the child-painter — A grasping step-father — A terrible public disaster — Evil omen for the Dauphin and his Austrian bride

IN the history of royal patronage no chapter is more generally creditable than that concerned with the arts. The atmosphere of

courts may have been ruinous to countless gifted beings, but not, as a rule, to artists. Indeed, but for the means formerly provided by national wealth in passing through the bottomless pockets of autocrats, we should be without a large proportion of the finest of existing treasures. Court painters have been as diverse in merit as poets-laureate : Rubens, Velasquez, Vandyck, Kneller, Lely, Vigee-Lebrun, for examples, offered styles various enough to please every taste until the advent of those originals whose " futurisms," old almost before they are new in the enervating atmosphere wherein such things are made, seem to have as much effect on art as have " freak " dinners on the social habits of sober people. Madame Vigee-Lebrun was not, of course, " in the same studio " with Rubens and Vandyck and Velasquez, but she is distinguished among famous court painters, not merely as the one woman in the list, but as the possessor of gifts which, apart from the historical associations that lend a peculiar attraction to many of her works, would ensure for her best pictures prominent places in any general collection of fine art.

In a house near the corner where the Rue Coq-Heron joins the Rue

Coquilliere, close to the Place des Victories in Paris, Jeanne, the beautiful wife of the artist Louis Vigee, gave to him, on April 16, 1755, the daughter who was to ensure the preservation of his name. The child was called Marie Elisabeth Louise. When she reached years of discretion, she dropped the first name, and reversed the order of the other two. Many other notable people, for the sake either of euphony or convenience, have chosen to make such alterations.

Of her earliest infancy we know as much as of most earliest infancies, and that is all that we need. She was no doubt submitted to the risk of permanent paralysis from the tight swaddling which, though soon to become less common, persisted in France until our own time. According to the general practice of well-to-do families, abroad as in England, at that period, she was sent, soon after birth, to live with a wet-nurse in the country. After a few months with this foster-mother she was transferred to another " good woman " who lived at Epernon. The woman's husband worked on the land, and the home was a poor one, but the baby was so well treated that, eighty years later, Madame Lebrun attributed the generally good if never robust health she had so long possessed to the five years spent at that cottage amidst the wooded hills of one of the pleasantest regions of France.

Among her oldest distinct memories was that of her last day at Epernon, when she was jolted in a panier on her nurse's donkey to the high road, where her father's cabriolet was waiting to convey her to Paris.

After a few days at home, this child of five was taken to the Convent of La Trinite, in the suburb beyond the Bastille. Her life was less agreeable with the nuns than with the peasants. The discipline was far more strict, and the food much less to her taste. But her troubles were mitigated by the frequency with which her parents, seeing that she was not very happy or very well, fetched her home for two or three days at a time.

It was at this period that her talent for drawing began to show itself. She scrawled charcoal sketches on the walls of the dormitory and the passages of the convent, and covered her writing-books with heads of nuns and of schoolgirls. When convicted of these crimes she was properly punished, but unhappily another child, in whose books she had found extra space for drawing, was punished also, in the erroneous belief of the Mothersuperior that there were two infant artists at work. To the end of her days the guilty culprit reproached herself when she remembered the affair.

FIRST STEPS IN ART 3

At the age of eleven, Elisabeth made her first communion. That event ended her school life, and she thenceforth stayed at home, to play with her tiny brother Etienne, and to develop her now recognised inheritance of her father's artistic sense.

Vigee gave his daughter the free run of his studio, where he worked, with moderate success, in pastels and in oils, painting such people as would pay him for their portraits, and pleasing himself by producing imaginative compositions more or less after the manner of Watteau.

Apart from his domestic concerns his mind was chiefly taken up by two loves — for his art and for the lasses. So intensely was he preoccupied at times by the first that, his thoughts full of the picture he was painting, he was known to go out to a dinner-party with a nightcap on his head instead of a wig. As for the other obsession, it was absurdly displayed on successive New Year's Days, when he would hurry all over Paris in order that he might kiss the young girls he met in the streets, on the pretext of wishing them the Compliments of the Season !

Madame Vigee, who, amid the temptations of Paris, had retained the austere morality and piety of the simple peasants of Lorraine from whom she came, was grievously distressed by her husband's amatory antics, but she was compelled to be satisfied with the fact that, if he gave her little marital devotion, he regarded her always with a respect that hardly fell short of adoration.

While M. Vigee showered promiscuous fondness on other people's children on the opening day, he had abundant affection left for his own during the rest of the year. Between father and daughter, in any case, there was a strong attachment —the strongest mutual love, indeed, in which Elisabeth was ever to share. The mother was disposed to spoil the boy and to be hard on the girl, partly, as Madame Lebrun afterwards thought, because she was gawky, and even rather ugly in childhood, as is frequently the case with those who become good-looking in adolescence.

Her life while her father lived was in every respect adapted to encourage her instinctive leaning towards his profession. During the day she worked in his studio, or in that of the struggling artist Davesne, who taught her to prepare her palette. In the evenings several painters, as well as some writers and men of various occupations, were accustomed to come to the Vigees' rooms for conversation. Among the more important of such visitors was M. Gabriel Doyen, the painter of a then much-esteemed picture of " The Death of Virginia " (which had gained him admission into the Academy), and of other compositions quite foreign to Elisabeth's own art at any period, unless her " Apotheosis of Marie Antoinette," painted in the decadence of her powers, may be regarded as an example of that " pictorial " school.

In these closing years of her father's life, and still more notably later on, Doyen was indeed the chief friend of the girl among the " grown-ups " of her acquaintance. He was a man of over forty, almost paternally interested in the development of the clever daughter of his old comrade in art.

Doyen had high principles, as might be gathered from his own story of the origin of Fragonard's " Swing " picture. It appears that just about the time when he was most earnestly encouraging the budding talent of Elisabeth Vigee, he was asked by the Baron de Saint-Julien to paint such a scene as is represented in "The Swing" (L'Escarpolette). He was rather shocked by the proposal, but after a moment to collect his wits he replied, " Ah ! Monsieur, one would have to add to your idea for a picture by making the lady's shoes fly in the air and be caught by cupids." More seriously, not being at all willing to do work so far outside his usual field, he recommended the frivolous courtier to apply to Fragonard, with the result that the famous picture now in the Wallace Gallery came into being.

When Elisabeth was thirteen years old, she suffered her first serious loss. Her father died of blood-poisoning, after an operation for the removal of a fishbone which he had swallowed. The operating surgeon was the ablest man in Paris. This was Jean Cosme, whose father and grandfather had been surgeons of repute before him, but who had decided to end the succession, having become, quite early in life, a member of a religious order which allowed him to practise surgery as well as spiritual healing. However capable the operator might be in those days before Pasteur or Lister, the chances of survival after a big operation were small, and the combination of surgeon and clergyman must often have been sadly convenient.

Elisabeth was strongly encouraged by Doyen to find consolation, as a child of thirteen naturally might, in applying herself assiduously to her favourite occupation. She became still more engrossed in the study of what she called " Nature," by which she implied heads of people and what is absurdly known as " still life," and not at all the " nature " of woods and streams.

Vigee-Lebrun as a Girl (M. Charles Sedelmeyer)

HER FELLOW-STUDENT 5

Fortunately, she had a friend, only a year older than herself, Rosalie Bocquet by name, who shared her talent and her tastes. By the time Elisabeth was fourteen, the two girls went very often together to the Louvre to study under the historical painter, Gabriel Briard, who gave them his criticism on their copies of his own sketches and their drawings of antique busts. The Louvre in those days was not only a museum, but a home for certain artists who, usually as members of the Academy, had been granted rooms and studios. Briard, whose art was of that grandiose, halfclassical, half-symbolical style which expands itself most freely on palace ceilings, drew better than he painted. Although these two children benefited by his help, they could not join his school, which was only for boys and young men, the idea of "mixed" classes being in those times regarded as impossible for decently brought-up pupils, even if the " subject" were a bust of Pericles. Rosalie and Elisabeth used to spend whole days in the Louvre, taking their dinners with them in little baskets. Sometimes they would indulge in the added luxury of slices of beef a la mode supplied by the concierge, which seemed so good that, in old age, Madame Lebrun (who had known the finest cookery of the Brillat-Savarin period) still declared she had never tasted anything more delicious.

The elder of the two girl-students was pretty, and so indeed, by this time, was the younger. Elisabeth's cheeks had rilled out, her complexion was clearer, her figure had become well proportioned, and her movements had lost the gracelessness of early youth.

The good looks of either of the girls, in Paris at any period, would have been sufficient reason for a chaperon in the evenings, and at that time the " Ville Lumiere ' ' was even worse lighted than it is at present . With the exception of the great thoroughfares, few streets in that city can now be said to be illuminated, but such rare lamps as project from the walls are usually gas or electric, and far more powerful than the oil-lamps of the eighteenth century.

Elisabeth went frequently to the Bocquets' in the evenings, to draw and paint with Rosalie, and Madame Vigee went with her, then, and up to the time of Elisabeth's marriage, taking great care of the daughter of whose attractions, physical and other, she had at length become even more proud than of her own beauty.

Madame Vigee frequently took her daughter to see the great permanent collections of pictures, both public and private. In those days the Luxembourg contained the Henri Quatre series of paintings designed by

Rubens for Marie de Medicis, which nowadays fills a spacious gallery in the Louvre.

The exhibition which gave the girl most pleasure was that at the Palais-Royal, originally brought together by the Regent Orleans. It was rich in fine examples of Italian and Flemish art, many of which, by the way, are now in English collections, having been bought for this country when the art treasures of the Bourbons were sold off at the Revolution. At the time when Elisabeth Vigee was, as she said, " feeding like a bee " on these glories of old art, the restorers had recently been doing irreparable damage to some of them. Horace Walpole declared that they had been " varnished so thick that 3'ou may see your face in them, and some of them transported from board to cloth bit by bit, and the seams filled up with colour."