So flourishing did the young artist’s affairs look that he resolved to face the responsibilities of marriage. He authorised a friend, a M. Loréal, an employé of the French Government in Rome, to find him a wife. M. Loréal’s choice fell upon a Mlle. Magdaleine Chapelle, a young Frenchwoman of about the same age as the artist, who was then acting as cashier in a café at Guéret. M. Boyer d’Agen has recently published a letter from the young fiancée to her sister announcing the approaching marriage. It is dated 30th August 1813. She starts by saying that just as she was beginning to despair of ever finding a suitable husband “they had written to her from Rome saying they had found exactly what she wanted.” “You can judge of the pleasure the news gave me,” she exclaims quite frankly, “and it made me feel ten years younger, so that I now look only twenty years of age.” She promises to send her sister a portrait of her future husband on another occasion, but says that for the present she must be satisfied with a verbal description. “He is a good-looking young man. I always said my husband must be handsome.” “He is a painter--not a house-painter, but a great painter of history, a great talent. He earns from ten to twelve thousand livres a year. You see that with that we shall not die of hunger. He has a good character, and is very gentle. He is neither a drinker, a gambler, nor a rake. He has no faults. He promises to make me very happy, and I love to believe he will.” The writer of this charming letter was married to the artist about three months after it was written. The marriage was arranged entirely by the friends of the young couple. They had not set eyes on each other before Ingres went to the city gates to meet his affianced bride. They met near the Tomb of Nero. It was there that Ingres first took the hand of the partner who was to caress and console him during the next thirty-five years. This charming and laughing “fille à Madame Angot” turned out to be the admirable companion which every artist dreams of but so rarely possesses: one who will share all his hopes, but never his doubts; who believes and admires, smiles and is patient, and accepts all sacrifices for the glory of the one she loves.