Produced by Adam Buchbinder and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) Memoirs of Madame Vigee Lebrun Uniform with this volume: MEMOIRS OF COUNTESS POTOCKA _Illustrated._ Translated by Lionel Strachey MEMOIRS OF A CONTEMPORARY _Illustrated._ Translated by Lionel Strachey [Illustration: MME. VIGEE LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER.] Memoirs of Madame Vigee Lebrun Translated by Lionel Strachey With Numerous Reproductions of Paintings by the Authoress London Grant Richards 1904 Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday, Page & Company Printed by Manhattan Press New York. N. Y., U. S. A. PREFATORY NOTE Madame Lebrun brought out her Memoirs at the suggestion of her friend, the Princess Dolgoruki, in 1835. The authoress was born in 1756, at Paris, where she died in 1842. She was the daughter of Louis Vigee, an obscure portrait painter. Her baptismal name was Marie Louise Elisabeth. In 1776 Mademoiselle Vigee was married to Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, a notable picture dealer and critic, known also to his contemporaries as an inveterate gambler. This book forms a rendering of Madame Carette's edition of the Lebrun Memoirs, slightly abridged for the sake of uniformity with the "Memoirs of the Countess Potocka" and the "Memoirs of a Contemporary," issuing from the same hands as the present volume. CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. YOUTH. Precocious Talents Manifested -- Mlle. Vigee's Father and Mother -- Death of Her Father -- A Friend of Her Girlhood -- Her Mother Remarries -- Mlle. Vigee's First Portrait of Note (Count Schouvaloff) -- Acquaintance with Mme. Geoffrin -- The Authoress's Puritanical Bringing-up -- Male Sitters Attempt Flirtation -- Public Resorts of Paris Before the Revolution 3 CHAPTER II. UP THE LADDER OF FAME. Tedious Sojourn in the Country -- Social Amenities in Paris -- Mlle. Vigee Becomes Mme. Lebrun -- Prognostications of Unhappy Wedlock -- On the Ladder of Fame -- Singularities of Oriental Taste -- Marie Antoinette as a Model -- Painting the Royal Family -- How Louis XVIII. Sang -- The Princess de Lamballe 16 CHAPTER III. WORK AND PLEASURE. Impressions of Flanders -- The Authoress's Election to the French Royal Academy of Painting -- Her Devotion to Work -- Social Pleasures -- A Tale of an Artist's Extravagance -- Calonne and Calumny -- M. Lebrun Allows His Wife Naught Per Cent. of Her Earnings -- A Dramatic Constellation -- The Incomparable Mme. Dugazon 32 CHAPTER IV. EXILE.