Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR EDITED BY -- T. LEMAN HARE VIGEE LE BRUN 1755-1842 ===================================================================== PLATE I.--MARIE ANTOINETTE. Frontispiece (At Versailles) The first portrait that Vigee Le Brun painted, in her twenty-fourth year (1779) of Marie Antoinette. Here is no hint of the tragedy that was to overwhelm the handsome young daughter of Austria; all was as yet but gaiety and roses and sunshine and pleasant airs, and the glamour that hovers about a throne. But there are signs of the imperious temper of her house, combined with the levity and frivolity of manners which were so early to make her unpopular. [Illustration: Plate I.] ===================================================================== Vigee Le Brun BY HALDANE MACFALL ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR [Illustration: Title page art] LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. 1907 CONTENTS I. The Beginnings II. The Wonderful Child III. Marriage and Motherhood IV. Marie Antoinette V. Sweet Exile VI. The End LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate I. Marie Antoinette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece At Versailles II. Madame Vigee Le Brun and Child In the Louvre III. Madame Vigee Le Brun and Child In the Louvre IV. Portrait of Madame Vigee Le Brun In the National Gallery, London V. The two elder Children of Marie Antoinette At Versailles VI. Portrait of Madame Mole-Raymond In the Louvre VII. Marie Antoinette and her Children At Versailles VIII. Peace bringing back Plenty In the Louvre [Illustration: Vigee Le Brun] I THE BEGINNINGS In Paris, in the Rue Coquilliere, Louis the Fifteenth being King of France--or rather the Pompadour holding sway thereover--there lived a witty, amiable fellow who plied the art of painting portraits in oils and pastels after the mediocre fashion that is called "pleasing." This Louis Vigee and his wife, Jeanne Maissin, moved in the genial enthusiastic circle of the lesser artists, passing through their sober day without undue excitement; for fame and wealth and the prizes of life were not for them. Boucher was lord of art; and La Tour and Greuze and Chardin were at the height of their genius; but honest Louis Vigee could but plod on at his pleasing portraits, and sigh that the gods had not borne to him the immortal flame. Yet he was to come near to the glory of it--nearer than he thought. 'Twas a pity that he was robbed of the splendour of basking in the reflected radiance, and by a fish's bone. It was to have its beginning in that year after the indolent but obstinate king, having fallen foul of his Parliaments in his game of facing-both-ways in the bitter strife 'twixt Church and people, patched up a peace with the Parliament men.