“Let people talk. When you die I will put up a lofty pyramid in my garden, inscribed with a list of the portraits you have painted, and then the world will know how you have come by the money you have made.” Such mocking sympathy was all the return for her confidence and earnest appeals for protection from the unworthy husband who continued to live in luxury at her expense. When twelve thousand francs were sent Elizabeth for a portrait of the son of Princess Lubomirska, Le Brun appropriated to his own use the entire sum except two louis-d’ors, which he gave his wife out of it. With feelings wounded, and alienated from him by such treatment, Madame Le Brun at length appears to have resolved to make herself as happy as possible in her own way. French society was then corrupted to the core, and it was difficult to move in it without partaking of the contamination. It was especially so for one whose education had been superficial, and who had never learned to emulate the example of those pure devotees to art who had found in that a power to preserve and guide them, even amid the intrigues and dissipation of the circles that surrounded them. Madame Le Brun had obtained the favor and intimate friendship of persons of very high rank. Marie Antoinette not only sent to her for her picture, but was accustomed to ask her to sing with her, the painter being almost as celebrated for her “silver voice” as for her professional merits. The public honors lavished upon her aided to make her labors profitable. On one occasion, at a sitting of the French Academy, La Harpe recited a poem in honor of female genius. When he came to the lines-- “Le Brun--de la beauté le peintre et le modèle, Moderne Rosalba, mais plus brillante qu’elle, Joint la voix de Favart au sourire de Vénus--” the whole assembly rose, not even, excepting the Duchesse de Chartres and the King of Sweden, and the fair artist was stunned with a burst of enthusiastic applause. Her admission into the Academy, which had been hitherto prevented by personal jealousies and other hinderances, now took place, on the presentation of her own portrait, in 1783. This picture she had painted after the famous one by Rubens--“_Le chapeau de paille_”--which she had seen the year before when on a visit to Belgium. Her work was so admirable that Vernet, her ever faithful friend, saw at once that he could by its means procure the immediate enrollment of her name among the members of the Academy.