Brilliant success of Lisette—Love of her art—The Vernet—Life in
Paris before the Revolution—Mme. Geoffrin—Marriage of Lisette to
M. Le Brun—A terrible prediction.
In after life Mme. Le Brun used to say that her girlhood had not been
like that of other young girls. And indeed it was not. By the time she
was fifteen she was already not only a celebrated portrait painter,
but very much sought after in society. A portrait of her mother, which
she painted when she was not yet fifteen, excited so much admiration
that the Duchesse de Chartres, who had often looked at her with
interest from the gardens of the Palais Royal, opposite which she
lived, sent for her to paint her portrait, and was so delighted with
the pretty, gentle girl whose talents were so extraordinary that she
spoke of her to all her friends.
The beautiful Comtesse de Brionne and her daughter, the Princesse de
Lorraine, who was also very pretty, then came to call on her, and
their visit was followed by those of all the court and _faubourg Saint
Germain_. She also knew all the great artists and literary people,
and had more invitations than she could accept.
In her brilliant career, although the odious step-father was still
a great disadvantage and annoyance, it was impossible that he could
inflict much of his company upon her, full and absorbed as her life
now was with her professional work and social engagements. The most
celebrated foreign visitors to Paris generally came to see her,
amongst the first of whom were Count Orloff, one of the assassins of
Peter III., whose colossal height and the enormous diamond in his ring
seem to have made a great impression upon her; and Count Schouvaloff,
Grand Chamberlain, who had been one of the lovers of the Empress
Elizabeth II., but was now a man of sixty, extremely courteous,
pleasant, and a great favourite in French society.
Her first great dinner-party was at the house of the sculptor Le
Moine, where she met chiefly artists and literary people. It was the
custom to sing at dessert, a terrible ordeal for young girls, whose
alarm often spoilt their song, but who were obliged to sing all the
same.
Joseph Vernet had a little son of whose talent for drawing he was
very proud; and one day at a party where his friends joked him on his
infatuation, he sent for the child, gave him a pencil and paper, and
told him to draw.
He began at once to draw a horse so well and so boldly that murmurs
arose.
“Well! Very well! But he has begun too low down, he will have no room
for the legs.”
The boy, however, drew on with unconcern, finished the body of the
horse, drew the upper portion of the legs, and then with a few strokes
of the pencil indicated water at the bottom of the sheet, and gave the
impression of a horse bathing his legs and feet.[12]
But as dinner-parties then took place in the day-time, often as early
as two o’clock, Lisette soon found it impossible to spare the time to
go to them. What finally decided her to give them up was an absurd
_contretemps_ that happened one day when she was going to dine with
the Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort. Just as she was dressed in a white
satin dress she was wearing for the first time, and ready to get into
the carriage, she, like her father in former days, remembered that she
wished to look again at a picture she was painting, and going into
her studio sat down upon a chair which stood before her easel without
noticing that her palette was upon it. The consequences were of
course far more disastrous than what had befallen her father; it was
impossible to go to the party, and after this she declined as a rule
all except evening invitations, of which she had even more than enough.
These evening parties were usually delightful; those of the Princesse
de Rohan-Rochefort were especially so. The intimate friends of the
Princess, the Comtesse de Brionne, Princesse de Lorraine, Duc de
Choiseul, Duc de Lauzun, Cardinal de Rohan, and M. de Rulhières, a
distinguished literary man, were always present, and other pleasant
and interesting people were to be met there.
The evenings were spent in brilliant conversation and music, supper
was at half-past ten, ten or twelve guests being the usual number at
the table.
It speaks well for Lisette that her head was not the least turned and
her reputation blameless, considering that at an age when girls in our
own day are at their lessons in the schoolroom, she, young, pretty,
attractive, and celebrated, was constantly thrown into a society the
most corrupt and the most fascinating that has perhaps ever existed.
But although fully enjoying the amusement and admiration that fell
to her lot, she passed unscathed through the temptations and dangers
around her. The strength and devotion of her religious principles, the
deep love of her art, which was the ruling passion of her life, her
affection for her mother, who was always with her, and to whom she
confided all her affairs, were her only safeguards.
She was constantly surrounded by perils and temptations which to
many would have been irresistible. Admiring eyes followed her at
the theatre, people crowded round her in the gardens and places of
entertainment, men of rank who wanted an opportunity of making love
to her had their portraits painted by her for that purpose; but she
treated them all with indifference, and when she noticed that their
looks and glances were too expressive she would coolly remark: “I am
painting your eyes now,” or would insist on the portrait being done
with the eyes looking in another direction.
The Marquis de Choiseul had just married a very pretty American of
sixteen years old, which did not prevent his entertaining a violent
passion for Lisette, and trying to make love to her on all possible
occasions, but greatly increased her indignation at his doing so.
In fact she had given her whole heart to her work. She thought and
dreamed of nothing but painting, her career as an artist was her
life, and her affection for her mother, her brother, and her friends
sufficed for her domestic happiness; she wanted neither love intrigues
nor even marriage to disturb the state of things she found so entirely
satisfactory.
So little did the idea of love enter into her life that until after
her marriage she had never read a single novel. Then she read
“Clarissa Harlowe,” by way of a beginning, and found it intensely
interesting. Before, she only read Lives of the Saints, and various
religious or instructive books.
It is difficult for those who are accustomed to think of Paris only
as it is now, to picture to themselves at all what it was like in the
eighteenth century; for until years after the Revolution it was, to
all intents and purposes, a mediæval city.
Paris without the wide streets of enormous houses, the broad, shady
boulevards, the magnificent shops and crowded pavements, the glare and
wealth and luxury of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Paris of
old France, of the Monarchy, with its ancient towers and buildings,
its great _hôtels_ and convents with vast gardens above whose high
walls rose stately trees; its narrow, crooked, ill-paved streets,
mostly unsafe to walk in after dusk, through which troops of cavalry
clattered in gay uniforms, scattering the foot-passengers right and
left, and magnificent coaches drawn by four, six, or eight horses
lumbered heavily along.
The _fêtes_ and pageants of the Church and court were most gorgeous
and impressive. Even to see the King, royal family and court set off
for Versailles, Fontainebleau, or any other of the country palaces
was a splendid spectacle, the immense number of state coaches which
conveyed the King,[13] the Dauphin,[14] Mesdames de France,[15] their
numerous households and those of the other Princes of the blood,
made a procession which seemed interminable. It was the custom that
on these occasions the court should be in full dress, and Mme. Le
Brun, in her “Souvenirs,” mentions that a few years later, after her
marriage, she went to see the last of these departures in state for
Fontainebleau, and observes that the Queen, the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette, covered with diamonds which flashed in the sunshine,
and with her regal air and majestic beauty, looked like a goddess
surrounded by her nymphs.[16]
The Parisians delighted in any shows or festivities, and the royal
family were received with acclamations whenever they appeared from the
mob, which twenty years later was yelling and howling with savage fury
for their destruction.
Arnault, in his memoirs, relates that he was brought up at Versailles,
where he was at school from 1772 to 1776, and often saw Louis XV.
pass in his carriage. The King had a calm, noble face and very thick
eyebrows. He took not the slightest notice of the shouts of _Vive le
roi_ from the boys drawn up in a line, or from the people; neither did
Louis XVI. when he succeeded him.
A post in one of the royal households was an object of general
ambition. Duruflé, though a poet and well-known literary man who
had received a prize from the Academy, applied for and obtained the
appointment of _valet de chambre_ to the young Comte de Provence,
second grandson of the King, afterwards Louis XVIII., and was in
consequence obliged to put on his stockings, in doing which he
accidentally hurt him.
“How stupid you are!” cried the young prince, angrily.
“I did not know, Monsieur,” replied he, “that one was stupid because
one did not put on a stocking well.”
“People are stupid,” answered the prince, “who have not the sense to
do properly what they undertake to do.”
Duruflé, who did not like this sort of thing, hastened to sell the
post he had been so anxious to get.[17]
Most people at that time, like those before the flood, had no idea of
the possibility of the coming destruction.
Only the encyclopædists and such persons of advanced opinions had any
presentiments of the overwhelming changes at hand, and they were far
from anticipating the horrible calamities and crimes they were helping
to bring about.
Their great stronghold was the _salon_ of Mme. Geoffrin, where all the
radical, atheist, and philosophic parties congregated. D’Alembert,
Condorcet, Turgot, Diderot, Morellet, Marmontel, and many other
celebrated names were amongst the intimate friends of the singular
woman, who although possessing neither rank, beauty, talent, nor
any particular gift, had yet succeeded in establishing a _salon_
celebrated not only in France but all over Europe. Owing to her want
of rank she could not be presented at court, and yet amongst her
guests were many of the greatest names in France, members of the royal
family, strangers of rank and distinction. She knew nothing of art or
literature, but her Monday dinners and evenings were the resort of all
the first artists of the day, and her Wednesdays of the literary and
political world.
Her _salon_ had been famous from 1750, before Lisette was born, and
now, as an old woman, she came to visit the young girl of whose
artistic genius she had heard enough to excite her curiosity. She
arrived in the morning and expressed great admiration for the beauty
and talent of her young hostess.
To Lisette she seemed to be about a hundred years of age, though she
was not really very old, but her costume, a dark grey dress and a cap
over which she wore a large hood tied under her chin, and her bent
figure, increased the appearance of age.
Mme. Geoffrin[18] was born 1699: her father a _valet de chambre_ of
the Dauphin. He and her mother died young and left her and her brother
to the guardianship of their grandmother, a certain Mme. Chemineau, a
woman of strong, upright character, and a devout Catholic, but narrow
and without much education. She brought up her grandchildren with
care and affection, and married the girl when about fourteen to M.
Geoffrin, a rich and worthy commercial man of forty-eight. With him
Thérèse lived in tranquil obscurity until she was about thirty, when
she became acquainted with the celebrated Mlle. Tencin, sister of the
Cardinal, over whose house and _salon_ she presided, and who, like
Mme. Geoffrin, lived in the _rue St. Honoré_.
M. Geoffrin did not altogether approve of his wife’s perpetual
presence at the _hôtel Tencin_, which had by no means a good
reputation; and when she also began to receive in her own house a few
of the literary men whom she met there, philosophers, freethinkers,
and various persons upon whom he looked with suspicion, he at first
strongly objected. But it was useless. His wife had found the sixteen
years of her married life remarkably dull; she had at length, by good
fortune, discovered the means of transforming her monotonous existence
into one full of interest, and the obscurity which had hitherto been
her lot into an increasing celebrity. She turned a deaf ear to his
remonstrances, and after a good deal of dissension and quarrelling
the husband gave way and contented himself with looking after the
household and being a silent guest at the famous dinners given by his
wife, until at length, on some one asking her what had become of the
old gentleman who was always there and never spoke, she replied—
“It was my husband; he is dead.”
Although stupid, M. Geoffrin was harmless, good, and charitable. Their
only child, the Marquise de la Ferté Imbault, adored her father, whom
she preferred to her mother. She was a pretty, high-spirited girl,
an ardent Catholic, hated her mother’s atheist friends, and always
declared that she had forced her into her marriage, which, although a
great one, was not a happy one.
When Lisette was about twenty, her step-father retired from business
and took an apartment in the _rue de Cléry_ in a large house called
_hôtel Lubert_, which had recently been bought by the well-known
picture dealer, M. Le Brun.
Lisette was enchanted at this, as she knew that M. Le Brun had rooms
full of the most splendid pictures of all the different schools, to
which she would thus have constant access. And her anticipations were
more than realised, for M. Le Brun was completely fascinated by her,
and only too delighted not only to show her the pictures, but to lend
her any she liked to copy.
For six months she worked with enthusiasm, perfectly happy and
engrossed with her painting, never noticing that her landlord, who was
a good-looking, pleasant, but exceedingly dissipated man, was paying
her great attention, having fallen violently in love with her.
It was therefore a surprise, and not altogether an agreeable one, when
at the end of the six months he asked for her mother’s consent to
marry her.
Lisette at first wished to refuse this offer. She did not at all
dislike M. Le Brun, but she was by no means in love with him, and as
she could make plenty of money by her profession, she had no anxiety
about the future and no occasion to make a _mariage de convenance_.
But her mother, who seems to have had the talent for doing always the
wrong thing, and who fancied that M. Le Brun was very rich, did not
cease to persecute her by constant representations and entreaties not
to refuse such an excellent _parti_, and she was still more influenced
by the desire to escape from her step-father, who, now that he had no
occupation, was more at home and more intolerable than ever.
So after much hesitation she consented, but so reluctantly, that even
on her way to the church where the marriage was to be celebrated,[19]
she still doubted and said to herself, “Shall I say Yes or No?”
The wedding, however, took place, and she even agreed to its being
a private one, and being kept secret for some time, because M. Le
Brun was engaged to the daughter of a Dutchman with whom he had
considerable dealings in pictures, and whom he continued to deceive in
this matter until their business affairs were finished.
The dishonourable nature of this transaction does not seem to have
occurred either to her mother or to Lisette herself. She was rather
glad to keep her own name a little longer, but not at all pleased
when, it being rumoured that she was engaged to M. Le Brun, everybody
began to warn her on no account to marry him.
M. Auber, jeweller to the Crown, said: “You had better fasten a stone
to your neck and throw yourself into the river than marry Le Brun.”
The Duchesse d’Aremberg, Mme. de Canillac, and Mme. de Souza, then
Ambassadress to Portugal, all young and pretty, all friends of
Lisette’s, came to warn her not to marry the man whose wife she had
already been for a fortnight.
“In Heaven’s name don’t marry him,” cried the Duchess. “You will be
miserable.”
And they proceeded to tell her a number of stories, many of which she
did not believe, until she found out to her cost that they were true;
but which, nevertheless, filled her mind with uneasy suspicions; while
her mother sat by with tears in her eyes, repenting of the new folly
by which she had again ruined the happiness of her child.
However, there was no help for it. The marriage was shortly
acknowledged, and Lisette, whose mind was full of her painting, did
not allow her spirits to be depressed; more especially as M. Le Brun,
although he gambled and ran after other women, was not disagreeable
or ill-tempered like her step-father, from whose odious presence she
was now set free. Her husband spent all the money she made, and even
persuaded her to take pupils, but she did not much mind. She never
cared about money, and she made great friends with her pupils, many
of whom were older than herself. They put up a swing, fastened to the
beams in the roof of the studio, with which they amused themselves at
intervals during the lesson.
During the March that followed the marriage a kind of mission or
religious revival went on at Paris; a sort of wave of religious
devotion seemed to have arisen in opposition to the atheism and
irreligion of the day. Notre Dame and most of the other churches were
thronged during the frequent services, religious processions passed
through the streets amidst excited crowds, friars preached and people
knelt around them regardless of the bitterly cold weather. Strange
to say, one of those who fell victims to their imprudence was Mme.
Geoffrin, who, in spite of her infidel friends and surroundings, had
never really abandoned her belief in God, or the practice of her
religious duties, but had always gone secretly to mass, retained a
seat in the Church of the Capucines, and an apartment in a convent to
which she occasionally retired to spend a retreat. A chill she got
at this mission brought on an attack of apoplexy, and she remained
partly paralysed during the remaining year of her life. Her daughter,
the Marquise de la Ferté Imbault, took devoted care of her, refusing
to allow any of her infidel friends to visit her, and only admitting
those whose opinions were not irreligious.
There was at this same time a perfect rage for fortune-telling, second
sight, and every sort of occult knowledge and experiences.
The Comtesses de Flahault and de Marigny, two sisters, both young,
thoughtless, and eager for adventures, were anxious to see and consult
a certain wizard, then very much the fashion, about whom their
curiosity was greatly aroused by the stories told of him.
It was not altogether easy in those days for two women of their age
and class to go out unattended and unseen, and if they had been
discovered it would have caused gossip and scandal. So one dark night
they disguised themselves as grisettes, put on large cloaks with
hoods and let themselves out through a side door in the garden of
the _hôtel_. After a long walk they arrived, very tired and rather
frightened, at a dirty house in a bad quarter, on the fifth floor
of which the wizard lived. They rang a dirty-looking bell, a dingy
servant appeared with a smoky lamp, and led them into a dimly-lighted
room adorned with deaths’ heads and other weird-looking symbols. As
they looked round them with misgiving a concealed door suddenly opened
and the wizard stood before them dressed in a long flame-coloured
robe, with a black mask, and began to make passes in the air with an
ivory wand, using strange words they could not understand, while blue
sulphur flames played around him.
The two sisters clung to each other in terror, but the man, who saw
quite well that they were no grisettes, came forward respectfully,
saying to Mme. de Marigny, “Alas! Mme. la Comtesse, why consult
destiny? It is pitiless. Nothing will succeed with you; you will die
young.”
With a cry of alarm she tried to draw her sister away, but the wizard,
taking her hand, seemed to study it carefully, and suddenly dropped it
with a strange exclamation.
“Speak,” said the Comtesse de Flahault. “Speak! Whatever my future is
to be, let me know it. Tell me. I have strength and courage to hear.
Besides, who can assure me that what you say is true?”
“Have you then such a love of falsehood, Madame, that you must have it
at any price? Poor woman! she has not the courage to say she believes
and fears.”
“Well, yes! I believe and am afraid. Will you speak now?”
The sorcerer hesitated, and only after much persuasion said slowly and
gravely—
“Monsieur le Comte, your husband, will lose his head on the scaffold;
you will leave France to live without resources in a foreign land;
you will work for your living, but after long years of exile you will
return to France. You will marry an ambassador, but you will have
other vicissitudes.”
Such prophecies in the height of their prosperity seemed so absurd
that they laughed, gave the wizard a large fee, and returned home,
thinking the whole adventure very amusing.
However, the predictions were fulfilled. Mme. de Marigny, after many
misfortunes, died young. The Comte de Flahault was guillotined during
the Terror, and the Comtesse escaped with her son to England, where
she lived in great poverty in a village near London, until a friend
of hers, the Marquis ——, also an _emigré_, suggested to her that she
should write a novel. That same night she began “Adèle de Senanges,”
which she sold for £100 to a publisher in London, and after which she
continued by her writing to support herself and educate her boy at a
good English school. When she returned to France she lived at a small
_hôtel_ in an out-of-the-way part of Paris until she married M. de
Souza, the Portuguese Ambassador.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] “Carle” or Charles Vernet, son of the landscape and marine
painter Joseph, was a figure painter and father of Horace Vernet the
battle painter.
[13] The Queen, Marie Leczinska, died 1768.
[14] Grandson of Louis XV., afterwards Louis XVI. His father the
Dauphin, died 1765.
[15] Daughters of Louis XV.
[16] “Souvenirs de Mme. Vigée Le Brun,” t. 1, p. 48.
[17] “Souvenirs d’un Sexagenaire” (Arnault).
[18] Marie Thérèse Rodet.
[19] January 11, 1776.