Naples—Lady Hamilton—Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples—Mesdames
de France—Their escape—_Les chemises de Marat_—Rome—Terrible
news from France—Venice—Turin—The Comtesse de Provence—The 10th
August—The Refugees—Milan—Vienna—Delightful society—Prince von
Kaunitz—Life at Vienna.
In the autumn of 1790 Lisette went to Naples, with which she was
enchanted. She took a house on the Chiaja, looking across the bay
to Capri and close to the Russian Embassy. The Ambassador, Count
Scawronski, called immediately and begged her to breakfast and dine
always at his house, where, although not accepting this invitation,
she spent nearly all her evenings. She painted his wife, and, after
her, Emma Harte, then the mistress of Sir William Hamilton, as a
_bacchante_, lying on the sea-shore with her splendid chestnut hair
falling loosely about her in masses sufficient to cover her. Sir
William Hamilton, who was exceedingly avaricious, paid her a hundred
louis for the picture, and afterwards sold it in London for three
hundred guineas. Later on, Mme. Le Brun, having painted her as a Sybil
for the Duc de Brissac after she became Lady Hamilton, copied the head
and gave it to Sir William, who sold that also!
Another time she made a charcoal sketch of two heads on the door of a
summer-house by the sea, lent to her by Sir William Hamilton. Years
afterwards to her astonishment she saw them in England. He had cut
them out of the door and sold them to Lord Warwick!
Mme. Le Brun found Lady Hamilton, as she became shortly
afterwards—though extraordinarily beautiful—ignorant, ill-dressed,
without _esprit_ or conversation, ill-natured, and spiteful in her
way of talking about other people, the only topic she seemed capable
of discussing. She herself enjoyed Naples, as she did every other
pleasant episode in her delightful life. From the _loggia_ opening
out of her bedroom she looked down into an orange garden; from her
windows she could see constantly some picturesque or beautiful scene.
The costumes of the washerwomen who gathered round the fountain,
peasant girls dancing the _tarantella_, the fiery torches of the
fishermen scattered over the bay at night, all the life and colour and
incident of southern life spread like a panorama before her; and often
she would go out in a boat by moonlight or starlight upon the calm
sea, looking back upon the town rising like an amphitheatre from the
water’s edge.
She found as usual plenty of friends, the Princesse Joseph de Monaco
and Duchesse de Fleury amongst others, and the Baron de Talleyrand,
then French Ambassador. They made excursions to Vesuvius, Pompei,
Capri, Ischia, and all the lovely places in the neighbourhood.
One day the Baron de Talleyrand announced that the Queen wished her
to paint the portraits of her two eldest daughters, whose marriages
she was just going to Vienna to arrange.[39]
Lisette liked the Queen of Naples much better than her elder sister,
the Infanta of Parma. Though less beautiful than her younger sister,
Marie Antoinette, yet she bore a strong resemblance to her, and had
the remains of great beauty.
Mme. Le Brun describes her as affectionate, simple, and royally
generous. Hearing that the French Ambassador to Venice, M. de
Bombelle, was the only one who refused to sign the Constitution,
thereby reducing himself and his family to poverty; she wrote to him
that all sovereigns owed a debt of gratitude to faithful subjects, and
gave him a pension of twelve thousand francs. Two of his sons became
Austrian ministers at Turin and Berne, another was Grand-Master of the
household of Marie Louise.
The most infamous calumnies were circulated about Marie Caroline when
Napoleon wanted her kingdom for Caroline Murat; but she had a brave,
strong character and plenty of brains. The government was carried on
by her, for the King could or would do nothing but loiter about at
Caserta.
Lisette painted the two Princesses and the Prince Royal before
returning to Rome, where she had no sooner arrived than she had to go
back to Naples to paint the Queen.
She had had great success in the number of important pictures she
painted at Naples; and her career at Rome was equally prosperous.
She had plenty of money now, and nobody to meddle with it, and if it
had not been for the constant anxiety about France she would have been
perfectly happy. But French news was difficult to get and bad when it
was obtained.
[Illustration:
_E. H. Bearne_
ROME]
Mesdames de France, the two last remaining daughters of Louis XV.,
arrived in Rome and at once sent for Mme. Le Brun, who was delighted
to see them again. They had with great difficulty succeeded in getting
away, and had been most anxious to take their niece, Madame Elizabeth,
with them. In vain they entreated her to come, she persisted in
staying with the King and Queen, and sacrificed her life in so doing.
Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire set off early in 1791. Their whole
journey was a perpetual danger. After getting their passports signed
with difficulty by the Commune, they were denounced at Sèvres by a
maid-servant, stopped by the Jacobins and accused of being concerned
in plots and of taking money out of the country, and detained for a
fortnight, when they managed to get permission to go on, and left
at 10 o’clock on a Saturday night, arriving on Sunday morning at
Fontainebleau, where they were again stopped and threatened by the
mob, who were just going to be joined by the _gardes nationaux_ when a
hundred _Chasseurs de Lorraine_, luckily quartered there, charged the
mob, opened the gates, and passed the carriages on. At Arnay-le-Duc
they were detained for eleven days, and only allowed to proceed when
the Comte de Narbonne appeared with a permission extorted by Mirabeau
from the revolutionary government at Paris.
They hurried away just in time, crossed the Mont Cenis, which was
covered with snow, and at the foot of which they were met by their
nephew, the Comte d’Artois. The King of Sardinia, husband of their
niece,[40] the eldest sister of Louis XVI. had sent four hundred
soldiers to clear away the snow, and escorted by the Comte d’Artois
they arrived safely at Turin where all the _noblesse_ were assembled
to receive them at the entrance of the royal palace. They arrived at
Rome in April.
The disgraceful proceedings and cowardly, preposterous fear of two
old ladies, which had made the radical government contemptible and
ridiculous, caused the following absurd story to be published in a
French newspaper:—
“Les chemises de Marat, ou l’arrestation de Mesdames, tantes du Roi à
Arnay-le-Duc.
“Marat avait dit dans un journal que les chemises de Mesdames lui
appartenaient. Les patriotes de province crurent de bonne foi que
Mesdames avaient emporté les chemises de Marat, et les habitants
d’Arnay-ci-devant-le-duc sachant qu’elles devaient passer par là,
decidèrent qu’il fallait les arrêter pour leur, faire rendre les
chemises qu’elles avaient voleés.... On les fait descendre de voiture
et les officiers municipales avec leurs habits noirs, leur gravité,
leurs écharpes, leur civism et leurs perruques, disent à Mesdames:
“(_Air_: ‘Rendez-moi mon écuelle de bois.’)
“Donnez-nous les chemises
À Marat,
Donnez-nous les chemises;
Nous savons à n’en douter pas
Que vous les avez prises.
“Mme. Adélaïde, étonnée d’un tel propos répond sur le même air:
“Je n’ai point les chemises
De Marat,
Je n’ai point les chemises;
Cherchez, Messieurs les magistrats
Cherchez dans nos valises.
“Mme. Victoire dit à son tour:
“Avait-il des chemises,
Marat?
Avait il des chemises?
Moi, je crois qu’il n’en avait pas,
Où les aurait-il prises?
“MM. les magistrats, connaissant de réputation les chemises de
l’écrivain, répondent avec une gravité toute municipale:
“Il en avait trois grises
Marat,
Il en avait trois grises,
Avec l’argent de son fatras
Sur le Pont Neuf acquises.
“La municipalité se met alors en devoir de fouiller dans les malles de
Mesdames, en disant:
“Cherchons bien les chemises
À Marat
Cherchons bien les chemises
C’est pour vous un fort vilain cas
Si vous les avez prises.
“Enfin, ne pouvant pas distinguer, parmi tant de chemises lesquelles
appartenaient à Marat, et les tantes du roi persistant à nier
qu’elles eussent, derobé celles du grand homme, la municipalité
d’Arnay-ci-devant-le-duc, accorda à Mesdames la permission de
continuer leur voyage après les avoir retenues prisonnières l’espace
de dix jours.”
Mme. Le Brun painted the portrait first of Madame Adélaïde, then of
Madame Victoire.
The latter, during her last sitting, said to her—
“I have received some news which fills me with joy; I hear the
King has escaped from France, and I have just written to him, only
addressing—To His Majesty the King of France. They will know very well
where to find him,” she added smiling.
Mme. Le Brun returned home and told the good news to her daughter’s
governess. But while they were rejoicing over it they, in the evening,
heard one of their servants singing below, a sullen, gloomy fellow who
never used to sing, and whom they knew to be a revolutionist. Looking
at each other in terror they exclaimed—
“Some misfortune has happened to the King.”
Next morning they heard of the arrest of the royal family at Varennes.
Most of the servants were bribed by the Jacobins to spy upon their
masters, and knew much better than they what was going on in France.
Many of them used to go and meet the _courrier_ who told them much
more than was contained in the letters he brought. After having lived
two years and a half in Italy, chiefly in Rome, Mme. Le Brun began to
think of returning to France.
How she could have entertained so mad an idea seems inexplicable; but
in fact, bad as the French news was, she was far from understanding
the frightful state of the country. In those days news travelled
slowly, important events only became partially known long after they
had taken place; and as to private letters, people dared not put in
them anything which might endanger either themselves or their friends.
Her mother, brother, and sister-in-law, to all of whom she was
strongly attached, were in France, and she was anxious to see them;
so, with deep regret and many tears, she left Rome and turned her
steps northward, of course with her child and governess.
They left Rome late in April, 1792, and travelled slowly along by
Perugia, Florence, Siena, Parma, and Mantova to Venice, where they
arrived the eve of the Ascension, and saw the splendid ceremony of the
marriage of the Doge and the Adriatic. There was a magnificent _fête_
in the evening, the battle of the gondoliers and illumination of the
_Piazza di San Marco_; where a fair as well as the illumination went
on for a fortnight.
Venice was crowded with foreigners, amongst whom was one of the
English princes; and Lisette’s friend, the Princesse Joseph de Monaco,
whom she saw for the last time, she also being on her way to France,
where she met her death.
She also met an acquaintance, M. Denon, who introduced her to the
Comtesse Marini, of whom he was then the _cavalière servente_; and who
at once invited her to go that evening to a _café_.
Lisette, to whom such an invitation was unfamiliar, accepted however;
and the Countess then said—
“Have you no friend to accompany you?”
“I have no one with me,” replied she, “but my daughter and her
governess.”
“Oh, well!” said the Countess, “you must anyhow appear to have
somebody; I will lend you M. Denon all the time you are here; he will
give you his arm, I will take somebody else’s arm, and people will
think I have quarrelled with him, for you can’t go about here without
_un ami_.”
[Illustration:
_E. H. Bearne_
VENICE]
The arrangement proved entirely satisfactory. Lisette went about
all day with M. Denon, in gondolas, and to see everything—churches,
pictures, palaces; every one who knows Venice even now, knows it as a
place of enchantment, unlike anything else on earth; and in those days
the Doge still reigned, modern desecrations and eyesores were not, and
the beauty of the life and surroundings of the Queen of the Adriatic
was supreme.
Lisette frequented chiefly the society of the Spanish Ambassadress,
with whom she went to the Opera at the far-famed Fenice, and finally
left Venice and went by Padova, Vicenza, and Verona to Turin, where
she had letters of introduction from Mesdames to the Queen, whose
portrait they wished her to paint for them.
In former years, before the marriage of the Queen, Mme. Le Brun had
seen her, as a very young girl, at the court of her grandfather, Louis
XV., when she was so fat that she was called _le gros Madame_. She
was now pale and thin, whether from the austerities of devotion she
now practised, or from her grief at the misfortunes of her family and
anxiety for her sister, Madame Elizabeth, and her eldest brother, the
King of France.
She would not have her portrait done, saying that she was very sorry
to refuse her aunts, but as she had renounced the world she could not
have her picture taken. She had cut her hair short and her dress was
very simple. The King looked nearly as pale and thin.
They received Mme. Le Brun very kindly, and she next went to see the
Comtesse de Provence, for the second and third brothers, the Counts of
Provence and Artois, had taken refuge at their sister’s court.
The Comtesse de Provence was delighted to see Mme. Le Brun again,
and arranged various excursions, which they made together into the
mountains, in spite of the intense heat, for the summer was at its
height. After spending some time in Turin, Signor Porporati offered
to lend Mme. Le Brun a farm in the country, where he had a few rooms
furnished for himself, and where he used often to go in hot weather.
This exactly suited her, for the heat was overpowering, her little
girl was made quite ill by it; and with joyful haste, she, with the
governess, child, and servants, established themselves amongst the
meadows, woods, and streams which surrounded the farm house.
There she rested, spending the days out of doors in the cool green
country, and looking forward to her approaching return to France; when
one evening a letter was brought her from M. de Rivière, the brother
of her sister-in-law, which told her of the horrible events of the
10th of August, the attack on the Tuileries, the imprisonment of the
Royal Family, the massacres and horrors of all kinds still going on.
Overcome with grief at this terrible news, and filled with
self-reproach for the peaceful happiness of her own life, the solitude
of the place became insupportable, and she at once returned to Turin.
Had not this been sufficient to put a stop to all idea of going to
France, the sights which met them as the little party entered Turin
would have done so.
The streets and squares were thronged with French refugees, who had
fled, and were still flying, from France. They arrived by thousands,
men, women, and children of all ranks and ages, most of them without
luggage, money, or even food; having had no time to take anything with
them or think of anything but saving their lives. The old Duchesse
de Villeroi had been supported on the journey by her maid, who had
enough money to get food for ten sous a day. Women, who had never
been in carts before, were prematurely confined on the road, owing
to the jolting; children were crying for food, it was a heartrending
spectacle. The King gave orders that food and lodging should be found
for them, but there was not room to put them all in; the Comtesse de
Provence was having food carried about the streets, and Lisette, like
the rest, gave all the help in her power, going round with the equerry
of Madame to look for rooms and get provisions.
Seeing a handsome, noble-looking old officer, wearing the Cross of
St. Louis, leaning against the corner of a street, with despair in
his face, asking for nothing, but evidently faint with hunger, they
went up and gave him what little money they had left, which he took,
thanking them with a voice broken by sobs. The next morning he and
several others were lodged in the King’s palace, no other rooms being
forthcoming.
The weeks following were terrible for Lisette, the anxiety and
agitation she was in being increased by the non-appearance of M. de
Rivière, who had told her to expect him at Turin. At last, a fortnight
later than the day fixed, he arrived, so dreadfully changed that
she hardly recognised him. As he crossed the bridge of Beauvoisin
he had seen the priests being massacred, and that and all the other
atrocities he had witnessed had thrown him into a fever, which had
detained him for some time at Chambéry.
With fear and trembling Lisette inquired for her relations, but was
assured that her mother was well, and never left Neuilly, that M. Le
Brun was all right at Paris, and that her brother and his wife and
child were safe in hiding.
Having decided to stop at Turin and wait for further news, she took a
little house in a vineyard near the town. M. de Rivière lodged with
her, and gradually recovered amongst the peaceful surroundings. Even
the sight of the honest, quiet, peaceable peasants did them good.
They walked among the vineyards, or in a neighbouring wood, where
steep paths led to little churches and chapels, in which they attended
mass on Sundays; and Lisette resumed her work, painting amongst other
things a picture, “_Une baigneuse_,” which she sold at once to a
Russian prince, and a portrait of his daughter as a present to Signor
Porporati.
After a time she went to Milan, where she was received with great
honour. The first evening she was serenaded by all the young men of
the chief Milanese families, but, not knowing that all this music was
on her account, she sat listening and enjoying it with composure,
until her landlady came and explained. She made an excursion to the
lakes, and on her return to Milan decided to go to Vienna, seeing that
France would be out of the question for an indefinite time.
At a concert in Milan she made the acquaintance of the Countess
Bistri, a beautiful Pole, who was also going to Vienna with her
husband. They arranged to travel together, and this was the beginning
of a long and intimate friendship.
The Count and Countess were kind, excellent people, who had just
brought with them a poor old emigrant priest, and another younger one,
whom they had picked up on the road after he had escaped from the
massacre of the bridge of Beauvoisin. They had only a carriage with
two places, but they had put the old man between them and the young
one behind the carriage, and had taken the greatest care of them.
They travelled from Milan to Vienna through the magnificent scenery of
Tyrol and Styria, and arrived safely at the Austrian capital, where
Mme. Le Brun spent two years and a half happily and prosperously.
Every one was eager to invite her to their houses, and the numerous
portraits she painted made her sojourn in Austria as profitable as it
was pleasant.
She brought, of course, many letters of introduction, of which the
first she availed herself was to the Countess von Thoum, at whose
_soirées_ she met all the most important personages in Vienna, and
also many French _emigrés_ amongst whom, to her great joy, was her old
friend the Comte de Vaudreuil.
Never, she afterwards remarked, had she seen so many pretty women
together as in the _salon_ of Mme. de Thoum; but what surprised her
was that most of them did needlework sitting round a large table all
the evening. They would also knit in their boxes at the opera; but it
was explained that this was for charity. In other respects she found
society at Vienna very much the same as at Paris before the advent of
the Revolution.
Another of her introductions was to Prince von Kaunitz, the great
Minister of Maria Theresa, whose power and influence had been
such that he was called _le cocher de l’Europe_;[41] and whose
disinterested single-minded patriotism was shown in his answer, when,
having proposed a certain field-marshal as president of the council of
war, the Empress remarked—
“But that man is your declared enemy.”
“Madame,” he replied, “that man is the friend of the State, which is
the only thing that ought to be considered.”
Kaunitz was now eighty-three years old, tall, thin, and upright. His
great intellect, taste, and judgment seemed unimpaired, and he prided
himself on his perfect seat on horseback. In costume and appearance he
resembled the splendid cavaliers of the court of Louis XIV.
His life at Vienna was that of a _grand seigneur_ of the most
illustrious order, and on New Year’s day and on his _fête_, the crowd
that flocked to his house to congratulate him was so enormous that he
might have been supposed to be the Emperor himself.
He was extremely kind to Mme. Le Brun, whom he always called “_ma
bonne amie_”; she was often at his house, though she did not care for
the great dinners of never less than thirty people, which were always
at seven o’clock—in those days considered a late hour.
Lisette, in fact, liked to paint all the morning, dine by herself at
half-past two, then take a _siesta_, and devote the latter part of the
day and evening to social engagements.
Prince von Kaunitz desired that her picture of the Sibyl should be
exhibited for a fortnight in his _salon_, where all the court and
town came to see it. Mme. Le Brun made also the acquaintance of the
celebrated painter of battles, Casanova.
One evening at a dinner-party of Prince von Kaunitz, when the
conversation turned upon painting, some one was speaking of Rubens
being appointed ambassador.
An old German baroness exclaimed—
“What? A painter ambassador? Doubtless it must have been an ambassador
who amused himself by painting.”
“No, Madame,” replied Casanova, “he was a painter who amused himself
by being ambassador.”
One of her new friends was the Countess Kinska, who, as she observed,
was “neither maid, wife, nor widow,” for she and her husband had been
married according to their parents’ arrangement, without ever having
seen each other, and after the ceremony Count Kinska, turning to her,
said—
“Madame, we have obeyed our parents. I leave you with regret, but I
cannot conceal from you that for a long time I have been devoted to
another woman. I cannot live without her, and I am going back to her.”
So saying, he got into the carriage that was waiting at the church
door, and she saw no more of him.
The Countess was extremely pretty, attractive, and amiable. One day
while she was sitting for her portrait, Mme. Le Brun had occasion to
send for Mme. Charot, her nursery-governess, who came in looking so
pleased that she asked what had happened.
“I have just had a letter from my husband,” she said; “he tells me
that they have put me on the list of _emigrés_. I shall lose my eight
hundred francs _de rente_, but I console myself for that, as there I
am on the list of respectable people.”
A few minutes later the Countess said that Mme. Le Brun’s painting
blouse was so convenient she wished she had one like it; and in reply
to her offer to lend her one said she would much rather Mme. Charot
made it, for which she would send the linen. When it was finished she
gave Mme. Charot ten louis.
M. de Rivière was also at Vienna, and took part in all the private
theatricals and diversions going on.
Mme. Le Brun painted a remarkable portrait of Mlle. Fries, the great
banker’s daughter, as Sappho, she being an excellent musician. Also of
the Baron and Baroness Strogonoff with whom she became very intimate.
At a State ball she first saw again the Empress, Marie Thérèse,
daughter of the Queen of Naples, whom she found much changed in
appearance. She had painted her portrait in 1792.
She also was overjoyed to meet the Comtesse de Brionne, Princesse de
Lorraine, one of the earliest friends who had shown her unvarying
kindness at the beginning of her career—and she resumed her old habit
of going often to supper with her. The Polignac, too, had a place
near Vienna, in fact, wherever she went Lisette met numbers of her
unfortunate countrymen and acquaintance driven into exile, watching in
despair the course of events in France.
She scarcely dared read the newspapers, since one day on opening
one she had seen in the death list the names of nine persons of her
acquaintance; and all her Austrian friends tried to prevent her from
hearing or knowing what was going on. A letter from her brother,
however, brought her the fatal news of the murder of the King and
Queen.
She was as happy at Vienna as she could be anywhere under the
circumstances. During the winter she had the most brilliant society in
Europe, and for the summer she had taken a little house at Schönbrunn,
near the Polignac, in a lovely situation, to which she always retired
when Vienna became too hot, and where she took long solitary walks by
the Danube, or sat and sketched under the trees.
Here she finished the portrait of the young Princess von Lichtenstein,
as Iris. As she was represented with bare feet, her husband told Mme.
Le Brun that when it was hung in his gallery, and the heads of the
family came to see it, they were all extremely scandalised, so he had
placed a pair of little shoes on the ground under it, and told the
grand-parents they had dropped off.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] The eldest married the Emperor Francis II., the second the Grand
Duke of Tuscany.
[40] Madame Clotilde, eldest daughter of the Dauphin, son of Louis
XV., married the King of Sardinia.
[41] The coachman of Europe.