“I was far from the thought of marrying M. Le Brun, although he possessed a handsome face and agreeable person; but my mother, who imagined him very rich, never ceased urging me not to refuse so advantageous a proposal. So at length I yielded; but the marriage was only an exchange of one kind of trouble for another. Not that M. Le Brun was a bad-hearted man. His character showed a mixture of softness and vehemence; and his complaisance to every one made him popular. But he was unhappily too fond of the society of disreputable females, and this degrading propensity led him to a passion for gaming that ruined both of us in point of fortune. So completely had he run through all we possessed, that in 1789 I had not twenty francs for my journey out of France, although my earnings had amounted to more than a million.”
The marriage, which on the husband’s part was a mere matter of speculation, for he relied on the talents of his bride to rid him of his creditors, and enable him to live in ease and luxury, was one of those alliances common in Paris in the reign of Louis XV. The experience of our heroine was characteristic of the times. Le Brun had been previously engaged to the daughter of a wealthy Dutch picture-dealer, with whom he had transacted business. He begged his wife to keep their marriage a secret till his former business arrangements were satisfactorily adjusted. Madame consented, although she was placed in a most painful position, being beset with warnings and entreaties from her friends, urging her not to enter into a union sure to be productive of unhappiness—when, alas! the mischief was already accomplished. The Duchesse d’Aremberg predicted misery as the result of such a marriage; the court jeweler, Auber, a friend of her youth, advised her “rather to tie a stone round her neck and throw herself into the river than to commit such a piece of folly and madness.”
The young wife, however, still kept her faith in the excellence of her beloved. At last the completion of his business arrangements enabled him to declare the marriage publicly, and very soon it appeared that all these warnings were but too well founded. Le Brun first took possession of all the hard-earned property of his wife, and compelled her to increase her income by taking pupils. The sole advantage this accession of means procured for her was the more active and incessant employment that prevented her from feeling too bitterly the disappointment of her hopes of happiness in domestic life. Her husband took the money paid for her pictures and lessons to squander it on his own selfish indulgences. He occupied the first floor of the house, furnished in magnificent style, and surrounded himself with costly luxuries; while his wife was obliged to content herself with the second story, and with very plain living. Such a state of things in married life, however, was not unusual toward the close of the reign of Louis XV., and it excited no surprise.
While matters stood thus, Le Brun obtained the credit of being an indulgent husband by the indifference he showed in allowing even persons of questionable character to visit his wife, while he seldom appeared in her circles, and by his disregard of sundry cautions and rumors on the subject. Scandal, which rarely spares an ill-used wife, unless the austere seclusion of her life be more than hermit-like, whispered terrible things of Madame Le Brun, and she was even accused of owing the large sums paid for her pictures more to personal favors than to her merit as a painter. Conscious of innocence, she was wont to complain to her husband of such injustice, and he would answer, jestingly,
“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—