Vigée Le Brun

by Haldane Macfall

Then came strife amongst the Jacobins themselves. Danton and Robespierre fought the bloodthirsty villain Hébert for life, and overthrew him; the Hébertists went to the guillotine like the curs they were. Danton, with his appeals for cessation of the Terror, alone now stood between Robespierre and supreme power; Danton, Camille Desmoulins, d'Eglantine, and their fellows went to the guillotine.

But other as able and resolute men had determined that Robespierre and his Terror must end; Robespierre went to the guillotine. The Revolution of the Ninth Thermidor put an end to the Terror in July 1794.

It was whilst at Vienna, in her thirty-ninth year, on the 3rd of June 1794, during the Terror, that Vigée Le Brun took out her act of divorce. And it was in this year that "citizen Le Brun" published in Paris his Précis historique de la vie de la citoyenne Le Brun, peintre!

In her fortieth year Vigée Le Brun went from Vienna to Prague; and, getting roaming again, passed through Dresden to Berlin and on to St. Petersburg, where she arrived in the July of this same year of 1795.

Her welcome in St. Petersburg must have been very sweet to the wandering exile. On the morrow of her arrival the Empress Catherine had her presented. She found at St. Petersburg many of her old friends, fled from the Revolution.

To her all Europe became a second country; but St. Petersburg her second home. Here, in fact, were larger numbers of those that had meant Paris to her than she could now have found in Paris itself. She was besides a spoiled child of the Court.

Her life at St. Petersburg was a very busy one. She settled down at once to the industrious practice of that art that was breath and life and holiday to her—working from morning until nightfall, and happy in it all. She painted something like forty-eight portraits in St. Petersburg. The Empress Catherine, now an old woman, was to have sat to her, and had appointed the day and hour, but her "to-day at eight" was not to be; apoplexy struck down her good-will; she was found dead in her room. The six years in St. Petersburg were amongst the happiest years of the artist's life, and the richest for her fortunes. Her reception into the Academy of St. Petersburg was almost a State triumph.

Meanwhile, the armies of France were winning the respect of the world by their gallantry and skill in war. The 23rd of September 1795 saw France ruled by the Directory. The 5th of October, the "Day of the Sections," led to Napoleon Bonaparte's employment as second in command of the army—the young general was soon commander-in-chief. And France thenceforth advanced, with all the genius of her race to that splendid and astounding recovery of her fortunes and to that greatness which became the wonder of the world.

The Revolution of the 18th and 19th of Brumaire (9th and 10th November 1799) ended the Directory and set the people's idol, Napoleon Bonaparte, at the helm of her mighty State as First Consul.

There was now little need—indeed there had not been for some time any need—for Vigée Le Brun to remain an exile; but, as a matter of fact, exile she had found to be so sweet a thing, so magnificent and perpetual a triumph, so delightful an existence, that Paris had early ceased to call her. Her experience with her rascally husband scarcely beckoned her back to her old home; she was now sole mistress of her considerable earnings. Besides, the Paris of her delight had been the Paris of Marie Antoinette—aristocratic Paris. Where was that Paris to be found? The personages and the atmosphere and the palaces and homes of all that Paris meant to her were gone into thin air—a sad memory. During her exile her mother had died; her last link with Paris died with her. She probably rarely gave the city of her youth's delight a thought, and likely enough never would have given it another serious one, had not destiny now struck her a blow which she bitterly resented; but which she should have foreseen to be as inevitable as death. Her daughter betrothed herself to, and married, a Russian, M. Nigris, secretary to the Count Czernicheff. Vigée Le Brun had been sorely tempted to oppose the match, for she foresaw that the girl would find no happiness in the union. She had poured out upon her child all the passionate love that had been so miserably thwarted in her own marriage. It had been more than bitterness to her to note that whilst her love for her girl increased, the girl's love for her seemed to dwindle. It was the bitterest blow that Vigée Le Brun had ever known; and she had been struck more than once. It turned the wanderer's eyes homewards to her wrecked Paris. Russia was no longer a delight to her. She became restless. The wander-fever came upon her; she got roaming; she went to Moscow for five or six months; but she could not settle—she decided to leave Russia.