The Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun

by Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

London
Grant Richards
1904

Copyright, 1903, by
Doubleday, Page & Company

Printed by Manhattan Press
New York. N. Y., U. S. A.

PREFATORY NOTE

Madame Lebrun brought out her Memoirs at the suggestion of her friend, the Princess Dolgoruki, in 1835. The authoress was born in 1756, at Paris, where she died in 1842. She was the daughter of Louis Vigée, an obscure portrait painter. Her baptismal name was Marie Louise Elisabeth. In 1776 Mademoiselle Vigée was married to Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, a notable picture dealer and critic, known also to his contemporaries as an inveterate gambler.

This book forms a rendering of Madame Carette's edition of the Lebrun Memoirs, slightly abridged for the sake of uniformity with the "Memoirs of the Countess Potocka" and the "Memoirs of a Contemporary," issuing from the same hands as the present volume.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. Youth. PAGE

Precocious Talents Manifested — Mlle. Vigée's Father and Mother — Death of Her Father — A Friend of Her Girlhood — Her Mother Remarries — Mlle. Vigée's First Portrait of Note (Count Schouvaloff) — Acquaintance with Mme. Geoffrin — The Authoress's Puritanical Bringing-up — Male Sitters Attempt Flirtation — Public Resorts of Paris Before the Revolution [3]

Chapter II. Up the Ladder of Fame.