“What gives you the right to laugh at us, Monsieur?” asked one of them, with irritation.
“Your youth, mes amis; and above all your naïveté. Laws are like sauces: you should never see them made.”
He bowed and turned away; it was Mirabeau.
The acquaintance thus begun was a fortunate one for Isabey. In despair at the disappearance of the court and apparently of his own chance of getting on with his profession, he was thinking of giving it up. Mirabeau advised him to stick to it and gave him the commission to paint his own portrait.
He persevered accordingly, passed safely through the Revolution, and was a favourite court painter during the Empire and Restoration.
One dark, gloomy day, during the height of the Terror, he was sitting in his studio early in the morning, busily making up the fire in his stove, for it was bitterly cold. There was a knock at the door, and a woman wrapped in a large cloak stood on the threshold, saying—
“You are the painter, Isabey?”
“Yes. What do you want of me?”
“I want you to do my portrait at once.”