When she had painted the head and sketched out the arms and figure, Mme. Le Brun was obliged to go to Paris. She intended to come back to finish her work, but she found the murder of Foulon and Berthier had just taken place, and the state of affairs was so alarming that her one object was to get out of France. The portrait fell into the hands of Count Louis de Narbonne, who restored it to her on her return—when she finished it.
The fate of Mme. Du Barry is well known. She escaped to England where she was kindly received, and where the great value of her diamonds enabled her to live quite well herself, and also to help many of the emigrés, to whom she was most generous. But the Duc de Brissac had remained concealed at Louveciennes, and she insisted on going back to him. The friends she made in England pointed out the danger of doing so, and did all they could to dissuade her—they even unharnessed the horses of her travelling carriage. It was all useless, she would go. Soon after her return to Louveciennes the Duc de Brissac was seized and carried away from her to be taken to Orléans. On the way he and his companions were attacked and murdered by the mob and his head brought to Mme. Du Barry. Then she herself was betrayed and denounced by a little negro named Zamore, who was in her service, and had been loaded with benefits and kindness by Louis XV. and by herself. In consequence of the denunciation of this wretch she was thrown into prison, tried, and executed at the end of 1793.
In all those terrible days she was the only woman whose courage failed at the last. She cried and entreated for help from the crowd around the scaffold, and that crowd began to be so moved by her terror and despair that the execution was hurried on lest they should interfere to prevent it.
Mme. Le Brun, alluding to this circumstance, remarks that in all probability the very heroism and calmness of the victims helped to prolong this horrible state of things.
“I have always been persuaded,” she says in one of her letters, “that if the victims of that time of execrable memory had not had the noble pride to die with courage, the Terror would have ceased much sooner. Those whose intelligence is not developed have too little imagination to be touched by silent suffering, and it is much easier to arouse the compassion than the imagination of the populace.”
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Raincy was afterwards bought by Junot, Duc d’Abrantès, who sold it again to Napoleon.
[26] The author of the play.
[27] Beaumarchais was the son of a watchmaker born at Paris 1732. His talent for music led to his giving lessons to Mesdames de France. He made a fortune by his financial talents, and was famous as an author. He wrote “The Marriage of Figaro,” “The Barber of Seville,” &c., was a freethinker, revolutionist, and at first member of the Commune of Paris; but he fell out of favour, was ruined, imprisoned in the Abbaye during the Terror, narrowly escaped with his life, and died some years afterwards.
[28] Son of the President of the Parliament of Flanders. He rose, it is said, by questionable means to a high position in finance.