Vien, who had been first painter to the King; Gérard, Gros, and Girodet, the great portrait painters (all pupils of David), and her old friend Robert, were constant guests. With David she was not on friendly terms; his crimes and cruelties during the Revolution caused her to regard him with horror. He had caused Robert to be arrested, and had done all he could to increase the horrors of his imprisonment. He had also tried to circulate the malicious reports about Calonne and Mme. Le Brun, of whom he was jealous, though his real love for his art made him acknowledge the excellence of her work.
One day Lisette met him at the house of Isabey, who, having been his pupil, kept friends with him out of gratitude, although his principles and actions were abhorrent to him. It happened that she was his partner at cards, and being rather distraite, made various mistakes, which irritated David, who was always rude and ill-tempered, and exclaimed angrily, “But you made me lose by these stupid mistakes. Why didn’t you play me your king of diamonds? Tell me that, I say!”
“Why?” answered she contemptuously; “because I know to what fate you condemn kings!”
David turned pale, made his escape, and for a long time would not go to the house for fear of meeting her. [49] She was afterwards told by Gros that David would like to go and see her, but her silence expressed her refusal. Soon after the return of Mme. Le Brun, Napoleon sent M. Denon to order from her the portrait of his sister, Caroline Murat. She did not like to refuse, although the price given (1,800 francs) was less than half what she usually got, and Caroline Murat was so insufferable that it made the process a penance. She appeared with two maids, whom she wanted to do her hair while she was being painted. On being told that this was impossible, she consented to dismiss them, but she kept Mme. Le Brun at Paris all the summer by her intolerable behaviour. She was always changing her dress or coiffure, which had to be painted out and done over again. She was never punctual, and often did not come at all, when she had made the appointment; she was continually wanting alterations and giving so much trouble, that one day Mme. Le Brun remarked to M. Denon, loudly enough for her to hear—
“I have painted real princesses and they have never tormented or kept me waiting.”
In 1808 and 1809 Mme. Le Brun travelled in Switzerland, with which she was enraptured; after which she bought a country house at Louveciennes, where in future she passed the greater part of the year, only spending the winter in Paris.
The pavilion of Mme. Du Barry had been sacked by the Revolutionists, only the walls were standing, while the palaces of Marly, Sceaux, and Bellevue had entirely disappeared.
But the woods, the meadows, the Seine, and the general beauty of the landscape delighted Mme. Le Brun, who, after all her wanderings, began to have a longing for rest, became more and more attached to her home as the years passed, and spent more and more of her time there.
The decline and fall of the Empire were no calamity to her, and she witnessed with heartfelt joy the return of the King, although she was seriously inconvenienced by the arrival of the Allies at Louveciennes in 1814. Although it was only March, she had already established herself there, and on the 31st at about eleven o’clock she had just gone to bed when the village was filled with Prussian soldiers, who pillaged the houses, and three of whom forced their way into her bedroom, accompanied by her Swiss servant Joseph, entreating and remonstrating in vain. They stole her gold snuff-box and many other things, and it was four hours before they could be got out of the house.
Next morning she escaped to St. Germain, and then to Paris, leaving Joseph to take what care he could of her property, but the wine was all drunk out of the cellar, the garden and courtyard ravaged, and the house ransacked. To all remonstrances the Prussians replied that the French had done much worse things in Germany; which was true enough.