The Foreign Quarterly Review Volume 18 PDF Download

Excerpt from Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. 20 We, therefore, do not quarrel with Madame Le-burn for all her minutiae, and we wish that others would follow her example, and lay their hearts bare before us. The maiden name of our author before us was Vigee; at six years of age she was placed in a convent, and did not quit it until she was eleven; during this period she gave proof of her prevailing talent, for she filled the margins of her own and her companions' copy-books with heads, and was often punished for drawing them on the walls of the sleeping-room with a piece of charcoal. At eight years of age she drew the head of an old man with a long beard on paper, which she took home to her father, who, struck with the talent it displayed, exclaimed, "You will be a painter, my child, or there never will be another." M. Vigee himself painted in crayons and in oils, in the style of Watteau, and to him belongs the anecdote which we have seen ascribed to others, namely, that, when he was painting a lady's portrait, and came to her mouth, she screwed it into all sorts of shapes to make it look smaller, on which he said, "Do not trouble yourself, madam; for, if you please, I will not make any mouth at all." From her mother Madame Lebrun received the most pious instruction, which fortified her mind, and produced the most excellent result in after life; she was never suffered to read romances till after she married, when the first was Clarissa Harlowe, which made a great impression on her: and, while her mother thus formed her character, her father improved her tastes and talents by his own lessons, and the society of all the artists and writers of merit who were then living. His tenderness and affection seem never to have been effaced from his daughter's mind, although he died from swallowing a fishbone, when she was only thirteen years old. Her best consolation under this heavy loss was that of assiduously studying the profession for which he and nature had destined her. She, always accompanied by her mother, constantly painted at the Palais Royal, from those pictures which are now in the possession of the Duke of Cleveland; but she very soon began to paint for money, in order to add to her mother's slender income, and to provide for the expenses of her brother's education. At last her mother married again, hoping thereby to improve the circumstances of her children; but she was mistaken, for, although the retired jeweller was a man of substance, he was dreadfully avaricious, and deprived his family of almost every enjoyment; he not only took possession of the money earned by his stepdaughter, but wore all the clothes left by his predecessor, and, as Madame Lebrun innocently says, "he did not even get them altered, to fit him, and it increased her disgust towards him." This must have been a season of great temptation for her, for she was not only sought for on account of her talents as an artist, but for the charms of her conversation; and several noblemen sat to her for their portraits for the pleasure of being in her company; but, to use her own expression, she painted "a regards perdus;" her mother always by her side, and her excellent precepts, and the devotion which she felt for her art, enabled her to resist the seductions which the most brilliant men of the court offered to her, and the acceptance of which would place her out of the reach of one who made her domestic life miserable. Among the celebrates who then frequented her atelier was Count Orloff, one of the assassins of Peter III. of Russia, whom she describes as a colossal person, who wore an equally colossal diamond upon his finger, and not at all prepossessing; but the great chamberlain Schouvaloff, the favorite of the empress Elizabeth, was remarkably polite and pleasing. She was also noticed by madame Geoffrin, who was celebrated for gathering round her all the wits of the age, and, who, without birth or fortune, contrived to make a living b