nt his daughter
to people whose acquaintance was of value to her. She was but twelve
years old at the time of his death, and he had already so encouraged her
talents as to make her future comparatively easy for her.

Elizabeth passed five years of her childhood in a convent, where she
constantly busied herself in sketching everything that she saw. She tells
of her intense pleasure in the use of her pencil, and says that her
passion for painting was innate and never grew less, but increased in
charm as she grew older. She claimed that it was a source of perpetual
youth, and that she owed to it her acquaintance and friendship with the
most delightful men and women of Europe.

While still a young girl, Mlle. Vigee studied under Briard, Doyen, and
Greuze, but Joseph Vernet advised her to study the works of Italian and
Flemish masters, and, above all, to study Nature for herself--to follow
no school or system. To this advice Mme. Le Brun attributed her success.

When sixteen years old she presented two portraits to the French
Academy, and was thus early brought to public notice.

When twenty-one she married M. Le Brun, of whom she speaks discreetly in
her story of her life, but it was well known that he was of dissipated
habits and did not hesitate to spend all that his wife could earn. When
she left France, thirteen years after her marriage, she had not so much
as twenty francs, although she had earned a million!

She painted portraits of many eminent people, and was esteemed as a
friend by men and women of culture and high position. The friendship
between the artist and Marie Antoinette was a sincere and deep affection
between two women, neither of whom remembered that one of them was a
queen. It was a great advantage to the artist to be thus intimately
associated with her sovereign lady. Even in the great state picture of
the Queen surrounded by her children, at Versailles, one realizes the
tenderness of the painter as she lovingly reproduced her friend.

Marie Antoinette desired that Mme. Le Brun should be elected to the
Academy; Vernet approved it, and an unusual honor was shown her in being
made an Academician before the completion of her reception picture. At
that time it was a great advantage to be a member of the Academy, as no
other artists were permitted to exhibit their works in the Salon of the
Beaux-Arts.

Mme. Le Brun had one habit with which she allowed nothing to interfere,
which was taking a rest aft