GS

In Paris, in the Rue Coquilliere, Louis the Fifteenth being King of
France--or rather the Pompadour holding sway thereover--there lived a
witty, amiable fellow who plied the art of painting portraits in oils
and pastels after the mediocre fashion that is called "pleasing." This
Louis Vigee and his wife, Jeanne Maissin, moved in the genial
enthusiastic circle of the lesser artists, passing through their sober
day without undue excitement; for fame and wealth and the prizes of
life were not for them. Boucher was lord of art; and La Tour and
Greuze and Chardin were at the height of their genius; but honest Louis
Vigee could but plod on at his pleasing portraits, and sigh that the
gods had not borne to him the immortal flame.

Yet he was to come near to the glory of it--nearer than he thought.
'Twas a pity that he was robbed of the splendour of basking in the
reflected radiance, and by a fish's bone.

It was to have its beginning in that year after the indolent but
obstinate king, having fallen foul of his Parliaments in his game of
facing-both-ways in the bitter strife 'twixt Church and people, patched
up a peace with the Parliament men.

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PLATE II.--MADAME VIGEE LE BRUN AND CHILD

(In the Louvre)

In Vigee Le Brun's portrait of herself and her child we see in full
career the Greek ideals that were come upon France--a France weary of
light trifling with life, and of mere butterfly flitting from flower to
flower.

[Illustration: Plate II.]

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Our worthy mediocre Vigee could remember the banished Parliament
re-entering Paris in triumph on that fourth day of September in 1754
amidst the exultant shouts of the people; the clergy looking on with a
scowl the while. On that same day was born to the Dauphin a son--the
little fellow called the Duke de Berry--whom we shall soon see
ascending the throne as the ill-starred Louis the Sixteenth, for the
Dauphin was to be taken before the old king died.

Honest waggish Vigee, painting industriously at his pleasing portraits,
would recall it well; since, early in the following year, there was
that to happen under his own modest roof which was to bring fame to his
name, though he should not live to bask in its full glow.

On the 10th of April 1755 there was born to him a little girl-child,
whom they christened Elizabeth Louise Vigee