eir feet, "not omitting the Duchess of Chartres and the King of
Sweden," and turning to the blushing Elizabeth, applauded her "with
transports"!

So much for France within the walls of the Royal Academy. But France
without! The great minister, Turgot, baffled by the selfishness of the
privileged classes, fell. But Louis called to power near as good a
man, worthy banker Neckar. In an unfortunate hour for the Royal house,
and against the will of the king, be it credited, and to the
bewilderment of Neckar, the nation having gone mad with enthusiasm over
the prospect of an alliance with Britain's revolted American colonies,
war was declared against England, France undertaking not to conclude
peace until the colonies were free. The success of the revolted
colonies made the Revolution in France a certainty. The fall of Neckar
and the setting up of the reckless and incompetent Calonne over the
destinies of France brought the shout of the Democracy to the gardens
of the king. Vigee Le Brun's picture of the dandified man certainly
does not show him a leader of great enterprises. His reckless
extravagance satisfied the nobles; it brought bankruptcy stalking to
the doors of the king's palace. The distress and sufferings of the
people became unbearable. The miserable scandal of the diamond
necklace added to the discredit of the queen. The Royal family and the
Court sank further in the people's respect.

As for Vigee Le Brun, she was come into her kingdom. And it is during
those twenty years, from shortly after her marriage until she was
forty, that her best and most brilliant portraiture belongs, before the
hardness and dryness of her later style showed signs of the decay of
her powers.

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PLATE V.--THE TWO ELDER CHILDREN OF MARIE ANTOINETTE--THE FIRST DAUPHIN
(born 1781, died 1789) AND THE MADAME ROYALE

(At Versailles)

The little Dauphin of four years, and his seven-year-old sister, the
Madame Royale, seated on a bank, the boy's hat thrown at his feet upon
the flower-strewn ground--a work in which Vigee Le Brun's colour-sense,
her fine arrangement, and her feeling for style reach to their highest
flight. The handsome boy was mercifully taken at the dawn of the
Revolution; the girl was to know all its terrors.

[Illustration: Plate V.]

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To its earliest, freshest years