enius with the
passionate love of a child that is the wondrous heritage of woman; none
the less religious in that it apes no show of religion. We see the age
of free thought stating the innate religion of free thought; as
Renaissance Italy painted paganism in religious disguise with the
innate irreligion of its day.

In all her portraiture one is struck by the fact that Vigee Le Brun
took much pains to arrange the draperies in what she considered
picturesque fashion rather than that she painted the ordinary gowns of
her day as her sitters wore them on entering her studio. And we have
her own word for it in her _Souvenirs_ (wherein the careful record of
each picture that she painted may be found) that the dress of most
women of the time seemed ugly to her--as it does to so many artists,
generally not the best, in all times--indeed, she used every ounce of
tact that she possessed in order to "arrange" the draperies. She
sternly set her face against the use of powder and paint that the
fashion of her century put upon complexions even of the most delicate
beauties; and she always, when she could, arranged the hair of the
women sitters. She tells, not without pride, how, having persuaded the
beautiful Duchess of Grammont-Caderousse to put off paint and powder,
and to allow her to arrange her jet-black hair, drawing it down over
the forehead and separating it over the brow and arranging it in
irregular little curls, the duchess went to the theatre as she was, and
created the fashion thereby, in spite of the fact that Vigee Le Brun
could never persuade the queen to give in to her, Marie Antoinette
replying to all her beguilings: "I shall be the last to follow the
fashion; I do not wish them to say that I am trying to hide my huge
forehead."

Marie Antoinette was beginning to realise that all France did not fawn
upon her with the courtier's bended shoulder or pretty speech.

IV

MARIE ANTOINETTE

In her twenty-seventh year (1782) Vigee Le Brun made a journey into
Flanders with her husband, who had gone thither picture-dealing. The
works of the Flemish masters that she there saw had a marked effect
upon the increase of her art.

She saw at Anvers the famous "Chapeau de paille" by Rubens; and had
revealed to her the beauties of a sun-flooded figure, with the face
painted in the golden glow of reflected lights under the shadow flung
down over it by a large hat. This canvas by Rubens clearly inspired
her to the