angers with but eighty francs in her purse out of
all the fortune she had made by her dogged industry; she was to find in
exile, not only a gracious home, but at last an immunity from the
shameless squandering of her earnings by the disreputable thief whom
she had married.

At Turin, her first halting-place, she tarried but a short while. She
found that her name and fame had gone before her. At Bologna no French
citizen was allowed to stay for more than twenty-four hours; but for
Vigee Le Brun permission was brought without her asking for it. She
spent three days gazing at the masterpieces of the Bologna School; and
was made a member of its Academy.

At Florence she was asked to paint her portrait for the celebrated
collection of portraits of famous artists by their own hand at the
Uffizi Gallery.

At Rome the same impressive welcome awaited her.

Here she was soon at work again, with palette and brushes, upon the
portrait of herself, which she had promised to the Gallery at Florence,
where it now hangs--one of the most exquisite heads she ever painted,
sunny, smiling, happy, with youth come back to it.

After eight months in Rome she moved on to Naples. Here it was that
she painted the portrait of Lady Hamilton, Nelson's Emma, reclining by
the sea, holding a cup in her hand as a Bacchante. Vigee Le Brun also
painted her as a Sibyl--that picture which she took with her wherever
she went, from town to town, and which always drew a crowd to her
studio; whilst, grimly enough, Nelson's Emma rose to be one of the
famed lovers of romance, to sink into want, and so to death in
loneliness and misery at Calais.

It was at Naples, too, that Vigee Le Brun painted that portrait of
Paisiello which she sent to Paris to the Salon, where it was hung as
pendant to a portrait by David, and led to his high tribute to her
genius, when, after gazing upon it for a long while, he said to his
pupils: "They will think that my canvas was painted by a woman, and the
portrait of Paisiello by a man."

Vigee Le Brun was now painting without cease. The Queen of Naples, her
two elder daughters, and the Prince Royal, all sat to her.

During the first year of her exile the news from France had not been
greatly alarming, and danger seemed to have been lulled. But at Naples
she was to hear tidings that caused her bitter grief. First Neckar,
finding himself out of touch with the king and the people and the
Parliament, retired to Switzerla