all her dealings she showed this kindness and uprightness, sympathy
and honesty. Although numberless orders were constantly coming to
her, she never let them hurry her in her work. She was, possibly, the
highest and noblest type--certainly among great French women--of that
strong and solid virtue which constitutes the backbone and the very
essence of French national strength. The reputation of Rosa Bonheur
has never been blemished by the least touch of petty jealousy, hatred,
envy, vanity, or pride--and, among all great French women, she is one
of the few of whom this may be said. She won for herself and her noble
art the genuine and lasting sympathy of the world at large.

The only woman artist in France deserving a place beside Rosa Bonheur
belongs properly under the reign of Louis XVI., although she lived
almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. At the age of twenty,
Mme. Lebrun was already famous as the leading portrait painter; this
was during the most popular period of Marie Antoinette--1775 to 1785.
In 1775, but a young girl, admitted to all the sessions of the Academy
as recognition of her portraits of La Bruyere and Cardinal Fleury, she
made her life unhappy and gave her art a serious blow by consenting
to marry the then great art critic and collector of art, Lebrun. His
passion for gambling and women ruined her fortune and almost ended her
career as an artist. Her own conduct was not irreproachable.

Mme. Lebrun will be remembered principally as the great painter of
Marie Antoinette, who posed for her more than twenty times. The most
prominent people of Europe eagerly sought her work, while socially she
was welcomed everywhere. Her famous suppers and entertainments in
her modestly furnished hotel, at which Garat sang, Gretry played
the piano, and Viotti and Prince Henry of Prussia assisted, were the
events of the day. Her reputation as a painter of the great ladies and
gentlemen of nobility, and her entertainments, naturally associated
her with the nobility; hence, she shared their unpopularity at the
outbreak of the Revolution and left France.

It is doubtful whether any artist--certainly no French artist--ever
received more attention and honors, or was made a member of so many
art academies, than Mme. Lebrun. It would be difficult to make any
comparison between her and Rosa Bonheur, their respective spheres of
art being so different. Only the future will speak as to the relative
positions of each i