N MARIE ANTOINETTE 126

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHORESS 132
Painted for the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, Where the Picture
Now Hangs

PORTRAIT OF MME. LEBRUN'S DAUGHTER 138
In the Bologna Gallery

MADAME VIGEE LEBRUN 146

HUBERT ROBERT 154
A French Painter of Repute, Born 1733, Died 1808. One
of Madame Lebrun's Contemporaries

A MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER 162

"WOMAN PAINTING" 170
(Identity of sitter uncertain)

MADAME COURCELLES 176

"THE WOMAN WITH THE MUFF" 184
Madame Mole-Raymond, of the Comedie-Francaise

MADAME VIGEE LEBRUN 190

GENEVIEVE ADELAIDE HELVETIUS, COUNTESS D'ANDLOU 202

LOUISE MARIE ADELAIDE DE BOURBON 210

CHAPTER I

YOUTH

PRECOCIOUS TALENTS MANIFESTED -- MLLE. VIGEE'S FATHER AND MOTHER
-- DEATH OF HER FATHER -- A FRIEND OF HER GIRLHOOD -- HER MOTHER
REMARRIES -- MLLE. VIGEE'S FIRST PORTRAIT OF NOTE (COUNT
SCHOUVALOFF) -- ACQUAINTANCE WITH MME. GEOFFRIN -- THE
AUTHORESS'S PURITANICAL BRINGING-UP -- MALE SITTERS ATTEMPT
FLIRTATION -- PUBLIC RESORTS OF PARIS BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.

I will begin by speaking of my childhood, which is the symbol, so to
say, of my whole life, since my love for painting declared itself in
my earliest youth. I was sent to a boarding-school at the age of six,
and remained there until I was eleven. During that time I scrawled on
everything at all seasons; my copy-books, and even my schoolmates', I
decorated with marginal drawings of heads, some full-face, others in
profile; on the walls of the dormitory I drew faces and landscapes
with coloured chalks. So it may easily be imagined how often I was
condemned to bread and water. I made use of my leisure moments
outdoors in tracing any figures on the ground that happened to come
into my head. At seven or eight, I remember, I made a picture by
lamplight of a man with a beard, which I have kept until this very
day. When my father saw it he went into transports of joy, exclaim