urious than these costumes; they
beautified even this class of lovely women, of whom no one was
prettier than the next. One I especially observed was a young person
soon after married to Prince Tufakin. Her face, whose features were
regular and delicate, wore an excessively melancholy expression. After
her marriage I began her portrait, but was only able to finish the
head in Moscow, so that I carried off the picture to finish it at St.
Petersburg, where, however, I before long heard of the death of that
charming young lady. She was scarcely more than seventeen years
old. I painted her as Iris, seated on some clouds, with a billowy
scarf about her.

[Illustration: MADAME VIGEE LEBRUN.]

Mme. Soltikoff kept one of the best houses in Moscow. I had paid her a
call upon arrival. She and her husband, who was then Governor of the
town, showed me great kindness. She asked me to paint the Marshal's
portrait, and her daughter's, who had married Count Gregory Orloff,
son of Count Vladimir. At this time I was doing a picture of Countess
Strogonoff's daughter, so that by the end of ten or twelve days I had
begun six portraits, without counting the likeness of the good and
genial Mme. Ducrest de Villeneuve, whom I was charmed to meet again in
Moscow, and who was so pretty that I insisted on painting her. An
accident that might have cost me my life deprived me of the use of my
studio and retarded the completion of all these works.

I was enjoying perfect peace in the house loaned me by Countess
Strogonoff, but, as it had not been inhabited for seven years, it was
horribly cold. I remedied the evil as far as possible by heating all
the stoves to the utmost. In spite of this measure, I was obliged to
leave the fire lit in my bedroom at night, and was so frozen in bed,
with the shutters hermetically closed, to say nothing of a small lamp
burning near me to moderate the air, that I tied my pillow all round
my head with a ribbon, at the risk of being stifled. One night, when I
had succeeded in going to sleep, I was awakened by suffocating smoke.
I barely had time to ring for my maid, who declared that she had put
out all the fires. I told her to open the passage door. Scarcely had
she obeyed when her candle went out, and my room and the whole
apartment was filled with thick, sickening smoke. We broke the windows
as fast as we could. Not knowing where this dreadful smoke came from,
it may well be imagined how anxious I was. I then sent