ne could possibly have been cleverer or more entertaining;
we were all fascinated by him. The evening was usually filled up with
playing and singing, and I often sang to my own accompaniment on the
guitar. Supper was at half-past ten; we were never more than ten or
twelve at table. We all vied with one another in sociability and wit.
As for me, I was only a humble listener, and, although too young to
appreciate the qualities of this conversation to the full, it spoiled
me for ordinary conversation.

My life as a young girl was very unusual. Not only did my
talent--feeble as it seemed to me when I thought of the great
masters--cause me to be sought after and welcomed by society, but I
sometimes was the object of attentions which I might call public, and
of which, I avow, I was very proud. For example, I had made portraits
of Cardinal Fleury and La Bruyere, copied from engravings of ancient
date. I made a gift of them to the French Academy, which sent me a
very flattering letter through the permanent secretary, d'Alembert. My
presentation of these two portraits to the Academy also secured me the
honour of a visit from d'Alembert, a dried up morsel of a man of
exquisitely polished manners. He stayed a long time and looked my
study all over, while he paid me a thousand compliments. After he had
gone, a fine lady, who happened to be visiting me at the same time,
asked me whether I had painted La Bruyere and Fleury from life. "I am
a little too young for that," I answered, unable to refrain from a
laugh, but very glad for the sake of the lady that the Academician had
left before she put her funny question.

My stepfather having retired from business, we took up residence at
the Lubert mansion, in the Rue de Clery. M. Lebrun had just bought the
house and lived there himself, and as soon as we were settled in it I
began to examine the splendid masterpieces of all schools with which
his lodgings were filled. I was enchanted at an opportunity of
first-hand acquaintance with these works by great masters. M. Lebrun
was so obliging as to lend me, for purposes of copying, some of his
handsomest and most valuable paintings. Thus I owed him the best
lessons I could conceivably have obtained, when, after a lapse of six
months, he asked my hand in marriage. I was far from wishing to become
his wife, though he was very well built and had a pleasant face. I was
then twenty years old, and was living without anxiety as to the
future, since