FORE:WHEN Elisabeth Louise Vig��e was born at Paris, April, 1755, the French court and monarchy were still at the height of their splendour and power.For she adored her grandchildren, whom she kept entirely under her own control, allowing their parents to have no voice in their education, which she certainly directed with great care and wisdom.

FORE:

FORE:Mme. de Genlis, finding Paris too dear, moved to Versailles where she lived for a time, during which she had the grief of losing her nephew, C��sar Ducrest, a promising young officer, who was killed by an accident.

FORE:To Lisette she seemed to be about a hundred years of age, though she was not really very old, but her costume, a dark grey dress and a cap over which she wore a large hood tied under her chin, and her bent figure, increased the appearance of age.

FORE:It was naturally impossible that Mme. de Genlis should be a conspicuous member of the Orl��ans household and yet not mix herself up with intimacies and friendships amongst the Revolutionists, especially as some of them at that time had not shown themselves in their true colours. She corresponded with Bar��ze, who wrote to her about her books, and whose letters were full of the simple life of the peasants and the beauties of nature in the Pyrenees, but who soon developed into one of the monsters of the Terror. She could not be blamed for that, as she did not know his real character; but the same cannot be said with regard to her friendship with P��tion, whom she received in her salon and for whom she declared that up to the time of the King��s murder she had ��a true esteem.�� Now P��tion was a vulgar, brutal ruffian, as any one knows who has read the account of his behaviour during the miserable affair of the return of the royal family from Varennes; and yet after that she accepted his escort to England, and said that she ��remained persuaded that he had a most honest, upright soul, and the most virtuous principles.�� There are some people who make the very names of virtue and duty obnoxious to one, and of this number was certainly Mme. de Genlis. In spite of her outcries about the injustice and falsehood of the suspicions and odium attached to her concerning her conduct at this time, and causing her afterwards considerable annoyance and difficulties, her friendships with and praises of such characters as Philippe-��galit��, P��tion, and others, added to the way in [425] which she displayed her rejoicing in the earlier excesses of the Revolutionary party, and her constant association with the authors of the disgraceful libels and attacks upon the Queen and royal family, amply justified whatever might be said against her.��Well, who am I, then?��

FORE:Mme. Le Brun painted the portrait first of Madame Ad��la?de, then of Madame Victoire.Prince von Kaunitz desired that her picture of the Sibyl should be exhibited for a fortnight in his salon, where all the court and town came to see it. Mme. Le Brun made also the acquaintance of the celebrated painter of battles, Casanova.