<000005>There was by this time a perfect rage to be painted by Mme. Le Brun. At a performance at the Vaudeville, called La Runion des Arts, Painting was represented by an actress made up into an exact copy of Mme. Le Brun, painting the portrait of the Queen.
But her practice cannot be said to have been altogether in accordance with all the professions and talk about virtue and duty, which she made such a parade.Her extraordinary carelessness about everything but her painting, caused her to make no sort of preparations for this event; and even the day her child was born, although feeling ill and suffering at intervals, she persisted in going on working at a picture of Venus binding the wings of Love.
FORE:The taste of the day was expressed in the pictures of the favourite artists, Watteau and Greuze, who painted the graceful groups and landscapes every one admired: charming women sitting in beautiful gardens dressed in costumes suitable for a ball or court festivity, or anything on earth but being out of doors in the country.Well, you must be very glad, for Mme. Le Brun has just arrived.
Mme. de Genlis was very happy at the Arsenal with Casimir and a little boy named Alfred, whom she had adopted.Capital letter PThen she fled to her own room and gave way [225] to her grief, and to the forebodings which filled her mind, and still hung over her like a cloud, during the preparations and journey to Paris, where M. de Montagu soon wrote for his wife and child to join him without delay.On one occasion his friends made him believe that there existed the post of fire-screen to the King, and that it might possibly be given to him. In order to qualify himself, they persuaded him to stand frequently before the fire until his legs were quite scorched, assuring him when he wished to move away that if he did not persevere he would never be able to fill that post.By this time, however, she had made up her mind to marry an homme de qualit, who belonged to the court. What she then wished was to marry a certain M. de la Popelinire, whom she thought combined the advantages she desired, though he was nothing more illustrious than a fermier gnral, besides being an old man. However, her admiration [360] was not sufficiently returned for him to be of the same opinion.They were all, during their early youth, rather afraid of their father, of whom they saw so little that he was a stranger to them in comparison with the mother they all adored, who, exalted as were her religious principles, austere and saintly her rule of life, yet knew how to gain her childrens confidence [185] and affection, and understood thoroughly their different characters and tendencies. People wondered at the goodness of Mme. dAyens children, and it was remarked that the Duchess had brought up a company of angels.
