DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0060
PRIVATELY MARRIED 17
Servian rival for the hand of the “ heroine,” will have no difficulty in under-
standing how a dealer in expensive pictures and ornaments could make
a false impression of solid wealth on so simple a soul as Madame Le Fevre,
and so inexperienced a person in matters of money and property as her
daughter of twenty-one. His rooms, which, handsomely furnished and
richly decorated, satisfied the mother, were hung with pictures which were
a delight to the eyes of the daughter whom he desired for his wife. Both
women seem to have ignored the fact that his “ flat ” was really a shop,
and his “ riches ” his stock-in-trade, much of which was not his own.
Bluntschli, the Swiss hotel-keeper’s son, in Mr. Shaw’s play, over-
powered the Petkoff family by his assertion that, while Saranoff could only
claim twenty horses, three carriages, and so on in proportion, he himself
possessed two hundred horses, seventy carriages, nine thousand six hundred
sheets and blankets, and two thousand four hundred eider-down quilts.
Lebrun, showing his scores of fine pictures, and his beautiful inlaid tables,
was even more easily able, by ocular demonstration, to impress the only
two women who needed to be influenced. Le Fevre must have known
something of the truth, if not all of it, but he seems to have been glad
enough to get his step-daughter married and out of his way, in spite of the
fact that she was more than able to pay for her keep in his too economical
establishment.
But for the fact that Lebrun was already more than half engaged to
another girl, he probably would not have succeeded in drawing Elisabeth
Vigee into his trap. It fell out in this way. He was at the time carrying
out a big “ deal ” in pictures with a Dutchman, and, in order to facilitate
business, the Frenchman had persuaded the Dutchman that he was anxious
to marry his daughter. If it now appeared that he was on the point
of marrying some one else’s daughter, his immediate business would be
seriously hindered, and very likely lost altogether. So the marriage with
Mademoiselle Vigee was privately celebrated, without the publication of
banns, in the church of Saint Eustache, on January 11, 1776. She was
not very keen to marry Lebrun then, but her mother was anxious to see
her settled, and she herself was tired of her disagreeable step-father. “ I
felt so little incentive to give up my freedom,” she writes, “ that on the
way to the church I still asked myself: shall I ? shall I not ? Alas, I said
yes, and I exchanged one set of troubles for another.”
The necessity for concealment still remained until the Dutch affair
was concluded. The result of such secrecy was an early trial for the bride.
2
Servian rival for the hand of the “ heroine,” will have no difficulty in under-
standing how a dealer in expensive pictures and ornaments could make
a false impression of solid wealth on so simple a soul as Madame Le Fevre,
and so inexperienced a person in matters of money and property as her
daughter of twenty-one. His rooms, which, handsomely furnished and
richly decorated, satisfied the mother, were hung with pictures which were
a delight to the eyes of the daughter whom he desired for his wife. Both
women seem to have ignored the fact that his “ flat ” was really a shop,
and his “ riches ” his stock-in-trade, much of which was not his own.
Bluntschli, the Swiss hotel-keeper’s son, in Mr. Shaw’s play, over-
powered the Petkoff family by his assertion that, while Saranoff could only
claim twenty horses, three carriages, and so on in proportion, he himself
possessed two hundred horses, seventy carriages, nine thousand six hundred
sheets and blankets, and two thousand four hundred eider-down quilts.
Lebrun, showing his scores of fine pictures, and his beautiful inlaid tables,
was even more easily able, by ocular demonstration, to impress the only
two women who needed to be influenced. Le Fevre must have known
something of the truth, if not all of it, but he seems to have been glad
enough to get his step-daughter married and out of his way, in spite of the
fact that she was more than able to pay for her keep in his too economical
establishment.
But for the fact that Lebrun was already more than half engaged to
another girl, he probably would not have succeeded in drawing Elisabeth
Vigee into his trap. It fell out in this way. He was at the time carrying
out a big “ deal ” in pictures with a Dutchman, and, in order to facilitate
business, the Frenchman had persuaded the Dutchman that he was anxious
to marry his daughter. If it now appeared that he was on the point
of marrying some one else’s daughter, his immediate business would be
seriously hindered, and very likely lost altogether. So the marriage with
Mademoiselle Vigee was privately celebrated, without the publication of
banns, in the church of Saint Eustache, on January 11, 1776. She was
not very keen to marry Lebrun then, but her mother was anxious to see
her settled, and she herself was tired of her disagreeable step-father. “ I
felt so little incentive to give up my freedom,” she writes, “ that on the
way to the church I still asked myself: shall I ? shall I not ? Alas, I said
yes, and I exchanged one set of troubles for another.”
The necessity for concealment still remained until the Dutch affair
was concluded. The result of such secrecy was an early trial for the bride.
2