DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0066
20
VIGEE-LEBRUN
success to the cultivation of her taste and talent by contemplation of these
masterpieces, and no doubt it was of some help to be able to gaze at will
on examples by Italian and Dutch masters. The building of this big room
was one of the most sensible things Lebrun ever did with Elisabeth’s
money, much of which he spent, as he did his own, in gambling hells and
on other women.
In spite of all his faults of commission and of omission she has a good
word to say for him. He was a smooth-tempered person, ready to do
little services for her or any one else, and never interfering with her social
pleasures, in which he himself had a very small part. She could stay in
country-houses, go out to any number of evening parties, to the theatre
or to the opera, without having to consider how he was to get on without
her. That question never gave him any anxiety, and she does not seem
to have bothered herself about it either. He was never rough to her, or
abusive ; he did not spy on her, nor behave in the ordinary way of evil-
disposed husbands towards pretty wives who have found them less
desirable after experience of married life. He merely behaved as if he
were a bachelor, and, like her step-father before him, regarded her industry
as his own.
There is little doubt that, had he been a person of orderly character,
Lebrun would have done very well indeed in his business of art-dealer,
wherein, even in the days when the many American millionaires of our
own time were represented in advance by a comparative handful of
Fermiers-Generals and other financiers, profits much beyond those of
ordinary shopkeeping were to be made by an acute and experienced man.
A spendthrift and gambler is not the kind of person to succeed in such a
business, where a large balance at the bank is often essential to a successful
venture. Ready money, indeed, was much more needful in those days,
when the banking system, and the whole machinery of credit, had been
so much less elaborately developed. As it was, Lebrun was at times
prosperous. He usually had plenty of business ; the trouble was, that he
would spend his money—and hers—almost as fast as it came in. About
the best thing we ever hear of M. Lebrun was that, in 1793, when monu-
ments and works of art connected with royalty were being ruthlessly
destroyed, he managed to save some fine bronzes. These included the
bas-reliefs from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XIV. in the Place des
Victoires, five of which found their way into the house of George III. at
Kew, and were given back to France by King George V. when he visited
VIGEE-LEBRUN
success to the cultivation of her taste and talent by contemplation of these
masterpieces, and no doubt it was of some help to be able to gaze at will
on examples by Italian and Dutch masters. The building of this big room
was one of the most sensible things Lebrun ever did with Elisabeth’s
money, much of which he spent, as he did his own, in gambling hells and
on other women.
In spite of all his faults of commission and of omission she has a good
word to say for him. He was a smooth-tempered person, ready to do
little services for her or any one else, and never interfering with her social
pleasures, in which he himself had a very small part. She could stay in
country-houses, go out to any number of evening parties, to the theatre
or to the opera, without having to consider how he was to get on without
her. That question never gave him any anxiety, and she does not seem
to have bothered herself about it either. He was never rough to her, or
abusive ; he did not spy on her, nor behave in the ordinary way of evil-
disposed husbands towards pretty wives who have found them less
desirable after experience of married life. He merely behaved as if he
were a bachelor, and, like her step-father before him, regarded her industry
as his own.
There is little doubt that, had he been a person of orderly character,
Lebrun would have done very well indeed in his business of art-dealer,
wherein, even in the days when the many American millionaires of our
own time were represented in advance by a comparative handful of
Fermiers-Generals and other financiers, profits much beyond those of
ordinary shopkeeping were to be made by an acute and experienced man.
A spendthrift and gambler is not the kind of person to succeed in such a
business, where a large balance at the bank is often essential to a successful
venture. Ready money, indeed, was much more needful in those days,
when the banking system, and the whole machinery of credit, had been
so much less elaborately developed. As it was, Lebrun was at times
prosperous. He usually had plenty of business ; the trouble was, that he
would spend his money—and hers—almost as fast as it came in. About
the best thing we ever hear of M. Lebrun was that, in 1793, when monu-
ments and works of art connected with royalty were being ruthlessly
destroyed, he managed to save some fine bronzes. These included the
bas-reliefs from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XIV. in the Place des
Victoires, five of which found their way into the house of George III. at
Kew, and were given back to France by King George V. when he visited