DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61284#0068
22
VIGEE-LEBRUN
enjoys a good dinner ? ’ 1Alas! sir,’ answered the man, ‘ my master
never comes to the table; his only dinner is a dish of vegetables.’ The
Englishman going then into the drawing-room said, as he looked at the
pictures, ‘ Here at least he can feast his eyes.’ ‘ Alas ! sir,’ replied
the servant, ‘ my master is nearly blind.’ ‘ Ah 1 ’ said the Englishman,
as he entered the music-room, ‘ he is compensated, I hope, by listening
to good music ? ’ ‘ Alas ! sir, my master has never heard music here; he
goes to bed too early for that, hoping to obtain a few moments of sleep.’
The Englishman, looking out of the window at the fine garden, said then :
‘ At any rate your master is able to enjoy the pleasure of strolling there.’
‘ Alas ! sir, he is no longer able to walk.’ At that moment the guests
invited to dinner passed within sight, among them being some handsome
women. ‘ In any case,’ said the Englishman finally, ‘ here I see more
than one beauty who can make him pass some very agreeable moments.’
The servant only replied by saying, ‘ Alas ! ’ twice over, without adding
another word.”
In truth, M. Beaujon was so crippled by disease that he could not
use either his hands or his legs. Madame Lebrun relates how he would
sit in his wheel-chair at the side of the dining-room, while thirty or forty
guests were dining, including some ladies, “ all well-born and very good
company, who were known as the berceuses (cradle-rockers) of M. de
Beaujon. They gave orders to his household, and had the free use of
his establishment, including his horses and carriages, giving in return for
these advantages the few short hours of conversation that they afforded
to the poor cripple, weary of living alone.” Could any moralist desire a
much more effective illustration of the vanity of riches ?
M. Lebrun did, undoubtedly, receive a good deal of money from such
customers as M. Beaujon, and others of smaller “ worth” from the financial
point of view. But money, as we have seen, was not comfortable in his
coffers or his pockets. If he did not, like Charles Lamb’s friend, “ literally
toss and hurl it violently from him,” he at any rate “ made use of it while
it was fresh ” ; and had not her sound (if delicate) constitution, strengthened
by a wholesome infancy at Epernon, enabled his wife to work almost inces-
santly from morning until evening, the contents of the house in the Rue
de Clery might very soon have been distributed among brokers who would
have given Lebrun no share in their “ knock-out.”
There was no lack of custom for her painting. Courtiers, ambassadors,
wealthy merchants, with their wives and daughters, were already glad to
VIGEE-LEBRUN
enjoys a good dinner ? ’ 1Alas! sir,’ answered the man, ‘ my master
never comes to the table; his only dinner is a dish of vegetables.’ The
Englishman going then into the drawing-room said, as he looked at the
pictures, ‘ Here at least he can feast his eyes.’ ‘ Alas ! sir,’ replied
the servant, ‘ my master is nearly blind.’ ‘ Ah 1 ’ said the Englishman,
as he entered the music-room, ‘ he is compensated, I hope, by listening
to good music ? ’ ‘ Alas ! sir, my master has never heard music here; he
goes to bed too early for that, hoping to obtain a few moments of sleep.’
The Englishman, looking out of the window at the fine garden, said then :
‘ At any rate your master is able to enjoy the pleasure of strolling there.’
‘ Alas ! sir, he is no longer able to walk.’ At that moment the guests
invited to dinner passed within sight, among them being some handsome
women. ‘ In any case,’ said the Englishman finally, ‘ here I see more
than one beauty who can make him pass some very agreeable moments.’
The servant only replied by saying, ‘ Alas ! ’ twice over, without adding
another word.”
In truth, M. Beaujon was so crippled by disease that he could not
use either his hands or his legs. Madame Lebrun relates how he would
sit in his wheel-chair at the side of the dining-room, while thirty or forty
guests were dining, including some ladies, “ all well-born and very good
company, who were known as the berceuses (cradle-rockers) of M. de
Beaujon. They gave orders to his household, and had the free use of
his establishment, including his horses and carriages, giving in return for
these advantages the few short hours of conversation that they afforded
to the poor cripple, weary of living alone.” Could any moralist desire a
much more effective illustration of the vanity of riches ?
M. Lebrun did, undoubtedly, receive a good deal of money from such
customers as M. Beaujon, and others of smaller “ worth” from the financial
point of view. But money, as we have seen, was not comfortable in his
coffers or his pockets. If he did not, like Charles Lamb’s friend, “ literally
toss and hurl it violently from him,” he at any rate “ made use of it while
it was fresh ” ; and had not her sound (if delicate) constitution, strengthened
by a wholesome infancy at Epernon, enabled his wife to work almost inces-
santly from morning until evening, the contents of the house in the Rue
de Clery might very soon have been distributed among brokers who would
have given Lebrun no share in their “ knock-out.”
There was no lack of custom for her painting. Courtiers, ambassadors,
wealthy merchants, with their wives and daughters, were already glad to