Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/455

342 the French Academy, and was thus early brought to public notice.

When twenty-one she married M. Le Brun, of whom she speaks discreetly in her story of her life, but it was well known that he was of dissipated habits and did not hesitate to spend all that his wife could earn. When she left France, thirteen years after her marriage, she had not so much as twenty francs, although she had earned a million!

She painted portraits of many eminent people, and was esteemed as a friend by men and women of culture and high position. The friendship between the artist and Marie Antoinette was a sincere and deep affection between two women, neither of whom remembered that one of them was a queen. It was a great advantage to the artist to be thus intimately associated with her sovereign lady. Even in the great state picture of the Queen surrounded by her children, at Versailles, one realizes the tenderness of the painter as she lovingly reproduced her friend.

Marie Antoinette desired that Mme. Le Brun should be elected to the Academy; Vernet approved it, and an unusual honor was shown her in being made an Acaemician before the completion of her reception picture. At that time it was a great advantage to be a member of the Academy, as no other artists were permitted to exhibit their works in the Salon of the Beaux-Arts.

Mme. Le Brun had one habit with which she allowed nothing to interfere, which was taking a rest after her work for the day was done. She called it her "calm,"