. . . She has talked much with me during the two evenings I have passed at her house. Her manner is gentle; she is prodigiously learned, but has no enthusiasm, which, considering my ignorance, has not electrified me. . . . I have seen several of her works; her sketches please me more than her pictures, because they are of a Titianesque color."
Mme. Le Brun received more commissions for portraits than she could find time to paint in the three years she lived in Italy. She tells us; "Not only did I find great pleasure in painting surrounded by so many masterpieces, but it was also necessary for me to make another fortune. I had not a hundred francs of income. Happily I had only to choose among the grandest people the portraits which it pleased me to paint." Her account of her experiences in Italy is very entertaining, but at last the restlessness of the exile overcame her and impelled her to seek other scenes. She went to Vienna and there remained three other years, making many friends and painting industriously until the spirit of unrest drove her to seek new diversions, and she went to Russia.
She was there received with great cordiality and remained six years—years crowded with kindness, labor, honor, attainment, joy, and sorrow. Her daughter was the one all-absorbing passion—at once the joy and the grief of her life. She was so charming and so gifted as to satisfy the critical requirements of her mother's desires. In Petersburg, where the daughter was greatly admired and caressed, the artist found herself a thousand times more happy than she had ever been in her own triumphs.
