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| "Self-Portrait with Her Daughter" by Vigee-Lebrun |
"My daughter had attained the age of seventeen. She was charming in every respect. Her large blue eyes, sparkling with spirit, her slightly tip-tilted nose, her pretty mouth, magnificent teeth, a dazzling fresh complexion – all went to make up one of the sweetest faces to be seen. Her figure was not very tall; she was lithe without, however, being lean. A natural dignity reigned in all her person, although she had as much vivacity of manner as of mind. Her memory was prodigious: everything remained that she had learned in her lessons or in the course of her reading. She had a delightful voice, and sang exquisitely in Italian, for at Naples and St. Petersburg I had given her the best singing masters, as well as instructors of English and German. Moreover, she could accompany herself on the piano or the guitar.
But what enraptured me above everything else was her happy disposition for painting, so that I cannot say how proud and satisfied I was over the many advantages she commanded. I saw in my daughter the happiness of my life, the future joy of my old age.
Since I could but very rarely leave my studio of a morning, I sometimes consented to confide my daughter to the Countess Czernicheff. There she met a certain Nigris, Count Czernicheff's secretary. This M. Nigris had a fairly good face and figure; he might have been about thirty. As for his abilities, he drew a little, and wrote a beautiful hand. His soft ways, his melancholy look, and even his yellowish paleness, gave him an interesting and romantic air, which so far affected my daughter that she fell in love with him. My grief was deep, as may well be imagined; but unhappy as I was at the thought of giving my daughter, my only child, to a man without talents, without fortune, without a name, I made inquiries about this M. Nigris. Some spoke well of him, but others reported badly, so that the days went by without my being able to fix upon any decision.
In vain did I attempt to make my daughter understand how unlikely in every way this marriage was to make her happy. Her head was so far turned that she would take nothing from my affection and experience. At last my daughter, who had become thin and changed, fell ill altogether. I was then, of course, obliged to surrender, and wrote to M. Lebrun, so that he might send his approval.
The letter gone, I had the satisfaction of seeing my daughter recover; but alas! that satisfaction was the only one she gave me. Owing to the distance, her father's answer was long delayed, and some one convinced her that I had only written to M. Lebrun to prevent him from assenting to what she called her felicity. The suspicion hurt me cruelly; nevertheless, I wrote again several times, and, after letting her read my letters, gave them to her, so that she might post them herself. Even this great condescension on my part was not enough to undeceive her. With the distrust toward me that was incessantly being poured into her, she said to me one day, "I post your letters, but I am sure you write others to the contrary." I was stunned and heartbroken, when at that very moment the postman arrived with a letter from M. Lebrun giving his consent. But the cruel child showed not the least gratitude.
The wedding was nevertheless enacted a few days later. I gave my daughter a very fine wedding outfit and some jewellery, including a bracelet, mounted with some large diamonds, on which was her father's likeness. Her marriage portion, the product of the portraits I had painted at St. Petersburg, I deposited with the banker Livio.
The day after my daughter's wedding I went to see her. I found her placid and unelated over her bliss. Being at her house again a fortnight later, I made the inquiry, "You are very happy, I trust, now that you are married to him?" M. Nigris, who was talking with some one else, had his back turned to us, and, since he was afflicted with a severe cold, had a heavy great coat on his shoulders. She replied, "I confess that fur coat is disenchanting; how could you expect me to be smitten with such a figure as that?" Thus a fortnight had sufficed for love to evaporate. Hoping, then, to obtain relief from so much sorrow through distraction and a change of scene, I hastened the life-sized portrait I was then doing of the Empress Maria, as well as several half-length portraits, and left for Moscow on the 15th of October, 1800."
To be continued
(Excerpts from "Memoirs of Madame Vigee-Lebrun.")
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