AS SOON AS WE ARE MARRIED, M. Le Brun asks that we keep the marriage a secret, for he is engaged to the daughter of a Dutch dealer in fine paintings with whom he is conducting a business arrangement involving a good deal of money. He asks that I agree to silence about our marriage until the business can be completed. I choose to comply.
While the marriage is a secret and yet the possibility of it is in the air, several friends come to visit me while I am with my mother in her apartment. They speak urgently in front of her, and indeed Auber, who is the crown jeweler, is my mother’s friend as well. To me, he says, “It would be better if you tied a millstone around your neck and jumped into the river than to marry M. Le Brun.” My mother blurts, “Why?” and the jeweler tells us my already-husband is a gambler and loses large sums of money. My mother gasps, and I fear that she will lose her composure.
Before I am two weeks wed (and the fact is still a secret), we are called upon by three women of high society, each of them young and beautiful and full of knowledge about eligible young men. One is the Duchesse d’Aremburg and another the Portuguese ambassadress, for I have met them at supper parties involving the Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort, the Princesse de Lorraine, the Duc de Choiseul, the Duc de Lauzun—all those salons and members of society who have welcomed me simply because of my talent and achievement. The Duchesse d’Aremburg, without giving her reasons, states simply, “You must not marry Le Brun, for he will make you unhappy.” Again, my mother covers her mouth with her hand and struggles not to burst into tears.
As soon as they leave, I take her in my arms and say, “There is no need to worry. I have my painting. As long as I can paint, I will always be happy.” I am sure it is true. All the more reason to throw myself into my painting. My happiest hours have always been those when I stood or sat in my chair before my easel.
But when I am alone, I realize that the need for secrecy and the unfortunate information and attitudes revealed have cast a shadow over my marriage. I remember that my mother was able to create a happy home, as many women bravely do, even when the situation is less than perfect. To compromise is itself an art: first one must cheerfully lower one’s expectations in any area where change is unlikely.
I work every day till nightfall, when the lack of light stops me. I accept invitations to the theater, which I adore, and to supper parties and to the countryside. I enjoy these activities to the fullest, knowing I have spent the day with my passion.
Like my stepfather, my husband receives all my commissions, which is his legal right. He has great need of the money, for he not only gambles but he also has an uncontrollable passion for extravagant women. His gifts to them are the fruits of my labor as well as his sales through the atelier. I refuse to be bitter. I prefer to accommodate myself to the truth and not to have illusions about my marriage, which is finally announced. And the deal is done.
Unlike proximity to my stepfather, it is no burden to be in the presence of M. Le Brun. He has an obliging nature. Not only is he pleasant, he is in fact kind (if one makes exception for his gambling and philandering, and the subsequent disillusionment). His manner and indeed his nature are a mixture of sweetness and gaiety. I refuse to hurt myself by harboring either bitter disappointment or low jealousy. I vow to appreciate what is best in him, and to give myself to the good pleasures with him and with witty and charming friends, to the theater, to conversation, to music, to nature, and above all to art.
We have discovered that M. Le Brun does not own this mansion; he is a mere lodger like my family, though he led my mother and myself to think Lubert was his. To augment my earnings (which are now very considerable) from my portraits and other paintings, my husband asks me to take on students.
MY MOTHER AND I are closer friends than ever, for without dishonoring the memory of my father, she has implied not only are we mother and daughter (with many shared memories) but sisters in managing the art of marriage. What else can one do but embrace and refine manners that enhance and favorably affect the inner being? It is for a woman’s own sake that she lives a life beyond reproach of any sort, and that she recognizes, treasures, and enjoys true friendship for its congeniality.
When our lives need refreshing we often go together to Marly-le-Roi. We like to visit that sanctuary on Sunday afternoons, as we did that long-ago day with Mme Suzanne to escape the “country garden as shooting gallery.” Not only the Marly grounds but also the nearby château and park of Sceaux with its ancient trees have been made open to the public by the generous Duc de Penthièvre.
Soon after our arrival at Marly-le-Roi, as my mother and I walk arm in arm along the broad paths between the great trees of the park, we feel more at peace with the world. As though we were a pair of sheep, we dip in and out of pools of shade and splashes of light and gaze appreciatively at the still-dewy sward. There are sheep, clean and bright, to be seen, and occasionally we also see shy deer. In this natural paradise, between the dark trunks of the oaks, one occasionally glimpses a flurry of dainty dresses in the distance and graceful ladies floating along.
Around one bend, to our surprise and instant trepidation, we happen to come upon Queen Marie Antoinette strolling with several of her ladies. All dressed in purest white they are, and for a moment I think a small group of clouds has come down into the park. They do not seem like real people but like a confection, or like zephyrs, each of them with a prettiness of figure and face that appears visionary.
Immediately my mother and I change our direction so as not to intrude on their private pleasure, but just as immediately the queen calls to me, acknowledging me even by name!
“Please,” she says, with exquisite politeness, “let us not inconvenience you. Please continue your stroll as you wish, along this walk or any other that may please you here at Marly.”
My mother and I thank her graciously, but of course we do not tarry as though we are expecting more conversation.
“To the lake, then,” I say to my mother, for that is the part of the park I prefer to any other. While geometric parterres of small flowers flourish like carpets in the open sunny area close to the château, I like the more dreamy glades that have nothing of symmetry about them. Perhaps I want the queen to have a vague idea of my aesthetic sensibility by mentioning the lake as our destination. Beside the lake, which I have already come to love from another vantage point, we now find the most beautiful trees—noble, graceful, immense—that I have ever seen in my life. They seem to me to be the essence of the earth, mediating between us and the blue of heaven.
This day, with my mother, having just enjoyed proximity to the queen and her ladies and lingering among the huge old trees beside the lake, I am in a special rapture that I vow to hold in memory, for it is more precious than a casket covered with jewels. It proves that despite vexation—and who does not experience annoyances in life?—there are redeeming moments. One must embrace them. By doing so, one is true to one’s own nature; one is creating a self that is sufficient unto itself. I believe that is the way for me to live happily.
I ADMIT I DO NOT LIKE TO TEACH. I do not have confidence that what is true for me will be of value to others. Most of my students are young women but older than I am. It is difficult for me to assume an unnatural air of authority and stuffiness, and so I fail to gain the respect that one must be accorded if one is to teach well. I try to do my own work while they do theirs, but I am constantly interrupted by the need to offer advice about how to paint eyes, noses, and faces. Form divides itself into mere technique. I feel like an accomplished writer who is required to teach youngsters the alphabet, or an actor capable of transporting everyone in the theater, who is asked to teach children to speak a word.
One day recently, before I mounted the stairs to the old hayloft M. Le Brun has rented for my teaching studio, I heard joyful giggling. My young ladies had attached a rope to an exposed beam, and they were having a high time swinging about. I scolded them as best I could about wasting time and about their failure to take the opportunity of lessons in a serious manner. However, the swing was a temptation, and I tried it out myself after ousting them. Soon I was laughing unrestrainedly and they were enjoying the spectacle of their teacher flying through the air.
Afterward, I gave a lecture on Watteau’s painting (asking them to recall it by memory) of a young lady, outdoors, swinging. My dear papa, who excelled with pastels, was much influenced by Watteau, and I think that he might have been proud of me if he could have heard me lecturing and seen me standing before my students; however, he would have taken far greater delight in my own painting of portraits and my acquaintance with the notables I have been engaged to paint.
I must say that I have had one student of real talent, the youngest of the lot, named Mlle Émilie Roux de la Ville. Mlle Roux de la Ville is fascinated with human skin, as I am, and she practices diligently to catch its innumerable variations.
IT IS THROUGH the recommendation of the queen’s friends Comtesse de Polignac and her lover the Comte de Vaudreuil, both of whom I have rendered in oil portraits about which they expressed the greatest pleasure and satisfaction, that I am invited to the queen’s private apartment hidden in the labyrinth of the Château de Versailles. Through the recommendation of these powerful people, to whom I will always owe my gratitude and loyalty, I am invited to paint the portrait of my most gracious sovereign.
M. Le Brun has given me a thousand pieces of advice about how to comport myself so as to win favor, and while I have listened to him with the courtesy and respect due a husband (as I have always made it my rule to observe despite my disappointment in his profligate spending of large sums on gambling and on women), I intend to forget all of his counsel. Of course this portrait will bring the largest remuneration we have ever known, but it is not for gold that I tremble. I tremble because I am so thoroughly and deeply honored by having been deemed worthy not only to receive the commission but also merely to be invited into her presence.
I have dressed myself with the utmost care, choosing the colors that complement my eyes and my hair, which has a natural hint of red in it, like the chestnut berry, and I have arranged my hair myself, as I always do, with special care for special moments. It’s as though I am creating myself for the occasion to come, as I assemble my appearance. Today my hand has been a happy one and a confident one. Oh, I can hear the puffery in my own inner voice, but I need a draft of bravado, for soon I shall see and be seen, not by accident but by design, by my sovereign.
My hair falls loosely in natural curls, and I wear a rose gown shot with thin brown stripes, but the brown dye has a hint of red about it. While the carriage is conveying me to Versailles, I look down at the colors of my dress, rose red and chestnut brown, as though they both contain and bespeak all my hopes for success with my interview and with the work to come.
When I see the queen in the sumptuous surroundings of the Château de Versailles, I instantly make my curtsey, long and deep. She is dressed in magnificent white satin, a court dress with wide panniers, and I am dazzled by the reality of her presence. My eyes seek the relief of looking away from her into the weave of the rug. She is like an orb of light! She has sent for me!
Her voice finds my ear, and it is as quick and light as the song of a bird. She invites me to rise.
“I think that we are friends already, Madame Le Brun. You and I are the same age, and we have some of the same friends. You are the friend of my very dear friends, who have spoken of you with warm fondness and admiration for both your person and your talent as a painter.”
For only a moment, overcome by the naturalness of her kindness and by her lavish and generous words, I look down again, but this I must not do, for my eyes are the emissaries of my own inner gifts. When I look at her again, I show her my spirit.
But I am no casual observer. Immediately I am struck by the quality of her complexion, for it truly is dazzlingly transparent, and my first impression of her extraordinary radiance is not caused entirely by either the shock of being in her presence or the shimmer of her gown. While she has something of the long chin of her Austrian forebears, her mouth is mobile and expressive. Even beyond the tones of her complexion, it is the carriage of her head and indeed of her whole body that suggests her royal lineage.
“It is almost hard to believe we are the same age,” she says, “because you seem so fresh and youthful. I like your natural curls, and I rather wish the court custom of dreary powder were not a necessity.” With cheerful audacity, she adds, “How do I look to you?”
Ah, she breaks my silence with a direct question. But it is a kindly, lighthearted question to which there can be no incorrect answer, that is if I can keep even half my wits about me. Strangely, I remember my father at our old home, how he would pause a moment sometimes before answering a question directed to him by D’Alembert or Diderot.
“As any queen would give her life to look,” I say, and I am surprised at the confident, even confiding, warmth of my own voice. It is a brown voice ruddy with life, like the rich back of a viol. “Not only as a queen but as any happy and virtuous woman would like to appear, so you appear to me—full of life and goodness.”
“But can you paint such abstract qualities?” she inquires, and I realize that she is a woman of quick wit, that she likes to tease and playfully, harmlessly to challenge those she counts as friends. Dare I think as much? This friendship she spoke of in her first utterance—I do feel its glow and its ease brightening around us.
“If you will forgive me for saying so, I believe that I can, with my paints and with your most gracious permission, embody something of the grace and goodness of Your Majesty.”
“In truth, the reputation of your extraordinary skill is well established. You understand far better than most painters”—the palms of her hands lightly smooth down the shimmering white silk of her robe—“that our surfaces are nothing without the animating spirit that lies within.”
Although my impulse is to amend her statement, for my art depends on my belief in the integrity of surfaces and the unity of the self, I say, “Your understanding of these matters makes me wonder if you have not yourself occasionally taken up the brush.” And I realize that I am no longer afraid; it is possible to think in her presence. I have asked a question of her as naturally as though she were indeed a friend.
As she sits, she tosses a pink shawl across her lap, and the sheen of the silvery pink silk acts like a mirror and throws a delicate pinkish tint over her incomparable skin. Since I am standing while she sits, I see her face from a new angle, one that emphasizes her blue eyes, both their quiet kindness and the lively sparkle that perhaps one notices first.
I think that she is a woman fully comfortable with herself and who both is enjoying and intends to enjoy every moment of her aliveness.
“In Vienna, my sisters and I were given lessons in drawing and in painting and in all the arts. Do you have sisters?”
“My friends have been my sisters, Your Majesty.” I am thinking of Mlle Boquet.
“But it is the art of dancing that most delights me,” the queen continues. She smiles at me with the very thought of dancing. “My feet are more talented than my hands.”
“I do not exaggerate to say that no member of your circle whom I have painted has failed to remark most enthusiastically about the beauty of your dancing, and of—”
Here she interrupts me to say, “And of my carriage.” With those words she rises from her seat, lays the pink scarf across a nearby table, and pretends to be giving unseen friends a little lecture. “My dear friends, no doubt you who let nothing at court go unnoticed have remarked that I have two ways of moving myself across a room, that is, of walking, of perambulation.” She is witty and charming, pretending to be pompous. “When I am with you or with my family, I walk in such a way as to express my happiness, my sheer happiness that I am in your company. On the other hand, when I wish, I use another carriage to impress viewers with my dignity. I employ that method of propelling myself forward or backward or on the diagonal as though I stand on a little wheeled platform. There is no disturbance or expression in the upper body that suggests my feet are even moving. I move like a minor goddess.” She frowns slightly. “But is there then, dear friends, a stiffness about me?” By extending her open hand, she pretends to address her circle of ladies. “Perhaps we should let my newest friend, the most beautiful and admired artist in Paris or the whole of France, be the judge.”
“I am overwhelmed by your kindness. Please do not ask me to judge you, Your Majesty.” I smile at her and cock my head a little to one side as though to avert my eyes. I am playing, too!
“Would you like a lesson in how to walk like a queen?”
“I think that I must walk like an artist, but one who is most happy, most honored to be in the presence of her queen.”
“But come and walk around the apartment with me. Let me put my hand in your arm.”
“Your Majesty is quite well, I hope.”
Here she blushes a bit, drops her chin a little, and looks up at me from her lovely blue eyes. Why, what could cause a queen to blush? My lips part with a tiny pop, for I think I know.
There is a particular reason why the skin of the queen has a heavenly glow. I believe the queen is pregnant! I am flooded with joy at the thought of it. All France will dance with delight. Seven years of marriage have passed with no heir, and the populace has begun to grumble with impatience. I am most sure that there was no lack of willingness on her part to consummate the marriage.
“May I merely say, my dearest new friend, that I have never been more well or more happy in all my life.”
There! She has told me without telling me. I see in her a person of both truthfulness and discretion.
“This little apartment is quickly seen,” she said. “Let us stroll in the great rooms and get more acquainted with each other. I shall play the role of your guide, just as Louis XV—Papa-Roi, I called him—escorted me when I first came here from Austria—became my guide to the wonders, paintings, murals, and statuary of the château. But here we’ll pause before the glass and make comparison. What do you see? Can you look at us, side by side, and let words serve as though they were your paintbrush, rendering the two of us?”
“Because color is the most vibrant part of painting for me—”
“Yes, I have heard you described as a colorist.”
“I note that we are created from different palettes, for you are blond, and I am brunette.”
“That is safely enough said!” she candidly replies, but with that mixture of teasing and fun that I’m sure will be characteristic of much of our conversation. But it will not be all of it. I shall see to that. For she is pliant and genuine enough to want to reveal something of her depths to one who honors and truly loves her.
“And you are taller,” I add.
“And you are more slender,” she says. “In our colors and stature, we are opposites.”
“If I might speak freely, I would describe us as complements.”
“Both of us move in the circles of the greatest refinement and privilege that France has to offer.” Now she is speaking more thoughtfully. She is capable of focused introspection. “It is right, natural, and fitting that we should both be present at the court of Louis XVI. But there is a difference. I am here by the right of birth, as the daughter of the empress of Austria. And you are here because of your talent and your own efforts to employ that talent. You make your way by the gift of God, and it was also God’s gift that I was born to a life at court. I think us equally fortunate.”
I answer her with true and honest humility. “Your Majesty makes too much of me.”
With this sentence she squeezes my arm, almost pinches me. “Your sentence echoes one I myself once uttered.”
While I do not dare to question her, I pray that she will continue in her confidences with me.
“When I journeyed from Austria to France, to be wed to my most dear husband, the caravan stopped on an island in the middle of the Rhine River. It was a location thought neutral, politically, neither Austrian nor French, and it was there, through a special ritual, that I was to abandon my Austrian identity and assume a French one. I was still only fourteen years old.
“My Austrian ladies relieved me of my Austrian clothing so that I was for a moment as naked as any baby who comes newborn into the world, a simple human. All my Austrian jewelry was removed and even my little dog was taken away, for he was deemed to be a sort of Austrian citizen. Then I was tenderly dressed again with French robes. It was a moment of transition, not without pain for all the joy and honor I felt as the bride chosen for the future king of France.”
Here she pauses, and I know that I am trusted indeed. Has she ever mentioned to a single French soul that she had felt pain in giving up her allegiance to all things Austrian? I hope not. Though I would never betray her nor betray her confidences in the slightest manner (I will tell my husband that I had been made to understand that I must never describe or repeat any scene or conversation to which I was privy at the court of Versailles), in this moment I wonder if it is wise on her part to be so frank with me. I am quite sure (and I hope) that usually she is more discreet. But I think she wants me to know her story so that I may have a better chance of painting the soul that lives within her body.
“Even my name, of course, was changed, for at home—”
Yes, she even uses the word home to apply to Austria! I fear for her: too quickly she lets herself be natural and trusting, without subterfuge.
“At home, I was Maria Antonia, and it was by that name that my ladies called me as they undressed me on the little island in the Rhine. They were like bright butterflies in their beautiful Austrian dresses, and it seemed that their wings beat around me and fanned my cheeks with whispered love and gracious compliments. ‘You make too much of me,’ I said to them, for I did feel humble at my selection and at my opportunity to contribute to the peace of Europe. ‘You make too much of me.’
“And those are your very words, my dear Madame Vigée-Le Brun, to me, just now. It is the proof of what my heart already told me, the moment we looked into one another’s eyes, that there would be a special understanding and compatibility between us.”
“Oh, Majesty,” I say quietly but with all the ardor of my artistic nature, “you do me such honor that I fear I will faint with happiness.”
With that utterance, she quickly kisses me on the cheek, but she begins speaking again immediately as if this gesture that seems the seal of favor bestowed upon me is not even a moment to be remembered by her.
But no doubt I do her injustice with this thought, for she is sublimely sensitive to the feelings of others.
“Look up,” the queen instructs me, for she wants me to see the painting on the ceiling of Mars, the god of war. “I was shocked that his chariot is drawn by wolves, the first time, the first day, I walked beneath this scene. May the dogs of war never draw this Roman god across the skies of France. My marriage was meant to ensure the peace between Austria and France, ancient enemies.”
“Among my plans for paintings,” I confide, “is an allegorical one that will depict Peace bringing back Abundance. Two figures of women, one blond and one brunette.”
“Then think of me,” she says, “when you represent Peace, for my person and my presence here serve that cause.”
But I already know the blond figure will represent Abundance in my allegory, and the simple brunette would stand for Peace.
As we pass through the stately public rooms, I see other rich paintings from the time of Louis XIV that Louis XV explained to my noble queen when she was but the dauphine, newly arrived at Versailles, among them Victory Supported by Hercules Followed by Plenty and Felicity, which extends the same sentiment of my painting Peace Bringing Back Abundance.
The only awful mural among those on the ceiling is that of Terror, Fury, and Horror Seizing the Earthly Powers. At those images my queen trembles, and I experience her tremor through our linked arms. I remember my father’s speaking of how the world we knew was soon to be turned upside down.
My own favorite of these mythological scenes is Venus Subjugating the Gods and Powers. Her chariot is drawn by doves and rests upon a cloud. She is half unclothed with bare breasts. Of course Venus is the goddess of the beautiful, superior to all other gods, and she is my icon. Naturally, the chariot of Beauty is drawn by those emissaries of peace, the doves.
“When I first stood under this painting,” the queen reminisces, “on our way to Mass in the chapel, but newly married, you can imagine my feelings of inadequacy as we regarded the lovely breasts of Venus. Though I was fourteen, when some women have already acquired their womanly shape, my chest was as flat as a shield. Papa-Roi sensed my discomfort, for he said to me as we looked up, ‘I cannot imagine anyone more like yourself in loveliness than Venus, the queen of Love and Beauty.’”
“Beauty is indeed a great power in this world,” I say.
“I would rather embody Peace than Beauty,” she replies seriously, “but they are connected. A queen has more power for peace, if she is admired and loved for her beauty.”
“But did not the beauty of Helen spark the Trojan wars?” a male voice asks behind us.
Instantly I deduce it must be the king, and I bow as low as possible and do not dare to look at him. By his footsteps I know that he is passing by us, and he is accompanied by several other pairs of stockinged and well-shod male feet. “Enjoy your time among us, Madame Le Brun,” he murmurs as he passes. Now is not the time for presentation, but I allow myself to glance at the retreating figures of the king and his retinue. One turns—it is the Comte de Vaudreuil, whose portrait I have painted—and winks at me.
I am horrified and aghast, but I hear a slight chuckle from the queen, for she is the intimate friend of the Comte de Vaudreuil and the Comtesse de Polignac (they who recommended me to her), and people say they are all quite merry together. Another minister also turns to glance back at us, and I think he may be the Vicomte de Calonne, said to be astute in matters of finance.
I wait for the queen to speak to me. I feel almost turned to stone, immobilized by the powers around me. In all of Europe there is no palace more grand or more important than the Château de Versailles, and I who command only a few rooms in a mansion on Rue de Cléry am now defined by these walls.
“Another day,” the queen breaks my silence, “we will walk together to the chapel, perhaps while the organ is being played, and you will enjoy those sacred Christian paintings, which these Greek pagans only prefigure.
“Your own paintings are always secular portraits,” she adds. “I think you do not paint sacred images of the Virgin or of Christ our Lord, or of the Creator? Or even the saints?”
“That is true,” I say, though I remember when my brush transformed John the Baptist into one of my father’s friends. “My brush would falter before such subjects. I must look with a literal eye upon my subjects. My inner vision is not strong enough.”
I am amazed to hear myself saying these things to the queen of France, for I have never thought them before, not even to myself. For a moment I think this must be a great failing on my part and that God is surely displeased with me. “For my own edification,” I reply almost in my own defense, “I paint the landscape in watercolors. It is my relaxation and my refreshment to do so. An act of reverence. If I cannot paint our Holy Father or his Son, at least I can paint his creation. I am ever full of wonder at natural beauty.”
“We each have our talents and our inclinations,” she said. Her voice modulates from a somewhat pontifical key to a soft confidentiality. “No one is expected to excel in every way, but to be ourselves fully. My hope is that by the end of my life, I will fully know myself and live honestly and bravely with that knowledge, unswayed by others.”
I am struck silent by the sincerity of her wish. It amazes me that one so young and lovely would be speaking of the end of her life. I hope with all my heart that she bears future life within her now, and that for years to come she and the king will be surrounded by the many children of France.
“Dear Mme Vigée-Le Brun. I wish for you long life and health and happiness.”
I feel as embraced through her simple, soft, and warm words as I would if she had thrown both arms around me. I am stunned, however, into formality. “I cannot find the words to thank Your Majesty enough,” I say.
“When I paint Your Majesty,” I say, though the phrase first forms in my mind otherwise—when I paint you, I would have said—“I will strive to capture something of your naturalness.”
At this she laughs, a trilling bell-like cascade of happiness.
“Then I must tell you, beforehand, what fixes my gaze when I am in the chapel. Can you guess what aspect of deity, when I first enter the chapel on almost any occasion, my eyes seek out? And not only seek out but return to again and again while the organ is heaving its mighty notes and piping its delicate flutes, and the incense is doing its aromatic work, and the voices of the choristers chant and intone their Latin, and I sit, stand, and kneel in all my polished finery?
“On the grand chapel ceiling is a painting of God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, most majestic, with a white beard and in his celestial robes. He hovers over us as we look up.
“The artist has painted God barefooted, and what I most love to see is the bare bottom of God’s foot, the very sole of his foot. It is shaped exactly like a person’s bare sole, with little lines, like wrinkles, something one rarely looks at on the feet of others. In the chapel, we are far below God, but because of his high position and ours beneath, with clouds not much in the way, we are able to see the bottom of his foot, so like our own, and to love him and worship him.”
AS WE PROMENADE back through the stately rooms toward the queen’s apartment, though we chat as we walk, I look at everything with the intention of stocking my memory with these privileged objects of Versailles: wall coverings, carpets, chairs, desks, mirrors, tables, vases, clocks, even tassels and sweeps of fringe; the parterres and fountains outside, the pleasant, sunny vistas tantalizingly glimpsed through the windows, especially the great fountain of Latona with her children Apollo and Diana. However, it is the work of painters hanging on the inner walls of the Château de Versailles that shouts for my attention.
I study especially the various portraits hanging in their magnificent frames of the royalty of France, for it is in portraiture that my own task and my opportunity lie. My spirit whooshes up like a fountain with the knowledge that my work is almost surely destined to hang on these very walls—I know it, for these works do not surpass mine—and that what I paint will in my own lifetime gain a measure of immortality here. It is an intoxicating idea.
Ever sensitive to the enthusiasms of her guests, the queen causes us to stop before the full-length oil portrait of Louis XIV, in which he has thrown his royal robes to one side in order to display his shapely leg, made a focal point not only by its central position but also by the brilliant white color of the stocking he wears. Strikingly erect, this king of France wears no crown but presents a commanding, arresting, and haughty pose. The attention drawn to his magnificent leg is only somewhat balanced by his face and its frame of a curly dark wig.
“I paused here with Papa-Roi,” the queen muses, “when I was fourteen, to admire his grandfather, Louis XIV. It seems very long ago, yet it is but ten years. And my Papa-Roi is gone now, and we are here instead.”
I wonder if she notes the cruelty in the painted face of the aging Sun King. Certainly, I do. But it was during his reign that the greatness of France rose over Europe and gave us our preeminence. I notice the way the foot of Louis XIV is turned, and how well the red color of his high-heeled shoes has retained its brilliance.
“Do you sculpt as well as paint, Madame Le Brun?”
“As a child. Sometimes using the mud of the garden at the convent where I was educated. I would gather up the clay soil to mold a duck or rabbit for the pleasure of my friends. But human faces were ever my obsession, and I drew them everywhere. On the ground with a stick and in the margins of my copybooks, for which I was punished by the nuns.”
“All the same, let me point out to you this marble bust of the Sun King by Bernini, when the king was young.”
As soon as she has led me to this work, I exclaim my admiration. She has chosen well in making sure I experience this miracle in marble, and my heart warms toward her as a perceptive and caring person. I marvel at how at ease she has made me feel.
“He lives,” I say. “Though his flesh is but cold marble and of an unnatural hue, the sculpture compels him into life.” I am thrilled to think that Bernini’s own hand held the tools that chiseled, carved, and smoothed this very bust from a block of marble. I wish my mother were with me to see it.
“Sometimes I think sculpture has quite the advantage over the flat canvas,” she says.
“We live in a round world,” I agree. I do not say my thought: I am so used to looking at paintings, which have their own verisimilitude through the art of perspective, that it seems unnecessary to me to have literally the third dimension.
“This visit we have become acquainted,” the queen says. “Next time you will set up your easel, and we will begin. But I have heard that you sing well, so now let us enjoy a duet together. Something of Grétry’s?”
AS I AM ABOUT TO ENTER the carriage that will convey me away from the Château de Versailles, my progress is arrested by a gentle touch at my elbow. It is a girl, thin, a bit dirty and rather ragged, but with a face of unusual delicacy and sensitivity, partly because of her thinness. Through her transparent skin I can see the blue vein that curves close to the jawbone. She asks to speak to me for a moment, and I readily nod my permission as I ask her name.
“Jeanne Marie,” she answers. “I am a seamstress.”
“Is there some way I may be of use to you?” I ask. The footman in his immaculate wig and splendid livery is gripping together the three thin legs of my easel and placing it in the carriage, along with my stretched canvas, loosely but carefully wrapped in tissue.
“I think you must be a friend of the queen,” she says.
“As is each of her loyal subjects,” I readily reply, “but perhaps not in the intimate sense that you imply.”
“Is it you who are painting Her Majesty, and do you paint mesdames, as Mme Adélaïde Labille-Guiard does?”
“I am just beginning a portrait of Her Majesty,” I reply, but I feel uneasy. Who is this personage who knows the names of artists and those they paint? Might she be some sort of spy sent here by a member of the court who wishes to know too much about the queen’s choices and plans? Despite my feeling of slight alarm, the girlish unguarded part of me proudly and confidingly adds to the information I have already given. “This is the first time I have been invited to come here.”
Instantly I feel the blood drain from my face: how has this girl led me into such unguarded disclosures? For I am the most discreet salonnière in Paris. No one can trip me into divulging information better left unsaid.
As though to implore aid, the girl presses her hands together, and I see that between her palms she is holding a tiny garment fabricated from thin white batiste. It is tucked in front and a band of finest lace encircles the neck. “I have made this gown myself,” she whispers, “a gift for the queen and for her infant to come. Perhaps you would take it with you now and present it on my behalf to the queen, when next you come to paint.”
How is it possible this girl suspects, as do I, that the queen is newly pregnant? No one, not any member of court who frequents my salon, has even begun to hint at such a thing. And how did I know? Something in the queen’s complexion, which so transfixed my appreciation, and something of the joy in her eyes. I shake my head and say in as kindly a fashion as I can, “My dear, I could not dare to presume.”
The girl presses her hands together almost ecstatically. “Then perhaps you would like to buy it from me for your own use?”
“But—” There I stop myself. It is no business of this seamstress to know that I am not pregnant or that I am, or to presume I wish to purchase a gift for someone else. But is it possible that I, too, am pregnant, and that this waif can see in me what I saw in the mien of the queen? While the little garment is wonderfully made, quite artful really, it does not seem entirely clean. There is a grayish cast to the fabric.
“Have you quite finished with the little dress?” I ask. “Do you consider it ready to sell?”
“Madame, it is finished as to stitchery, but—” Here she looks down, and she rubs the back of her hand under her nose. “I know it should be laundered.” Now she looks up into my eyes again. “Something told me to bring it to this place at once. I think it was the Holy Spirit. The idea formed in my mind that I was not to tarry. Madame, I promise that when the dress is laundered and spread on a bush in the sun to dry, and ironed of wrinkles, then this will be a dress fit for a royal child. You will not find smaller or more perfect stitches anyplace in France, and the ideas for its shape and the lace, too, are like no other.”
I am quite amazed by her ardor and no less so by her faith. When she spoke of the Holy Spirit, I thought of Bernini, not of the bust, which I have just seen, of Louis XIV before his dissipation but of the evocative engraving of Bernini’s sculpture of Saint Teresa of Avila. I know that I will buy the little garment, for I wondrously believe that perhaps I myself am with child or will be soon.
“Will there be a full moon tonight? Have you noticed?” I ask her.
“Madame, it was three nights ago. Tonight the moon is waning. Its back will be hunched.”
Ah, I have been so excited and absorbed by the prospect of coming to Versailles that I forgot to notice the absence of my menses, which arrive each month as regularly as the full moon, unless . . .
I reach into the placket of my dress for my pocket of coins. I know there are not many coins in it, for M. Le Brun gives me only a tiny allowance each month. Inside my skirt, my fingers bump against my own thigh, and the prodding and groping surprises my leg. I had almost forgotten that I had a body, other than my hands and eyes; this mystic child seems somehow disembodied—her thinness. Could it be that she and her family are starving?
As I empty the purse into my hand, I look down at the little seamstress and ask hopefully, “Is it enough?” for I know she has spoken the truth about the value of her work.
“It is more than enough, Mme Vigée-Le Brun.”
“Take it all, Jeanne Marie.”
Her lips part but she makes no sound. Nonetheless, the gratitude in her hungry eyes speaks for her.
Woe be unto the girl in France who hears divine voices, my own inner voice warns, and I spontaneously remember an earlier Jeanne, Jeanne d’Arc of bygone times.
After I climb into the carriage, I sit heavily upon the bench.
I hear my father’s voice, with tears in his eyes and his voice cracking with joy, who tells me, “You are an artist, my child!” Today his prophecy is fulfilled, for I am indeed commissioned to paint the queen of France.
Somewhat ruefully another voice within my head tells me, Yes, and you are a woman, too, with a husband who has pleasured you, and you with a body well prepared for childbearing. Involuntarily I place my hand beneath my bosom. My fingertips rub the fabric of my dress, deep rose and brown, maternal colors. Suddenly I long for fresher hues, something of light blue and celery green and sunny yellow.
Would it not be nice to mother a little boy with hair as full of sunshine as the head of a summer dandelion? I ask myself. I am in a state of wonder.
My encounter with the prescient little needlewoman has almost shoved aside my elation that I have been commissioned to paint the queen of France. The thin child’s prescience is something I can hardly doubt, for it echoes my own happy intuition about the queen’s pregnancy. I am more happy for her than I am for myself, for I know that the demands of pregnancy will take more from my work than I would like, no matter how sunny the child. The queen, the darling, will benefit enormously if she gives birth to a child, especially if the babe should be a boy. For the sake of the family into which she has married, for the sake of her own status, for the sake of France, and one may say for the sake of all of Europe as well, the queen’s pregnancy will be the most joyous possible news.
I am pressing the dirty little garment against my mouth as though it were a lawn handkerchief, as though I am about to use it to wipe clear my own tears of joy for the happiness of the queen of France. Taking the little dress by its shoulders, I give it a hard shake within the carriage, but that does nothing toward removing its grayness. Dust is so thoroughly worked into the weave of the fabric that I know it will require soap and scrubbing.
I imagine the young girl sewing beside a window for hours and even weeks. Yes, so much care has been taken with the work that the cloth must have been touched and maneuvered many times by her talented fingers. Still, the garment has no worth if it cannot be made pristine. Should I have let her learn that lesson? I sigh.
It is very easy to ruin a work of art. Or to mar it through some impulse to hurry or because fatigue makes one careless. For now there is nothing to be done but to fold up the tiny gray batiste garment and put it away. I spread the little dress on my knee and fold it in half lengthwise, a soft bend that I do not smooth into a crease. As I softly fold up its length into thirds, something in me rebels against handling cloth less than clean, no matter how delicate its workmanship. Now it is a square shape about the size of my palm. Well, I shall place the garment inside my pocket. I note how truly light, almost weightless the thing is, as light as if it were a stack of folded cobwebs.
And the little seamstress, she was but a wisp herself. My impulse was correct to empty my purse in her hand.
Now the carriage is passing, and I within it, across the wide entrance pavings before the Château de Versailles—marble, then cobblestones. I have spoken with the splendor and grace of Europe; I have seen wan poverty, tantamount to starvation. Through the streets of the town of Versailles, I ponder these visions, and beyond, onto the road that will take us through the countryside back to Paris.