seemed to mingle with it in a thick vapour. My
first sensation was that of fear, but I unconsciously accustomed
myself to the spectacle, and ended by admiring it. A certain part of
the road completely entranced me; I seemed to see the "Gallery of the
Titans," and I have always called it so since. Wishing to enjoy all
these beauties as fully as possible, I got down from the coach, but
after walking some way I was seized with a great fright, for there
were explosions being made with gunpowder, which had the effect of a
thousand cannon shots, and the din echoing from rock to rock was
truly infernal.

I went up Mount Cenis, as other strangers were doing, when a postilion
approached me, saying, "The lady ought to take a mule; to climb up on
foot is too fatiguing." I answered that I was a work-woman and quite
accustomed to walking. "Oh! no!" was the laughing reply. "The lady is
no work-woman; we know who she is!" "Well, who am I, then?" I asked
him. "You are Mme. Lebrun, who paints so well, and we are all very
glad to see you safe from those bad people." I never guessed how the
man could have learned my name, but it proved to me how many secret
agents the Jacobins must have had. Happily I had no occasion to fear
them any longer.

No sooner had I arrived at Rome than I did a portrait of myself for
the Florence gallery. I painted myself palette in hand before a canvas
on which I was tracing a figure of the Queen in white crayon. After
that I painted Miss Pitt, who was sixteen and extremely pretty. I
represented her as Hebe, on some clouds, holding in her hand a goblet
from which an eagle was about to drink. I did the eagle from life, and
I thought he would eat me. He belonged to Cardinal de Bernis. The
wretched beast, accustomed to being in the open air--for he was kept
on a chain in the courtyard--was so enraged at finding himself in my
room that he tried to fly at me. I admit that I was dreadfully
frightened.

About this time I painted the portrait of a Polish lady, the Countess
Potocka. She came with her husband, and after he had gone away she
said to me quite coolly, "He is my third husband, but I am thinking of
taking back my first, who would suit me better, although he is a
drunkard." I painted this Pole in a very picturesque way: for a
background she had a rock overgrown with moss, and falling water
nearby.

The pleasure of living in Rome was the only thing that consoled me for
having left my country, my family, a