d on a screen several head-dresses of
historic characters, making holes under them for the insertion of a
face. The conversation passing with those who put in their heads
amused us vastly. Robert, who took part in all our gaieties like a
schoolboy, put his face under Ninon's head-dress, which made us laugh
like mad. All these particulars may seem childish to-day, when evening
parties are taken up with talking politics or playing cards, but some
of us had not yet lost the habit of enjoying ourselves, and the fact
is, we enjoyed ourselves very much. After all, these pleasures were
well worth the cards of Parisian and the stifling routs of London
drawing-rooms.

One of the first people I met, upon my return from London, was Mme. de
Segur, and I frequently went to see her. One day her husband told me
that my journey to England had displeased the Emperor, who had curtly
remarked, "Mme. Lebrun went to see her friends." But Bonaparte's
resentment against me could not have been violent, since, a few days
after speaking thus, he sent M. Denon to me with an order to paint his
sister, Mme. Murat. I thought I could not refuse, although I was
only to be paid 1,800 francs--that is to say, less than half of
what I usually asked for portraits of the same size. This sum was the
more moderate, too, because, for the sake of satisfying myself as to
the composition of the picture, I painted Mme. Murat's pretty little
girl beside her, and that without raising the price.

[Illustration: GENEVIEVE ADELAIDE HELVETIUS, COUNTESS D'ANDLAU.]

I could not conceivably describe all the annoyances, all the torments
I underwent in painting this picture. To begin with, at the first
sitting, Mme. Murat brought two lady's maids, who were to do her hair
while I was painting her. However, upon my remark that I could not
under such circumstances do justice to her features, she vouchsafed to
send her servants away. Then she perpetually failed to keep the
appointments she made with me, so that, in my desire to finish, I was
kept in Paris nearly the whole summer, as a rule waiting for her in
vain, which angered me unspeakably. Moreover, the intervals between
the sittings were so long that she sometimes changed her mode of doing
her hair. In the beginning, for instance, she wore curls hanging over
her cheeks, and I painted them accordingly; but some time after, this
having gone out of fashion, she came back with her hair dressed in a
totally different manner,