Madame Lebrun brought out her Memoirs at the suggestion of her friend, the Princess Dolgoruki. in 1835. The authoress was bom in 1756, at Paris, where she died in 1842. She was the daughter of Louis Vig6e, an obscure portrait painter. Her baptismal name was Marie Louise Elisabeth. In 1776 Mademoiselle Vig6e was married to Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, a notable picture dealer and critic, known also to his contemporaries as an inveterate gambler.
This book forms a rendering of Madame Carette's edition of the Lebnm Memoirs, slightly abridged for the sake of tmiformity with the '* Memoirs of the Cotmtess Potocka" and the "Memoirs of a Contemporary," issuing from the same hands as the present voltune.