In all her dealings she showed this kindness and uprightness, sympathy and honesty.  Although numberless orders were constantly coming to her, she never let them hurry her in her work.  She was, possibly, the highest and noblest type—­certainly among great French women—­of that strong and solid virtue which constitutes the backbone and the very essence of French national strength.  The reputation of Rosa Bonheur has never been blemished by the least touch of petty jealousy, hatred, envy, vanity, or pride—­and, among all great French women, she is one of the few of whom this may be said.  She won for herself and her noble art the genuine and lasting sympathy of the world at large.

The only woman artist in France deserving a place beside Rosa Bonheur belongs properly under the reign of Louis XVI., although she lived almost to the middle of the nineteenth century.  At the age of twenty, Mme. Lebrun was already famous as the leading portrait painter; this was during the most popular period of Marie Antoinette—­1775 to 1785.  In 1775, but a young girl, admitted to all the sessions of the Academy as recognition of her portraits of La Bruyere and Cardinal Fleury, she made her life unhappy and gave her art a serious blow by consenting to marry the then great art critic and collector of art, Lebrun.  His passion for gambling and women ruined her fortune and almost ended her career as an artist.  Her own conduct was not irreproachable.

Mme. Lebrun will be remembered principally as the great painter of Marie Antoinette, who posed for her more than twenty times.  The most prominent people of Europe eagerly sought her work, while socially she was welcomed everywhere.  Her famous suppers and entertainments in her modestly furnished hotel, at which Garat sang, Gretry played the piano, and Viotti and Prince Henry of Prussia assisted, were the events of the day.  Her reputation as a painter of the great ladies and gentlemen of nobility, and her entertainments, naturally associated her with the nobility; hence, she shared their unpopularity at the outbreak of the Revolution and left France.

It is doubtful whether any artist—­certainly no French artist—­ever received more attention and honors, or was made a member of so many art academies, than Mme. Lebrun.  It would be difficult to make any comparison between her and Rosa Bonheur, their respective spheres of art being so different.  Only the future will speak as to the relative positions of each in French art.

In the domain of the dramatic art of the nineteenth century, two women have made their names well known throughout Europe and America,—­Rachel, and Sarah Bernhardt, both tragediennes and both daughters of Israel.  While Rachel was, without question, the greatest tragedienne that France ever produced, excelling Bernhardt in deep tragic force, she yet lacked many qualities which our contemporary possesses in a high degree.  She had constantly to contend with a cruel fate and a wicked, grasping nature, which brought her to an early grave.  The wretched slave of her greedy and rapacious father and managers, who cared for her only in so far as she enriched them by her genius and popularity, hers was a miserable existence, which detracted from her acting, checked her development, and finally undermined her health.