Editing Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (section)

==== Return to France and stay at Paris ====
After a sustained campaign by her ex-husband and other family members to have her name removed from the list of counter-revolutionary émigrés, Vigée Le Brun was finally able to return to France in January 1802.<ref name=ExhCat/> The artist received a rapturous welcome in her home at Rue de-Gros-Chenet and was greatly hailed by the press. Three days after her arrival, a letter arrived for her from the [[Comédie-Française]], containing a decree reinstating her as a member of the theater. The leading members of the theater also wished to enact a comedy at her house to celebrate her return, which she politely refused. Soon afterwards, the artist was taken to witness the first consul's routine military ceremony at the [[Tuileries Palace|Tuileries]] where she saw [[Napoleon|Napoleon Bonaparte]] for the first time, from a window inside the [[Louvre]]. The artist found it difficult to recognize the short figure as the man she had heard so much about; as with Catherine the Great, she had imagined a tall figure. A few days later, Bonaparte's brothers visited her gallery to view her works, with [[Lucien Bonaparte]] greatly complimenting her famous ''Sibyl''.<ref name="Memoirs" /> During her stay, Vigée Le Brun was surprised and dismayed by the greatly changed social customs of Parisian society upon her return there. She soon visited the famous painter [[Joseph-Marie Vien]], who was the former ''[[Premier peintre du Roi]]''; then 82 years old and a [[Sénat conservateur|senator]], he gave Vigée Le Brun an enthusiastic welcome and showed her some of his newest sketches. She met her friend from Saint Petersburg, Princess Dolgorouky, and saw her almost daily. In 1802, she demanded the refund of her dowry from her husband, whose gambling habits had dissipated a significant portion of the wealth she had accumulated in her early career as a portraitist. The artist soon felt mentally tormented in Paris, mainly due to memories of the early days of the Revolution, and decided to move to a secluded house in [[Meudon]] forest. She was visited there by her neighbors, the famous dissident pair and [[French Directory|Directory period]] ''[[Incroyables and merveilleuses|Merveilleuses]]'' the [[Aimée de Coigny|Duchesse de Fleury]], whom she met there for the first time since their friendship in Rome, and [[Adèle de Bellegarde]]; time spent with the pair restored her spirits. Shortly thereafter, Vigée Le Brun decided to travel to [[England]], and departed from Paris on 15 April 1802.