Editing Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (section)

==== Return to France from England ====
[[File:Elisabeth_Louise_Vigée-Le_Brun_-_Juno_Borrowing_the_Belt_of_Venus,_1781.jpg|thumb|324x324px|left|''[[Juno Borrowing the Belt of Venus]]'', 1781, Private Collection.]]

Her ship arrived in Rotterdam, where she first visited [[François VI de Beauharnais|François de Beauharnais]], the prefect of Rotterdam and brother in law to the Empress [[Joséphine de Beauharnais]] (brother to the late [[Alexandre de Beauharnais]], who had been executed during [[Reign of Terror|The Terror]]). The artist was ordered to reside for eight to ten days in Rotterdam, as she has arrived from hostile soil, and was ordered to appear before the General [[Charles Oudinot]], who was hospitable to her. After residing in Rotterdam for ten days, she received her passport and started for Paris. She visited [[Antwerp]] on her way to Paris and was received by its prefect, the Comte d'Hédouville [[:fr:Charles Théodore Ernest de Hédouville|[fr]]], and toured the city with him and his wife, and visited a sick young painter who wished to make her acquaintance.

She arrived in Paris and rejoiced to find her brother and her husband there, who was charged with recruiting artists for Saint Petersburg. He departed a few months later for Saint Petersburg, but Julie remained due to their failing union,{{Clarify|date=October 2023}} though her relationship with her daughter continued to be a torment to her. She made the acquaintance of one of the most famous singers of her time, [[Angelica Catalani]]. She painted her and kept her portrait along with that of Mme Grassini for the rest of her life, and continued to host soirées in her home as she had always had, to which Mme. Catalani was a regular.

Shortly after her arrival in Paris, Vigée Le Brun was commissioned by the court painter, [[Vivant Denon]], to paint a portrait of the Emperor's sister [[Caroline Bonaparte]], though she had heard that her journey to England had displeased Napoleon, who had allegedly said "Madame Le Brun has gone to England to see her ''friends''". Vigée Le Brun accepted the commission despite the fact that she was paid 1800 Francs, less than half the customary asking price, and later also included Mme Murat's daughter in the portrait without raising the fee. She later described this commission as "torture", and wrote in her memoirs:
<blockquote>It would be impossible to describe all the vexations and torment I had to suffer while painting this portrait. First of all Mme Murat arrived with two ladies in waiting who proceeded to dress her hair as I tried to paint her. When I observed that it would be impossible to capture a likeness if I allowed them to continue, she eventually agreed to send the two women away. Added to this inconvenience, she almost always broke our appointments, which meant my staying in Paris for the whole summer waiting, usually in vain, for her to appear, for I was eager to finish the painting; I cannot tell you how this woman tried my patience. Moreover the gap between sittings was so long, that each time she did appear, her hair was dressed differently. At the beginning, for example, she had curls falling onto her cheek and I painted them accordingly; but a little later this style had gone out of fashion and she returned with a completely different one; I then had to rub out the curls as well as the pearls on her bandeau and replace them with cameos. The same thing happened with the dresses. The first dress I painted was rather open, as was the fashion then, and had a great deal of bold embroidery; when the fashion changed and the embroidery became more delicate, I had to enlarge the dress in order not to lose the detail. Eventually all these irritations reached a pitch, and I became very bad tempered as a result; one day she happened to be in my studio and I said to M. Denon, in a voice loud enough for her to overhear: 'When I painted real princesses they never gave me any trouble and never kept me waiting.' Of course Mme Murat did not know that punctuality is the politeness of kings, as [[Louis XIV]] quite rightly remarked and he, at least, was no upstart.</blockquote>The portrait was exhibited in the Salon of 1807, and was the only portrait the imperial government commissioned from her.