Fabre, a successful painter, had lived in Italy where he had encountered Princess Louise zu Stolberg-Gedern, Countess of Albany. She was the unhappy wife of Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite claimant of the British and Scottish thrones. After her husband's death (1788) she lived with Count Vittorio Alfieri, a wealthy aristocrat, dramatist and poet.

After the death of Alfieri, Fabre was Louise' companion. Her death in 1824, made him a wealthy man because she left her entire fortune to him. 

Fabre bequeathed his own art collection to the city of Montpellier.

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