CHAPTER I.

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF

MARIE ANTOINETTE,

QUEEN OF FRANCE

Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan,

First Lady in Waiting to the Queen.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Duchesse du Barry

Princesse de Lamballe

The Parisian Bonne

Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette

Beaumarchais

The Reveille

Madame Adelaide as Diana

The Bastille

Opening of The States General

Louis XVI.

Marie Antoinette on the way to the Guillotine

Madame Campan

PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR.

Louis XVI. possessed an immense crowd of confidants, advisers, and guides;

he selected them even from among the factions which attacked him. Never,

perhaps, did he make a full disclosure to any one of them, and certainly

he spoke with sincerity, to but very few. He invariably kept the reins of

all secret intrigues in his own hand; and thence, doubtless, arose the

want of cooperation and the weakness which were so conspicuous in his

measures. From these causes considerable chasms will be found in the

detailed history of the Revolution.

In order to become thoroughly acquainted with the latter years of the

reign of Louis XV., memoirs written by the Duc de Choiseul, the Duc

d’Aiguillon, the Marechal de Richelieu, and the Duc de La Vauguyon,

should be before us.

[I heard Le Marechal de Richelieu desire M. Campan, who was librarian to

the Queen, not to buy the Memoirs which would certainly be attributed to

him after his death, declaring them false by anticipation; and adding that

he was ignorant of orthography, and had never amused himself with writing.

Shortly after the death of the Marshal, one Soulavie put forth Memoirs of

the Marechal de Richelieu.]

To give us a faithful portrait of the unfortunate reign of Louis XVI.,

the Marechal du Muy, M. de Maurepas, M. de Vergennes, M. de Malesherbes,

the Duc d’Orleans, M. de La Fayette, the Abby de Vermond, the Abbe

Montesquiou, Mirabeau, the Duchesse de Polignac, and the Duchesse de

Luynes should have noted faithfully in writing all the transactions in

which they took decided parts. The secret political history of a later

period has been disseminated among a much greater number of persons;

there are Ministers who have published memoirs, but only when they had

their own measures to justify, and then they confined themselves to the

vindication of their own characters, without which powerful motive they

probably would have written nothing. In general, those nearest to the

Sovereign, either by birth or by office, have left no memoirs; and in

absolute monarchies the mainsprings of great events will be found in

particulars which the most exalted persons alone could know. Those who

have had but little under their charge find no subject in it for a book;

and those who have long borne the burden of public business conceive

themselves to be forbidden by duty, or by respect for authority, to

disclose all they know. Others, again, preserve notes, with the

intention of reducing them to order when they shall have reached the

period of a happy leisure; vain illusion of the ambitious, which they

cherish, for the most part, but as a veil to conceal from their sight

the hateful image of their inevitable downfall! and when it does at

length take place, despair or chagrin deprives them of fortitude to

dwell upon the dazzling period which they never cease to regret.

Louis XVI. meant to write his own memoirs; the manner in which his

private papers were arranged indicated this design. The Queen also had

the same intention; she long preserved a large correspondence, and a great

number of minute reports, made in the spirit and upon the event of the

moment. But after the 20th of June, 1792, she was obliged to burn the

larger portion of what she had so collected, and the remainder were

conveyed out of France.

Considering the rank and situations of the persons I have named as capable

of elucidating by their writings the history of our political storms, it

will not be imagined that I aim at placing myself on a level with them;

but I have spent half my life either with the daughters of Louis XV. or

with Marie Antoinette. I knew the characters of those Princesses; I

became privy to some extraordinary facts, the publication of which may be

interesting, and the truth of the details will form the merit of my work.

I was very young when I was placed about the Princesses, the daughters of

Louis XV., in the capacity of reader. I was acquainted with the Court of

Versailles before the time of the marriage of Louis XVI. with the

Archduchess Marie Antoinette.

MADAME CAMPAN

My father, who was employed in the department of Foreign Affairs, enjoyed

the reputation due to his talents and to his useful labours. He had

travelled much. Frenchmen, on their return home from foreign countries,

bring with them a love for their own, increased in warmth; and no man was

more penetrated with this feeling, which ought to be the first virtue of

every placeman, than my father. Men of high title, academicians, and

learned men, both natives and foreigners, sought my father’s acquaintance,

and were gratified by being admitted into his house.

Twenty years before the Revolution I often heard it remarked that the

imposing character of the power of Louis XIV. was no longer to be found in

the Palace of Versailles; that the institutions of the ancient monarchy

were rapidly sinking; and that the people, crushed beneath the weight of

taxes, were miserable, though silent; but that they began to give ear to

the bold speeches of the philosophers, who loudly proclaimed their

sufferings and their rights; and, in short, that the age would not pass

away without the occurrence of some great outburst, which would unsettle

France, and change the course of its progress.

Those who thus spoke were almost all partisans of M. Turgot’s system of

administration: they were Mirabeau the father, Doctor Quesnay, Abbe

Bandeau, and Abbe Nicoli, charge d’affaires to Leopold, Grand Duke of

Tuscany, and as enthusiastic an admirer of the maxims of the innovators as

his Sovereign.

My father sincerely respected the purity of intention of these

politicians. With them he acknowledged many abuses in the Government; but

he did not give these political sectarians credit for the talent necessary

for conducting a judicious reform. He told them frankly that in the art

of moving the great machine of Government, the wisest of them was inferior

to a good magistrate; and that if ever the helm of affairs should be put

into their hands, they would be speedily checked in the execution of their

schemes by the immeasurable difference existing between the most brilliant

theories and the simplest practice of administration.

Destiny having formerly placed me near crowned heads, I now amuse my

solitude when in retirement with collecting a variety of facts which may

prove interesting to my family when I shall be no more. The idea of

collecting all the interesting materials which my memory affords occurred

to me from reading the work entitled “Paris, Versailles, and the Provinces

in the Eighteenth Century.” That work, composed by a man accustomed to

the best society, is full of piquant anecdotes, nearly all of which have

been recognised as true by the contemporaries of the author. I have put

together all that concerned the domestic life of an unfortunate Princess,

whose reputation is not yet cleared of the stains it received from the

attacks of calumny, and who justly merited a different lot in life, a

different place in the opinion of mankind after her fall. These memoirs,

which were finished ten years ago, have met with the approbation of some

persons; and my son may, perhaps, think proper to print them after my

decease.

J. L. H. C.

--When Madame Campan wrote these lines, she did not anticipate that the

death of her son would precede her own.

HISTORIC COURT MEMOIRS.

MARIE ANTOINETTE.

MEMOIR OF MADAME CAMPAN.

JEANNE LOUISE HENRIETTE GENET was born in Paris on the 6th of October,

1752. M. Genet, her father, had obtained, through his own merit and the

influence of the Duc de Choiseul, the place of first clerk in the Foreign

Office.

Literature, which he had cultivated in his youth, was often the solace of

his leisure hours. Surrounded by a numerous family, he made the

instruction of his children his chief recreation, and omitted nothing

which was necessary to render them highly accomplished. His clever and

precocious daughter Henriette was very early accustomed to enter society,

and to take an intelligent interest in current topics and public events.

Accordingly, many of her relations being connected with the Court or

holding official positions, she amassed a fund of interesting

recollections and characteristic anecdotes, some gathered from personal

experience, others handed down by old friends of the family.

“The first event which made any impression on me in my childhood,” she

says in her reminiscences, “was the attempt of Damiens to assassinate

Louis XV. This occurrence struck me so forcibly that the most minute

details relating to the confusion and grief which prevailed at Versailles

on that day seem as present to my imagination as the most recent events. I

had dined with my father and mother, in company with one of their friends.

The drawing-room was lighted up with a number of candles, and four

card-tables were already occupied, when a friend of the gentleman of the

house came in, with a pale and terrified countenance, and said, in a voice

scarcely audible, ‘I bring you terrible news. The King has been

assassinated!’ Two ladies in the company fainted; a brigadier of the Body

Guards threw down his cards and cried out, ‘I do not wonder at it; it is

those rascally Jesuits.’--‘What are you saying, brother?’ cried a lady,

flying to him; ‘would you get yourself arrested?’--‘Arrested! For what?

For unmasking those wretches who want a bigot for a King?’ My father came

in; he recommended circumspection, saying that the blow was not mortal,

and that all meetings ought to be suspended at so critical a moment. He

had brought the chaise for my mother, who placed me on her knees. We

lived in the Avenue de Paris, and throughout our drive I heard incessant

cries and sobs from the footpaths.

“At last I saw a man arrested; he was an usher of the King’s chamber, who

had gone mad, and was crying out, ‘Yes, I know them; the wretches! the

villains!’ Our chaise was stopped by this bustle. My mother recognised

the unfortunate man who had been seized; she gave his name to the trooper

who had stopped him. The poor usher was therefore merely conducted to the

gens d’armes’ guardroom, which was then in the avenue.

“I have often heard M. de Landsmath, equerry and master of the hounds, who

used to come frequently to my father’s, say that on the news of the

attempt on the King’s life he instantly repaired to his Majesty. I cannot

repeat the coarse expressions he made use of to encourage his Majesty; but

his account of the affair, long afterwards, amused the parties in which he

was prevailed on to relate it, when all apprehensions respecting the

consequences of the event had subsided. This M. de Landsmath was an old

soldier, who had given proofs of extraordinary valour; nothing had been

able to soften his manners or subdue his excessive bluntness to the

respectful customs of the Court. The King was very fond of him. He

possessed prodigious strength, and had often contended with Marechal Saxe,

renowned for his great bodily power, in trying the strength of their

respective wrists.

[One day when the King was hunting in the forest of St. Germain,

Landemath, riding before him, wanted a cart, filled with the slime of a

pond that had just been cleansed, to draw up out of the way. The carter

resisted, and even answered with impertinence. Landsmath, without

dismounting, seized him by the breast of his coat, lifted him up, and

threw him into his cart.--MADAME CAMPAN.]

“M. de Landsmath had a thundering voice. When he came into the King’s

apartment he found the Dauphin and Mesdames, his Majesty’s daughters,

there; the Princesses, in tears, surrounded the King’s bed. Send out all

these weeping women, Sire,’ said the old equerry; ‘I want to speak to you

alone: The King made a sign to the Princesses to withdraw. ‘Come,’ said

Landsmath, ‘your wound is nothing; you had plenty of waistcoats and

flannels on.’ Then uncovering his breast, ‘Look here,’ said he, showing

four or five great scars, ‘these are something like wounds; I received

them thirty years ago; now cough as loud as you can.’ The King did so.

‘‘Tis nothing at all,’ said Landsmath; ‘you must laugh at it; we shall

hunt a stag together in four days.’--‘But suppose the blade was poisoned,’

said the King. ‘Old grandams’ tales,’ replied Landsmath; ‘if it had been

so, the waistcoats and flannels would have rubbed the poison off.’ The

King was pacified, and passed a very good night.

“His Majesty one day asked M. de Landsmath how old he was. He was aged,

and by no means fond of thinking of his age; he evaded the question. A

fortnight later, Louis XV. took a paper out of his pocket and read aloud:

‘On such a day in the month of one thousand six hundred and eighty, was

baptised by me, rector of ------, the son of the high and mighty lord,’

etc. ‘What’s that?’ said Landsmath, angrily; ‘has your Majesty been

procuring the certificate of my baptism?’--‘There it is, you see,

Landsmath,’ said the King. ‘Well, Sire, hide it as fast as you can; a

prince entrusted with the happiness of twenty-five millions of people

ought not wilfully to hurt the feelings of a single individual.’

“The King learned that Landsmath had lost his confessor, a missionary

priest of the parish of Notre-Dame. It was the custom of the Lazarists to

expose their dead with the face uncovered. Louis XV. wished to try his

equerry’s firmness. ‘You have lost your confessor, I hear,’ said the

King. ‘Yes, Sire.’--‘He will be exposed with his face bare?’--‘Such is

the custom.’--‘I command you to go and see him.’--‘Sire, my confessor was

my friend; it would be very painful to me.’--‘No matter; I command

you.’--‘Are you really in earnest, Sire?’--‘Quite so.’--‘It would be the

first time in my life that I had disobeyed my sovereign’s order. I will

go.’ The next day the King at his levee, as soon as he perceived

Landsmath, said, ‘Have you done as I desired you,

Landsmath?’--‘Undoubtedly, Sire.’--‘Well, what did you see?’--‘Faith, I

saw that your Majesty and I are no great shakes!’

“At the death of Queen Maria Leczinska, M. Campan,--[Her father-in-law,

afterwards secretary to Marie Antoinette.]--then an officer of the

chamber, having performed several confidential duties, the King asked

Madame Adelaide how he should reward him. She requested him to create an

office in his household of master of the wardrobe, with a salary of a

thousand crowns. ‘I will do so,’ said the King; ‘it will be an honourable

title; but tell Campan not to add a single crown to his expenses, for you

will see they will never pay him.’

“Louis XV., by his dignified carriage, and the amiable yet majestic

expression of his features, was worthy to succeed to Louis the Great. But

he too frequently indulged in secret pleasures, which at last were sure to

become known. During several winters, he was passionately fond of

‘candles’ end balls’, as he called those parties amongst the very lowest

classes of society. He got intelligence of the picnics given by the

tradesmen, milliners, and sempstresses of Versailles, whither he repaired

in a black domino, and masked, accompanied by the captain of his Guards,

masked like himself. His great delight was to go ‘en brouette’--[In a

kind of sedan-chair, running on two wheels, and drawn by a

chairman.]--Care was always taken to give notice to five or six officers

of the King’s or Queen’s chamber to be there, in order that his Majesty

might be surrounded by people on whom he could depend, without finding it

troublesome. Probably the captain of the Guards also took other

precautions of this description on his part. My father-in-law, when the

King and he were both young, has often made one amongst the servants

desired to attend masked at these parties, assembled in some garret, or

parlour of a public-house. In those times, during the carnival, masked

companies had a right to join the citizens’ balls; it was sufficient that

one of the party should unmask and name himself.

“These secret excursions, and his too habitual intercourse with ladies

more distinguished for their personal charms than for the advantages of

education, were no doubt the means by which the King acquired many vulgar

expressions which otherwise would never have reached his ears.

“Yet amidst the most shameful excesses the King sometimes suddenly resumed

the dignity of his rank in a very noble manner. The familiar courtiers of

Louis XV. had one day abandoned themselves to the unrestrained gaiety, of

a supper, after returning from the chase. Each boasted of and described

the beauty of his mistress. Some of them amused themselves with giving a

particular account of their wives’ personal defects. An imprudent word,

addressed to Louis XV., and applicable only to the Queen, instantly

dispelled all the mirth of the entertainment. The King assumed his regal

air, and knocking with his knife on the table twice or thrice, ‘Gentlemen;

said he, ‘here is the King!’

“Those men who are most completely abandoned to dissolute manners are not,

on that account, insensible to virtue in women. The Comtesse de Perigord

was as beautiful as virtuous. During some excursions she made to Choisy,

whither she had been invited, she perceived that the King took great

notice of her. Her demeanour of chilling respect, her cautious

perseverance in shunning all serious conversation with the monarch, were

insufficient to extinguish this rising flame, and he at length addressed a

letter to her, worded in the most passionate terms. This excellent woman

instantly formed her resolution: honour forbade her returning the King’s

passion, whilst her profound respect for the sovereign made her unwilling

to disturb his tranquillity. She therefore voluntarily banished herself

to an estate she possessed called Chalais, near Barbezieux, the mansion of

which had been uninhabited nearly a century; the porter’s lodge was the

only place in a condition to receive her. From this seat she wrote to his

Majesty, explaining her motives for leaving Court; and she remained there

several years without visiting Paris. Louis XV. was speedily attracted by

other objects, and regained the composure to which Madame de Perigord had

thought it her duty to sacrifice so much. Some years after, Mesdames’

lady of honour died. Many great families solicited the place. The King,

without answering any of their applications, wrote to the Comtesse de

Perigord: ‘My daughters have just lost their lady of honour; this place,

madame, is your due, as much on account of your personal qualities as of

the illustrious name of your family.’

“Three young men of the college of St. Germain, who had just completed

their course of studies, knowing no person about the Court, and having

heard that strangers were always well treated there, resolved to dress

themselves completely in the Armenian costume, and, thus clad, to present

themselves to see the grand ceremony of the reception of several knights

of the Order of the Holy Ghost. Their stratagem met with all the success

with which they had flattered themselves. While the procession was

passing through the long mirror gallery, the Swiss of the apartments

placed them in the first row of spectators, recommending every one to pay

all possible attention to the strangers. The latter, however, were

imprudent enough to enter the ‘oeil-de-boeuf’ chamber, where, were

Messieurs Cardonne and Ruffin, interpreters of Oriental languages, and the

first clerk of the consul’s department, whose business it was to attend to

everything which related to the natives of the East who were in France.

The three scholars were immediately surrounded and questioned by these

gentlemen, at first in modern Greek. Without being disconcerted, they

made signs that they did not understand it. They were then addressed in

Turkish and Arabic; at length one of the interpreters, losing all

patience, exclaimed, ‘Gentlemen, you certainly must understand some of the

languages in which you have been addressed. What country can you possibly

come from then?’--‘From St. Germain-en-Laye, sir,’ replied the boldest

among them; ‘this is the first time you have put the question to us in

French.’ They then confessed the motive of their disguise; the eldest of

them was not more than eighteen years of age. Louis XV. was informed of

the affair. He laughed heartily, ordered them a few hours’ confinement

and a good admonition, after which they were to be set at liberty.

“Louis XV. liked to talk about death, though he was extremely apprehensive

of it; but his excellent health and his royal dignity probably made him

imagine himself invulnerable. He often said to people who had very bad

colds, ‘You’ve a churchyard cough there.’ Hunting one day in the forest

of Senard, in a year in which bread was extremely dear, he met a man on

horseback carrying a coffin. ‘Whither are you carrying that coffin?’--‘To

the village of ------,’ answered the peasant. ‘Is it for a man or a

woman?’--‘For a man.’--‘What did he die of?’--‘Of hunger,’ bluntly replied

the villager. The King spurred on his horse, and asked no more questions.

“Weak as Louis XV. was, the Parliaments would never have obtained his

consent to the convocation of the States General. I heard an anecdote on

this subject from two officers attached to that Prince’s household. It

was at the period when the remonstrances of the Parliaments, and the

refusals to register the decrees for levying taxes, produced alarm with

respect to the state of the finances. This became the subject of

conversation one evening at the coucher of Louis XV. ‘You will see,

Sire,’ said a courtier, whose office placed him in close communication

with the King, ‘that all this will make it absolutely necessary to

assemble the States General!’

“The King, roused by this speech from the habitual apathy of his

character, seized the courtier by the arm, and said to him, in a passion,

‘Never repeat, these words. I am not sanguinary; but had I a brother, and

were he to dare to give me such advice, I would sacrifice him, within

twenty-four hours, to the duration of the monarchy and the tranquillity of

the kingdom.’

“Several years prior to his death the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI.,

had confluent smallpox, which endangered his life; and after his

convalescence he was long troubled with a malignant ulcer under the nose.

He was injudiciously advised to get rid of it by the use of extract of

lead, which proved effectual; but from that time the Dauphin, who was

corpulent, insensibly grew thin, and a short, dry cough evinced that the

humour, driven in, had fallen on the lungs. Some persons also suspected

him of having taken acids in too great a quantity for the purpose of

reducing his bulk. The state of his health was not, however, such as to

excite alarm. At the camp at Compiegne, in July, 1764, the Dauphin

reviewed the troops, and evinced much activity in the performance of his

duties; it was even observed that he was seeking to gain the attachment of

the army. He presented the Dauphiness to the soldiers, saying, with a

simplicity which at that time made a great sensation, ‘Mes enfans, here is

my wife.’ Returning late on horseback to Compiegne, he found he had taken

a chill; the heat of the day had been excessive; the Prince’s clothes had

been wet with perspiration. An illness followed, in which the Prince

began to spit blood. His principal physician wished to have him bled; the

consulting physicians insisted on purgation, and their advice was

followed. The pleurisy, being ill cured, assumed and retained all the

symptoms of consumption; the Dauphin languished from that period until

December, 1765, and died at Fontainebleau, where the Court, on account of

his condition, had prolonged its stay, which usually ended on the 2d of

November.

“The Dauphiness, his widow, was deeply afflicted; but the immoderate

despair which characterised her grief induced many to suspect that the

loss of the crown was an important part of the calamity she lamented. She

long refused to eat enough to support life; she encouraged her tears to

flow by placing portraits of the Dauphin in every retired part of her

apartments. She had him represented pale, and ready to expire, in a

picture placed at the foot of her bed, under draperies of gray cloth, with

which the chambers of the Princesses were always hung in court mournings.

Their grand cabinet was hung with black cloth, with an alcove, a canopy,

and a throne, on which they received compliments of condolence after the

first period of the deep mourning. The Dauphiness, some months before the

end of her career, regretted her conduct in abridging it; but it was too

late; the fatal blow had been struck. It may also be presumed that living

with a consumptive, man had contributed to her complaint. This Princess

had no opportunity of displaying her qualities; living in a Court in which

she was eclipsed by the King and Queen, the only characteristics that

could be remarked in her were her extreme attachment to her husband, and

her great piety.

“The Dauphin was little known, and his character has been much mistaken.

He himself, as he confessed to his intimate friends, sought to disguise

it. He one day asked one of his most familiar servants, ‘What do they say

in Paris of that great fool of a Dauphin?’ The person interrogated seeming

confused, the Dauphin urged him to express himself sincerely, saying,

‘Speak freely; that is positively the idea which I wish people to form of

me.’

“As he died of a disease which allows the last moment to be anticipated

long beforehand, he wrote much, and transmitted his affections and his

prejudices to his son by secret notes.

“Madame de Pompadour’s brother received Letters of Nobility from his

Majesty, and was appointed superintendent of the buildings and gardens. He

often presented to her Majesty, through the medium of his sister, the

rarest flowers, pineapples, and early vegetables from the gardens of

Trianon and Choisy. One day, when the Marquise came into the Queen’s

apartments, carrying a large basket of flowers, which she held in her two

beautiful arms, without gloves, as a mark of respect, the Queen loudly

declared her admiration of her beauty; and seemed as if she wished to

defend the King’s choice, by praising her various charms in detail, in a

manner that would have been as suitable to a production of the fine arts

as to a living being. After applauding the complexion, eyes, and fine

arms of the favourite, with that haughty condescension which renders

approbation more offensive than flattering, the Queen at length requested

her to sing, in the attitude in which she stood, being desirous of hearing

the voice and musical talent by which the King’s Court had been charmed in

the performances of the private apartments, and thus combining the

gratification of the ears with that of the eyes. The Marquise, who still

held her enormous basket, was perfectly sensible of something offensive in

this request, and tried to excuse herself from singing. The Queen at last

commanded her; she then exerted her fine voice in the solo of Armida--‘At

length he is in my power.’ The change in her Majesty’s countenance was so

obvious that the ladies present at this scene had the greatest difficulty

to keep theirs.

“The Queen was affable and modest; but the more she was thankful in her

heart to Heaven for having placed her on the first throne in Europe, the

more unwilling she was to be reminded of her elevation. This sentiment

induced her to insist on the observation of all the forms of respect due

to royal birth; whereas in other princes the consciousness of that birth

often induces them to disdain the ceremonies of etiquette, and to prefer

habits of ease and simplicity. There was a striking contrast in this

respect between Maria Leczinska and Marie Antoinette, as has been justly

and generally observed. The latter unfortunate Queen, perhaps, carried

her disregard of everything belonging to the strict forms of etiquette too

far. One day, when the Marechale de Mouchy was teasing her with questions

relative to the extent to which she would allow the ladies the option of

taking off or wearing their cloaks, and of pinning up the lappets of their

caps, or letting them hang down, the Queen replied to her, in my presence:

‘Arrange all those matters, madame, just as you please; but do not imagine

that a queen, born Archduchess of Austria, can attach that importance to

them which might be felt by a Polish princess who had become Queen of

France.’

“The virtues and information of the great are always evinced by their

conduct; their accomplishments, coming within the scope of flattery, are

difficult to be ascertained by any authentic proofs, and those who have

lived near them may be excused for some degree of scepticism with regard

to their attainments of this kind. If they draw or paint, there is always

an able artist present, who, if he does not absolutely guide the pencil

with his own hand, directs it by his advice. If a princess attempt a

piece of embroidery in colours, of that description which ranks amongst

the productions of the arts, a skilful embroideress is employed to undo

and repair whatever has been spoilt. If the princess be a musician, there

are no ears that will discover when she is out of tune; at least there is

no tongue that will tell her so. This imperfection in the accomplishments

of the great is but a slight misfortune. It is sufficiently meritorious

in them to engage in such pursuits, even with indifferent success, because

this taste and the protection it extends produce abundance of talent on

every side. Maria Leczinska delighted in the art of painting, and

imagined she herself could draw and paint. She had a drawing-master, who

passed all his time in her cabinet. She undertook to paint four large

Chinese pictures, with which she wished to ornament her private

drawing-room, which was richly furnished with rare porcelain and the

finest marbles. This painter was entrusted with the landscape and

background of the pictures; he drew the figures with a pencil; the faces

and arms were also left by the Queen to his execution; she reserved to

herself nothing but the draperies, and the least important accessories.

The Queen every morning filled up the outline marked out for her, with a

little red, blue, or green colour, which the master prepared on the

palette, and even filled her brush with, constantly repeating, ‘Higher up,

Madame--lower down, Madame--a little to the right--more to the left.’

After an hour’s work, the time for hearing mass, or some other family or

pious duty, would interrupt her Majesty; and the painter, putting the

shadows into the draperies she had painted, softening off the colour where

she had laid too much, etc., finished the small figures. When the work

was completed the private drawing-room was decorated with her Majesty’s

work; and the firm persuasion of this good Queen that she had painted it

herself was so entire that she left this cabinet, with all its furniture

and paintings, to the Comtesse de Noailles, her lady of honour. She added

to the bequest: ‘The pictures in my cabinet being my own work, I hope the

Comtesse de Noailles will preserve them for my sake.’ Madame de Noailles,

afterwards Marechale de Mouchy, had a new pavilion constructed in her

hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, in order to form a suitable receptacle

for the Queen’s legacy; and had the following inscription placed over the

door, in letters of gold: ‘The innocent falsehood of a good princess.’

“Maria Leczinska could never look with cordiality on the Princess of

Saxony, who married the Dauphin; but the attentive behaviour of the

Dauphiness at length made her Majesty forget that the Princess was the

daughter of a king who wore her father’s crown. Nevertheless, although

the Queen now saw in the Princess of Saxony only a wife beloved by her

son, she never could forget that Augustus wore the crown of Stanislaus.

One day an officer of her chamber having undertaken to ask a private

audience of her for the Saxon minister, and the Queen being unwilling to

grant it, he ventured to add that he should not have presumed to ask this

favour of the Queen had not the minister been the ambassador of a member

of the family. ‘Say of an enemy of the family,’ replied the Queen,

angrily; ‘and let him come in.’

“Comte de Tesse, father of the last Count of that name, who left no

children, was first equerry to Queen Maria Leczinska. She esteemed his

virtues, but often diverted herself at the expense of his simplicity. One

day, when the conversation turned on the noble military, actions by which

the French nobility was distinguished, the Queen said to the Count: ‘And

your family, M. de Tesse, has been famous, too, in the field.’--‘Ah,

Madame, we have all been killed in our masters’ service!’--‘How rejoiced I

am,’ replied the Queen, ‘that you have revived to tell me of it.’ The son

of this worthy M. de Tesse was married to the amiable and highly gifted

daughter of the Duc d’Ayen, afterwards Marechale de Noailles. He was

exceedingly fond of his daughter-in-law, and never could speak of her

without emotion. The Queen, to please him, often talked to him about the

young Countess, and one day asked him which of her good qualities seemed

to him most conspicuous. ‘Her gentleness, Madame, her gentleness,’ said

he, with tears in his eyes; ‘she is so mild, so soft,--as soft as a good

carriage.’--‘Well,’ said her Majesty, ‘that’s an excellent comparison for

a first equerry.’

“In 1730 Queen Maria Leczinska, going to mass, met old Marechal Villars,

leaning on a wooden crutch not worth fifteen pence. She rallied him about

it, and the Marshal told her that he had used it ever since he had

received a wound which obliged him to add this article to the equipments

of the army. Her Majesty, smiling, said she thought this crutch so

unworthy of him that she hoped to induce him to give it up. On returning

home she despatched M. Campan to Paris with orders to purchase at the

celebrated Germain’s the handsomest cane, with a gold enamelled crutch,

that he could find, and carry it without delay to Marechal Villars’s

hotel, and present it to him from her. He was announced accordingly, and

fulfilled his commission. The Marshal, in attending him to the door,

requested him to express his gratitude to the Queen, and said that he had

nothing fit to offer to an officer who had the honour to belong to her

Majesty; but he begged him to accept of his old stick, saying that his

grandchildren would probably some day be glad to possess the cane with

which he had commanded at Marchiennes and Denain. The known frugality of

Marechal Villars appears in this anecdote; but he was not mistaken with

respect to the estimation in which his stick would be held. It was

thenceforth kept with veneration by M. Campan’s family. On the 10th of

August, 1792, a house which I occupied on the Carrousel, at the entrance

of the Court of the Tuileries, was pillaged and nearly burnt down. The

cane of Marechal Villars was thrown into the Carrousel as of no value, and

picked up by my servant. Had its old master been living at that period we

should not have witnessed such a deplorable day.

“Before the Revolution there were customs and words in use at Versailles

with which few people were acquainted. The King’s dinner was called ‘The

King’s meat.’ Two of the Body Guard accompanied the attendants who

carried the dinner; every one rose as they passed through the halls,

saying, ‘There is the King’s meat.’ All precautionary duties were

distinguished by the words ‘in case.’ One of the guards might be heard to

say, ‘I am in case in the forest of St. Germain.’ In the evening they

always brought the Queen a large bowl of broth, a cold roast fowl, one

bottle of wine, one of orgeat, one of lemonade, and some other articles,

which were called the ‘in case’ for the night. An old medical gentleman,

who had been physician in ordinary to Louis XIV., and was still living at

the time of the marriage of Louis XV., told M. Campan’s father an anecdote

which seems too remarkable to have remained unknown; nevertheless he was a

man of honour, incapable of inventing this story. His name was Lafosse.

He said that Louis XIV. was informed that the officers of his table

evinced, in the most disdainful and offensive manner, the mortification

they felt at being obliged to eat at the table of the comptroller of the

kitchen along with Moliere, valet de chambre to his Majesty, because

Moliere had performed on the stage; and that this celebrated author

consequently declined appearing at that table. Louis XIV., determined to

put an end to insults which ought never to have been offered to one of the

greatest geniuses of the age, said to him one morning at the hour of his

private levee, ‘They say you live very poorly here, Moliere; and that the

officers of my chamber do not find you good enough to eat with them.

Perhaps you are hungry; for my part I awoke with a very good appetite this

morning: sit down at this table. Serve up my ‘in case’ for the night

there.’ The King, then cutting up his fowl, and ordering Moliere to sit

down, helped him to a wing, at the same time taking one for himself, and

ordered the persons entitled to familiar entrance, that is to say the most

distinguished and favourite people at Court, to be admitted. ‘You see

me,’ said the King to them, ‘engaged in entertaining Moliere, whom my

valets de chambre do not consider sufficiently good company for them.’

From that time Moliere never had occasion to appear at the valets’ table;

the whole Court was forward enough to send him invitations.

“M. de Lafosse used also to relate that a brigade-major of the Body Guard,

being ordered to place the company in the little theatre at Versailles,

very roughly turned out one of the King’s comptrollers who had taken his

seat on one of the benches, a place to which his newly acquired office

entitled him. In vain he insisted on his quality and his right. The

altercation was ended by the brigade-major in these words: ‘Gentlemen Body

Guards, do your duty.’ In this case their duty was to turn the offender

out at the door. This comptroller, who had paid sixty or eighty thousand

francs for his appointment, was a man of a good family, and had had the

honour of serving his Majesty five and twenty years in one of his

regiments; thus ignominiously driven out of the hall, he placed himself in

the King’s way in the great hall of the Guards, and, bowing to his

Majesty, requested him to vindicate the honour of an old soldier who had

wished to end his days in his Prince’s civil employment, now that age had

obliged him to relinquish his military service. The King stopped, heard

his story, and then ordered him to follow him. His Majesty attended the

representation in a sort of amphitheatre, in which his armchair was

placed; behind him was a row of stools for the captain of the Guards, the

first gentleman of the chamber, and other great officers. The

brigade-major was entitled to one of these places; the King stopped

opposite the seat which ought to have been occupied by that officer and

said to the comptroller, ‘Take, monsieur, for this evening, the place near

my person of him who has offended you, and let the expression of my

displeasure at this unjust affront satisfy you instead of any other

reparation:

“During the latter years of the reign of Louis XIV. he never went out but

in a chair carried by porters, and he showed a great regard for a man

named D’Aigremont, one of those porters who always went in front and

opened the door of the chair. The slightest preference shown by

sovereigns, even to the meanest of their servants, never fails to excite

observation.

[People of the very first rank did not disdain to descend to the level of

D’Aigremont. “Lauzun,” said the Duchesse d’Orleans in her “Memoirs,”

“sometimes affects stupidity in order to show people their own with

impunity, for he is very malicious. In order to make Marechal de Tease

feel the impropriety of his familiarity with people of the common sort, he

called out, in the drawing-room at Marly, ‘Marechal, give me a pinch of

snuff; some of your best, such as you take in the morning with Monsieur

d’Aigremont, the chairman.’”--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

The King had done something for this man’s numerous family, and frequently

talked to him. An abbe belonging to the chapel thought proper to request

D’Aigremont to present a memorial to the King, in which he requested his

Majesty to grant him a benefice. Louis XIV. did not approve of the

liberty thus taken by his chairman, and said to him, in a very angry tone,

‘D’Aigremont, you have been made to do a very unbecoming act, and I am

sure there must be simony in the case.’--‘No, Sire, there is not the least

ceremony in the case, I assure you,’ answered the poor man, in great

consternation; ‘the abbe only said he would give me a hundred

Louis.’--‘D’Aigremont,’ said the King, ‘I forgive you on account of your

ignorance and candour. I will give you the hundred Louis out of my privy

purse; but I will discharge you the very next time you venture to present

a memorial to me.’

“Louis XIV. was very kind to those of his servants who were nearest his

person; but the moment he assumed his royal deportment, those who were

most accustomed to see him in his domestic character were as much

intimidated as if they were appearing in his presence for the first time

in their lives. Some of the members of his Majesty’s civil household,

then called ‘commensalite’, enjoying the title of equerry, and the

privileges attached to officers of the King’s household, had occasion to

claim some prerogatives, the exercise of which the municipal body of St.

Germain, where they resided, disputed with them. Being assembled in

considerable numbers in that town, they obtained the consent of the

minister of the household to allow them to send a deputation to the King;

and for that purpose chose from amongst them two of his Majesty’s valets

de chambre named Bazire and Soulaigre. The King’s levee being over, the

deputation of the inhabitants of the town of St. Germain was called in.

They entered with confidence; the King looked at them, and assumed his

imposing attitude. Bazire, one of these valets de chambre, was about to

speak, but Louis the Great was looking on him. He no longer saw the

Prince he was accustomed to attend at home; he was intimidated, and could

not find words; he recovered, however, and began as usual with the word

Sire. But timidity again overpowered him, and finding himself unable to

recollect the slightest particle of what he came to say, he repeated the

word Sire several times, and at length concluded by paying, ‘Sire, here is

Soulaigre.’ Soulaigre, who was very angry with Bazire, and expected to

acquit himself much better, then began to speak; but he also, after

repeating ‘Sire’ several times, found his embarrassment increasing upon

him, until his confusion equalled that of his colleague; he therefore

ended with ‘Sire, here is Bazire.’ The King smiled, and answered,

‘Gentlemen, I have been informed of the business upon which you have been

deputed to wait on me, and I will take care that what is right shall be

done. I am highly satisfied with the manner in which you have fulfilled

your functions as deputies.’”

Mademoiselle Genet’s education was the object of her father’s particular

attention. Her progress in the study of music and of foreign languages

was surprising; Albaneze instructed her in singing, and Goldoni taught her

Italian. Tasso, Milton, Dante, and even Shakespeare, soon became familiar

to her. But her studies were particularly directed to the acquisition of

a correct and elegant style of reading. Rochon de Chabannes, Duclos,

Barthe, Marmontel, and Thomas took pleasure in hearing her recite the

finest scenes of Racine. Her memory and genius at the age of fourteen

charmed them; they talked of her talents in society, and perhaps applauded

them too highly.

She was soon spoken of at Court. Some ladies of high rank, who took an

interest in the welfare of her family, obtained for her the place of

Reader to the Princesses. Her presentation, and the circumstances which

preceded it, left a strong impression on her mind. “I was then fifteen,”

she says; “my father felt some regret at yielding me up at so early an age

to the jealousies of the Court. The day on which I first put on my Court

dress, and went to embrace him in his study, tears filled his eyes, and

mingled with the expression of his pleasure. I possessed some agreeable

talents, in addition to the instruction which it had been his delight to

bestow on me. He enumerated all my little accomplishments, to convince me

of the vexations they would not fail to draw upon me.”

Mademoiselle Genet, at fifteen, was naturally less of a philosopher than

her father was at forty. Her eyes were dazzled by the splendour which

glittered at Versailles. “The Queen, Maria Leczinska, the wife of Louis

XV., died,” she says, “just before I was presented at Court. The grand

apartments hung with black, the great chairs of state, raised on several

steps, and surmounted by a canopy adorned with Plumes; the caparisoned

horses, the immense retinue in Court mourning, the enormous

shoulder-knots, embroidered with gold and silver spangles, which decorated

the coats of the pages and footmen,--all this magnificence had such an

effect on my senses that I could scarcely support myself when introduced

to the Princesses. The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of

Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two

sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed.

How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which

ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a

plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot,

followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit

Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme

simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which she

is reproached.”

When once her awe and confusion had subsided, Mademoiselle Genet was

enabled to form a more accurate judgment of her situation. It was by no

means attractive; the Court of the Princesses, far removed from the revels

to which Louie XV. was addicted, was grave, methodical, and dull. Madame

Adelaide, the eldest of the Princesses, lived secluded in the interior of

her apartments; Madame Sophie was haughty; Madame Louise a devotee.

Mademoiselle Genet never quitted the Princesses’ apartments; but she

attached herself most particularly to Madame Victoire. This Princess had

possessed beauty; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, and

her conversation was kind, free, and unaffected. The young reader excited

in her that feeling which a woman in years, of an affectionate

disposition, readily extends to young people who are growing up in her

sight, and who possess some useful talents. Whole days were passed in

reading to the Princess, as she sat at work in her apartment. Mademoiselle

Genet frequently saw there Louis XV., of whom she has related the

following anecdote:

“One day, at the Chateau of Compiegne, the King came in whilst I was

reading to Madame. I rose and went into another room. Alone, in an

apartment from which there was no outlet, with no book but a Massillon,

which I had been reading to the Princess, happy in all the lightness and

gaiety of fifteen, I amused myself with turning swiftly round, with my

court hoop, and suddenly kneeling down to see my rose-coloured silk

petticoat swelled around me by the wind. In the midst of this grave

employment enters his Majesty, followed by one of the Princesses. I

attempt to rise; my feet stumble, and down I fall in the midst of my

robes, puffed out by the wind. ‘Daughter,’ said Louis XV., laughing

heartily, ‘I advise you to send back to school a reader who makes

cheeses.’” The railleries of Louis XV. were often much more cutting, as

Mademoiselle Genet experienced on another occasion, which, thirty years

afterwards, she could not relate without an emotion of fear. “Louis XV.,”

she said, “had the most imposing presence. His eyes remained fixed upon

you all the time he was speaking; and, notwithstanding the beauty of his

features, he inspired a sort of fear. I was very young, it is true, when

he first spoke to me; you shall judge whether it was in a very gracious

manner. I was fifteen. The King was going out to hunt, and a numerous

retinue followed him. As he stopped opposite me he said, ‘Mademoiselle

Genet, I am assured you are very learned, and understand four or five

foreign languages.’--‘I know only two, Sire,’ I answered, trembling.

‘Which are they?’ English and Italian.’--‘Do you speak them fluently?’

Yes, Sire, very fluently.’ ‘That is quite enough to drive a husband mad.’

After this pretty compliment the King went on; the retinue saluted me,

laughing; and, for my part, I remained for some moments motionless with

surprise and confusion.”

At the time when the French alliance was proposed by the Duc de Choiseul

there was at Vienna a doctor named Gassner,--[Jean Joseph Gassner, a

pretender to miraculous powers.]--who had fled thither to seek an asylum

against the persecutions of his sovereign, one of the ecclesiastical

electors. Gassner, gifted with an extraordinary warmth of imagination,

imagined that he received inspirations. The Empress protected him, saw

him occasionally, rallied him on his visions, and, nevertheless, heard

them with a sort of interest. “Tell me,”--said she to him one day,

“whether my Antoinette will be happy.” Gassner turned pale, and remained

silent. Being still pressed by the Empress, and wishing to give a general

expression to the idea with which he seemed deeply occupied, “Madame,” he

replied, “there are crosses for all shoulders.”

The occurrences at the Place Louis XV. on the marriage festivities at

Paris are generally known. The conflagration of the scaffolds intended

for the fireworks, the want of foresight of the authorities, the avidity

of robbers, the murderous career of the coaches, brought about and

aggravated the disasters of that day; and the young Dauphiness, coming

from Versailles, by the Cours la Reine, elated with joy, brilliantly

decorated, and eager to witness the rejoicings of the whole people, fled,

struck with consternation and drowned in tears, from the dreadful scene.

This tragic opening of the young Princess’s life in France seemed to bear

out Gassner’s hint of disaster, and to be ominous of the terrible future

which awaited her.

In the same year in which Marie Antoinette was married to the Dauphin,

Henriette Genet married a son of M. Campan, already mentioned as holding

an office at the Court; and when the household of the Dauphiness was

formed, Madame Campan was appointed her reader, and received from Marie

Antoinette a consistent kindness and confidence to which by her loyal

service she was fully entitled. Madame Campan’s intelligence and

vivacity made her much more sympathetic to a young princess, gay and

affectionate in disposition, and reared in the simplicity of a German

Court, than her lady of honour, the Comtesse de Noailles. This

respectable lady, who was placed near her as a minister of the laws of

etiquette, instead of alleviating their weight, rendered their yoke

intolerable to her.

“Madame de Noailles,” says Madame Campan, “abounded in virtues. Her

piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of praise;

but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at the slightest

derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought the

principles of life would forsake her frame.

“One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The

Queen was receiving I know not whom,--some persons just presented, I

believe; the lady of honour, the Queen’s tirewoman, and the ladies of the

bedchamber, were behind the Queen. I was near the throne, with the two

women on duty. All was right,--at least I thought so. Suddenly I

perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign

with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead,

lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with her

hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was

not as it should be; and as I looked about on all sides to find out what

it was, the agitation of the Countess kept increasing. The Queen, who

perceived all this, looked at me with a smile; I found means to approach

her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper, ‘Let down your lappets, or the

Countess will expire.’ All this bustle arose from two unlucky pins which

fastened up my lappets, whilst the etiquette of costume said ‘Lappets

hanging down.’”

Her contempt of the vanities of etiquette became the pretext for the first

reproaches levelled at the Queen. What misconduct might not be dreaded

from a princess who could absolutely go out without a hoop! and who, in

the salons of Trianon, instead of discussing the important rights to

chairs and stools, good-naturedly invited everybody to be seated.

[M. de Fresne Forget, being one day in company with the Queen Marguerite,

told her he was astonished how men and women with such great ruffs could

eat soup without spoiling them; and still more how the ladies could be

gallant with their great fardingales. The Queen made no answer at that

time, but a few days after, having a very large ruff on, and some ‘bouili’

to eat, she ordered a very long spoon to be brought, and ate her ‘bouili’

with it, without soiling her ruff. Upon which, addressing herself to M.

de Fresne, she said, laughing, “There now, you see, with a little

ingenuity one may manage anything.”--“Yes, faith, madame,” said the good

man, “as far as regards the soup I am satisfied.”--LAPLACE’s “Collection,”

vol. ii., p. 350.]

The anti-Austrian party, discontented and vindictive, became spies upon

her conduct, exaggerated her slightest errors, and calumniated her most

innocent proceedings. “What seems unaccountable at the first glance,”

says Montjoie, “is that the first attack on the reputation of the Queen

proceeded from the bosom of the Court. What interest could the courtiers

have in seeking her destruction, which involved that of the King? Was it

not drying up the source of all the advantages they enjoyed, or could hope

for?”

[Madame Campan relates the following among many anecdotes illustrative of

the Queen’s kindness of heart: “A petition was addressed to the Queen by a

corporation in the neighbourhood of Paris, praying for the destruction of

the game which destroyed their crops. I was the bearer of this petition

to her Majesty, who said, ‘I will undertake to have these good people

relieved from so great an annoyance.’ She gave the document to M. de

Vermond in my presence, saying, ‘I desire that immediate justice be done

to this petition.’ An assurance was given that her order should be

attended to, but six weeks afterwards a second petition was sent up, for

the nuisance had not been abated after all. If the second petition had

reached the Queen, M. de Vermond would have received a sharp reprimand.

She was always so happy when it was in her power to do good.”

The quick repartee, which was another of the Queen’s characteristics, was

less likely to promote her popularity. “M. Brunier,” says Madame Campan,

“was physician to the royal children. During his visits to the palace, if

the death of any of his patients was alluded to, he never failed to say,

‘Ah! there I lost one of my best friends! ‘Well,’ said the Queen, ‘if he

loses all his patients who are his friends, what will become of those who

are not?’”]

When the terrible Danton exclaimed, “The kings of Europe menace us; it

behooves us to defy them; let us throw down to them the head of a king as

our gage!” these detestable words, followed by so cruel a result, formed,

however, a formidable stroke of policy. But the Queen! What urgent

reasons of state could Danton, Collot d’Herbois, and Robespierre allege

against her? What savage greatness did they discover in stirring up a

whole nation to avenge their quarrel on a woman? What remained of her

former power? She was a captive, a widow, trembling for her children! In

those judges, who at once outraged modesty and nature; in that people

whose vilest scoffs pursued her to the scaffold, who could have recognised

the generous people of France? Of all the crimes which disgraced the

Revolution, none was more calculated to show how the spirit of party can

degrade the character of a nation.

The news of this dreadful event reached Madame Campan in an obscure

retreat which she had chosen. She had not succeeded in her endeavours to

share the Queen’s captivity, and she expected every moment a similar fate.

After escaping, almost miraculously, from the murderous fury of the

Marseillais; after being denounced and pursued by Robespierre, and

entrusted, through the confidence of the King and Queen, with papers of

the utmost importance, Madame Campan went to Coubertin, in the valley of

Chevreuse. Madame Auguid, her sister, had just committed suicide, at the

very moment of her arrest.

[Maternal affection prevailed over her religious sentiments; she wished to

preserve the wreck of her fortune for her children. Had she deferred this

fatal act for one day she would have been saved; the cart which conveyed

Robespierre to execution stopped her funeral procession!]

The scaffold awaited Madame Campan, when the 9th of Thermidor restored her

to life; but did not restore to her the most constant object of her

thoughts, her zeal, and her devotion.

A new career now opened to Madame Campan. At Coubertin, surrounded by her

nieces, she was fond of directing their studies. This occupation caused

her ideas to revert to the subject of education, and awakened once more

the inclinations of her youth. At the age of twelve years she could never

meet a school of young ladies passing through the streets without feeling

ambitious of the situation and authority of their mistress. Her abode at

Court had diverted but not altered her inclinations. “A month after the

fall of Robespierre,” she says, “I considered as to the means of providing

for myself, for a mother seventy years of age, my sick husband, my child

nine years old, and part of my ruined family. I now possessed nothing in

the world but an assignat of five hundred francs. I had become responsible

for my husband’s debts, to the amount of thirty thousand francs. I chose

St. Germain to set up a boarding-school, for that town did not remind me,

as Versailles did, both of happy times and of the misfortunes of France.

I took with me a nun of l’Enfant-Jesus, to give an unquestionable pledge

of my religious principles. The school of St. Germain was the first in

which the opening of an oratory was ventured on. The Directory was

displeased at it, and ordered it to be immediately shut up; and some time

after commissioners were sent to desire that the reading of the Scriptures

should be suppressed in my school. I inquired what books were to be

substituted in their stead. After some minutes’ conversation, they

observed: ‘Citizeness, you are arguing after the old fashion; no

reflections. The nation commands; we must have obedience, and no

reasoning.’ Not having the means of printing my prospectus, I wrote a

hundred copies of it, and sent them to the persons of my acquaintance who

had survived the dreadful commotions. At the year’s end I had sixty

pupils; soon afterwards a hundred. I bought furniture and paid my debts.”

The rapid success of the establishment at St. Germain was undoubtedly

owing to the talents, experience, and excellent principles of Madame

Campan, seconded by public opinion. All property had changed hands; all

ranks found themselves confusedly jumbled by the shock of the Revolution:

the grand seigneur dined at the table of the opulent contractor; and the

witty and elegant marquise was present at the ball by the side of the

clumsy peasant lately grown rich. In the absence of the ancient

distinctions, elegant manners and polished language now formed a kind of

aristocracy. The house of St. Germain, conducted by a lady who possessed

the deportment and the habits of the best society, was not only a school

of knowledge, but a school of the world.

“A friend of Madame de Beauharnais,” continues Madame Campan, “brought me

her daughter Hortense de Beauharnais, and her niece Emilie de Beauharnais.

Six months afterwards she came to inform me of her marriage with a

Corsican gentleman, who had been brought up in the military school, and

was then a general. I was requested to communicate this information to

her daughter, who long lamented her mother’s change of name. I was also

desired to watch over the education of little Eugene de Beauharnais, who

was placed at St. Germain, in the same school with my son.

“A great intimacy sprang up between my nieces and these young people.

Madame de Beauharnaias set out for Italy, and left her children with me.

On her return, after the conquests of Bonaparte, that general, much

pleased with the improvement of his stepdaughter, invited me to dine at

Malmaison, and attended two representations of ‘Esther’ at my school.”

He also showed his appreciation of her talents by sending his sister

Caroline to St. Germain. Shortly before Caroline’s marriage to Murat, and

while she was yet at St. Germain, Napoleon observed to Madame Campan: “I

do not like those love matches between young people whose brains are

excited by the flames of the imagination. I had other views for my

sister. Who knows what high alliance I might have procured for her! She

is thoughtless, and does not form a just notion of my situation. The time

will come when, perhaps, sovereigns might dispute for her hand. She is

about to marry a brave man; but in my situation that is not enough. Fate

should be left to fulfil her decrees.”

[Madame Murat one day said to Madame Campan: “I am astonished that you are

not more awed in our presence; you speak to us with as much familiarity as

when we were your pupils!”--“The best thing you can do,” replied Madame

Campan, “is to forget your titles when you are with me, for I can never be

afraid of queens whom I have held under the rod.”]

Madame Campan dined at the Tuileries in company with the Pope’s nuncio, at

the period when the Concordat was in agitation. During dinner the First

Consul astonished her by the able manner in which he conversed on the

subject under discussion. She said he argued so logically that his talent

quite amazed her. During the consulate Napoleon one day said to her, “If

ever I establish a republic of women, I shall make you First Consul.”

Napoleon’s views as to “woman’s mission” are now well known. Madame

Campan said that she heard from him that when he founded the convent of

the Sisters of la Charite he was urgently solicited to permit perpetual

vows. He, however, refused to do so, on the ground that tastes may

change, and that he did not see the necessity of excluding from the world

women who might some time or other return to it, and become useful members

of society. “Nunneries,” he added, “assail the very roots of population.

It is impossible to calculate the loss which a nation sustains in having

ten thousand women shut up in cloisters. War does but little mischief;

for the number of males is at least one-twenty-fifth greater than that of

females. Women may, if they please, be allowed to make perpetual vows at

fifty years of age; for then their task is fulfilled.”

Napoleon once said to Madame Campan, “The old systems of education were

good for nothing; what do young women stand in need of, to be well brought

up in France?”--“Of mothers,” answered Madame Campan. “It is well said,”

replied Napoleon. “Well, madame, let the French be indebted to you for

bringing up mothers for their children.”--“Napoleon one day interrupted

Madame de Stael in the midst of a profound political argument to ask her

whether she had nursed her children.”

Never had the establishment at St. Germain been in a more flourishing

condition than in 1802-3. What more could Madame Campan wish? For ten

years absolute in her own house, she seemed also safe from the caprice of

power. But the man who then disposed of the fate of France and Europe was

soon to determine otherwise.

After the battle of Austerlitz the State undertook to bring up, at the

public expense, the sisters, daughters, or nieces of those who were

decorated with the Cross of Honour. The children of the warriors killed

or wounded in glorious battle were to find paternal care in the ancient

abodes of the Montmorencys and the Condes. Accustomed to concentrate

around him all superior talents, fearless himself of superiority, Napoleon

sought for a person qualified by experience and abilities to conduct the

institution of Ecouen; he selected Madame Campan.

Comte de Lacepede, the pupil, friend, and rival of Buffon, then Grand

Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, assisted her with his enlightened

advice. Napoleon, who could descend with ease from the highest political

subjects to the examination of the most minute details; who was as much at

home in inspecting a boarding-school for young ladies as in reviewing the

grenadiers of his guard; whom it was impossible to deceive, and who was

not unwilling to find fault when he visited the establishment at

Ecouen,--was forced to say, “It is all right.”

[Napoleon wished to be informed of every particular of the furniture,

government, and order of the house, the instruction and education of the

pupils. The internal regulations were submitted to him. One of the

intended rules, drawn up by Madame Campan, proposed that the children

should hear mass on Sundays and Thursdays. Napoleon himself wrote on the

margin, “every day.”]

“In the summer of 1811,” relates Madame Campan, “Napoleon, accompanied by

Marie Louise and several personages of distinction, visited the

establishment at Ecouen. After inspecting the chapel and the refectories,

Napoleon desired that the three principal pupils might be presented to

him. ‘Sire,’ said I, ‘I cannot select three; I must present six.’ He

turned on his heel and repaired to the platform, where, after seeing all

the classes assembled, he repeated his demand. ‘Sire,’ said I, ‘I beg

leave to inform your Majesty that I should commit an injustice towards

several other pupils who are as far advanced as those whom I might have

the honour to present to you.’

“Berthier and others intimated to me, in a low tone of voice, that I

should get into disgrace by my noncompliance. Napoleon looked over the

whole of the house, entered into the most trivial details, and after

addressing questions to several of the pupils: ‘Well, madame,’ said he, ‘I

am satisfied; show me your six best pupils.’” Madame Campan presented

them to him; and as he stepped into his carriage, he desired that their

names might be sent to Berthier. On addressing the list to the Prince de

Neufchatel, Madame Campan added to it the names of four other pupils, and

all the ten obtained a pension of 300 francs. During the three hours

which this visit occupied, Marie Louise did not utter a single word.

M. de Beaumont, chamberlain to the Empress Josephine, one day at Malmaison

was expressing his regret that M. D-----, one of Napoleon’s generals, who

had recently been promoted, did not belong to a great family. “You

mistake, monsieur,” observed Madame Campan, “he is of very ancient

descent; he is one of the nephews of Charlemagne. All the heroes of our

army sprang from the elder branch of that sovereign’s family, who never

emigrated.”

When Madame Campan related this circumstance she added: “After the 30th of

March, 1814, some officers of the army of Conde presumed to say to certain

French marshals that it was a pity they were not more nobly connected. In

answer to this, one of them said, ‘True nobility, gentlemen, consists in

giving proofs of it. The field of honour has witnessed ours; but where

are we to look for yours? Your swords have rusted in their scabbards.

Our laurels may well excite envy; we have earned them nobly, and we owe

them solely to our valour. You have merely inherited a name. This is the

distinction between us.”

[When one of the princes of the smaller German States was showing Marechal

Lannes, with a contemptuous superiority of manner but ill concealed, the

portraits of his ancestors, and covertly alluding to the absence of

Lannes’s, that general turned the tables on him by haughtily remarking,

“But I am an ancestor.”]

Napoleon used to observe that if he had had two such field-marshals as

Suchet in Spain he would have not only conquered but kept the Peninsula.

Suchet’s sound judgment, his governing yet conciliating spirit, his

military tact, and his bravery, had procured him astonishing success. “It

is to be regretted,” added he, “that a sovereign cannot improvise men of

his stamp.”

On the 19th of March, 1815, a number of papers were left in the King’s

closet. Napoleon ordered them to be examined, and among them was found

the letter written by Madame Campan to Louis XVIII., immediately after the

first restoration. In this letter she enumerated the contents of the

portfolio which Louis XVI. had placed under her care. When Napoleon read

this letter, he said, “Let it be sent to the office of Foreign Affairs; it

is an historical document.”

Madame Campan thus described a visit from the Czar of Russia: “A few days

after the battle of Paris the Emperor Alexander came to Ecouen, and he did

me the honour to breakfast with me. After showing him over the

establishment I conducted him to the park, the most elevated point of

which overlooked the plain of St. Denis. ‘Sire,’ said I, ‘from this point

I saw the battle of Paris’--‘If,’ replied the Emperor, ‘that battle had

lasted two hours longer we should not have had a single cartridge at our

disposal. We feared that we had been betrayed; for on arriving so

precipitately before Paris all our plans were laid, and we did not expect

the firm resistance we experienced.’ I next conducted the Emperor to the

chapel, and showed him the seats occupied by ‘le connetable’ (the

constable) of Montmorency, and ‘la connetable’ (the constable’s lady),

when they went to hear mass. ‘Barbarians like us,’ observed the Emperor,

‘would say la connetable and le connetable.’

“The Czar inquired into the most minute particulars respecting the

establishment of Ecouen, and I felt great pleasure in answering his

questions. I recollect having dwelt on several points which appeared to

me to be very important, and which were in their spirit hostile to

aristocratic principles. For example, I informed his Majesty that the

daughters of distinguished and wealthy individuals and those of the humble

and obscure mingled indiscriminately in the establishment. ‘If,’ said I,

‘I were to observe the least pretension on account of the rank or fortune

of parents, I should immediately put an end to it. The most perfect

equality is preserved; distinction is awarded only to merit and industry.

The pupils are obliged to cut out and make all their own clothes. They

are taught to clean and mend lace; and two at a time, they by turns, three

times a week, cook and distribute food to the poor of the village. The

young girls who have been brought up at Ecouen, or in my boarding-school

at St. Germain, are thoroughly acquainted with everything relating to

household business, and they are grateful to me for having made that a

part of their education. In my conversations with them I have always

taught them that on domestic management depends the preservation or

dissipation of their fortunes.’

“The post-master of Ecouen was in the courtyard at the moment when the

Emperor, as he stepped into his carriage, told me he would send some

sweetmeats for the pupils. I immediately communicated to them the

intelligence, which was joyfully received; but the sweetmeats were looked

for in vain. When Alexander set out for England he changed horses at

Ecouen, and the post-master said to him: ‘Sire, the pupils of Ecouen are

still expecting the sweetmeats which your Majesty promised them.’ To

which the Emperor replied that he had directed Saken to send them. The

Cossacks had most likely devoured the sweetmeats, and the poor little

girls, who had been so highly flattered by the promise, never tasted

them.”

“A second house was formed at St. Denis, on the model of that of Ecouen.

Perhaps Madame Campan might have hoped for a title to which her long

labours gave her a right; perhaps the superintendence of the two houses

would have been but the fair recompense of her services; but her fortunate

years had passed her fate was now to depend on the most important events.

Napoleon had accumulated such a mass of power as no one but himself in

Europe could overturn. France, content with thirty years of victories, in

vain asked for peace and repose. The army which had triumphed in the

sands of Egypt, on the summits of the Alps, and in the marshes of Holland,

was to perish amidst the snows of Russia. Nations combined against a

single man. The territory of France was invaded. The orphans of Ecouen,

from the windows of the mansion which served as their asylum, saw in the

distant plain the fires of the Russian bivouacs, and once more wept the

deaths of their fathers. Paris capitulated. France hailed the return of

the descendants of Henri IV.; they reascended the throne so long filled by

their ancestors, which the wisdom of an enlightened prince established on

the empire of the laws.

[A lady, connected with the establishment of St. Denis, told Madame Campan

that Napoleon visited it during the Hundred Days, and that the pupils were

so delighted to see him that they crowded round him, endeavouring to touch

his clothes, and evincing the most extravagant joy. The matron

endeavoured to silence them; but Napoleon said, ‘Let them alone; let them

alone. This may weaken the head, but it strengthens the heart.’]”

This moment, which diffused joy amongst the faithful servants of the royal

family, and brought them the rewards of their devotion, proved to Madame

Campan a period of bitter vexation. The hatred of her enemies had

revived. The suppression of the school at Ecouen had deprived her of her

position; the most absurd calumnies followed her into her retreat; her

attachment to the Queen was suspected; she was accused not only of

ingratitude but of perfidy. Slander has little effect on youth, but in

the decline of life its darts are envenomed with a mortal poison. The

wounds which Madame Campan had received were deep. Her sister, Madame

Auguie, had destroyed herself; M. Rousseau, her brother-in-law, had

perished, a victim of the reign of terror. In 1813 a dreadful accident

had deprived her of her niece, Madame de Broc, one of the most amiable and

interesting beings that ever adorned the earth. Madame Campan seemed

destined to behold those whom she loved go down to the grave before her.

Beyond the walls of the mansion of Ecouen, in the village which surrounds

it, Madame Campan had taken a small house where she loved to pass a few

hours in solitary retirement. There, at liberty to abandon herself to the

memory of the past, the superintendent of the imperial establishment

became, once more, for the moment, the first lady of the chamber to Marie

Antoinette. To the few friends whom she admitted into this retreat she

would show, with emotion, a plain muslin gown which the Queen had worn,

and which was made from a part of Tippoo Saib’s present. A cup, out of

which Marie Antoinette had drunk; a writing-stand, which she had long

used, were, in her eyes, of inestimable value; and she has often been

discovered sitting, in tears, before the portrait of her royal mistress.

After so many troubles Madame Campan sought a peaceful retreat. Paris had

become odious to her.

She paid a visit to one of her most beloved pupils, Mademoiselle Crouzet,

who had married a physician at Mantes, a man of talent, distinguished for

his intelligence, frankness, and cordiality.

[M. Maigne, physician to the infirmaries at Mantes. Madame Campan found

in him a friend and comforter, of whose merit and affection she knew the

value.]

Mantes is a cheerful place of residence, and the idea of an abode there

pleased her. A few intimate friends formed a pleasant society, and she

enjoyed a little tranquillity after so many disturbances. The revisal of

her “Memoirs,” the arrangement of the interesting anecdotes of which her

“Recollections” were to consist, alone diverted her mind from the one

powerful sentiment which attached her to life. She lived only for her

son. M. Campan deserved the tenderness of, his mother. No sacrifice had

been spared for his education. After having pursued that course of study

which, under the Imperial Government, produced men of such distinguished

merit, he was waiting till time and circumstances should afford him an

opportunity of devoting his services to his country. Although the state

of his health was far from good, it did not threaten any rapid or

premature decay; he was, however, after a few days’ illness, suddenly

taken from his family. “I never witnessed so heartrending a scene,” M.

Maigne says, “as that which took place when Marechal Ney’s lady, her

niece, and Madame Pannelier, her sister, came to acquaint her with this

misfortune.--[The wife of Marechal Ney was a daughter of Madame Auguie,

and had been an intimate friend of Hortense Beauharnais.]--When they

entered her apartment she was in bed. All three at once uttered a

piercing cry. The two ladies threw themselves on their knees, and kissed

her hands, which they bedewed with tears. Before they could speak to her

she read in their faces that she no longer possessed a son. At that

instant her large eyes, opening wildly, seemed to wander. Her face grew

pale, her features changed, her lips lost their colour, she struggled to

speak, but uttered only inarticulate sounds, accompanied by piercing

cries. Her gestures were wild, her reason was suspended. Every part of

her being was in agony. To this state of anguish and despair no calm

succeeded, until her tears began to flow. Friendship and the tenderest

cares succeeded for a moment in calming her grief, but not in diminishing

its power.

“This violent crisis had disturbed her whole organisation. A cruel

disorder, which required a still more cruel operation, soon manifested

itself. The presence of her family, a tour which she made in Switzerland,

a residence at Baden, and, above all, the sight, the tender and charming

conversation of a person by whom she was affectionately beloved,

occasionally diverted her mind, and in a slight degree relieved her

suffering.” She underwent a serious operation, performed with

extraordinary promptitude and the most complete success. No unfavourable

symptoms appeared; Madame Campan was thought to be restored to her

friends; but the disorder was in the blood; it took another course: the

chest became affected. “From that moment,” says M. Maigne, “I could never

look on Madame Campan as living; she herself felt that she belonged no

more to this world.”

“My friend,” she said to her physician the day before her death, “I am

attached to the simplicity of religion. I hate all that savours of

fanaticism.” When her codicil was presented for her signature, her hand

trembled; “It would be a pity,” she said, “to stop when so fairly on the

road.”

Madame Campan died on the 16th of March, 1822. The cheerfulness she

displayed throughout her malady had nothing affected in it. Her character

was naturally powerful and elevated. At the approach of death she evinced

the soul of a sage, without abandoning for an instant her feminine

character.

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE,

QUEEN OF FRANCE

Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan,

First Lady in Waiting to the Queen

CHAPTER I.

I was fifteen years of age when I was appointed reader to Mesdames. I will

begin by describing the Court at that period.

Maria Leczinska was just dead; the death of the Dauphin had preceded hers

by three years; the Jesuits were suppressed, and piety was to be found at

Court only in the apartments of Mesdames. The Duc de Choiseuil ruled.

Etiquette still existed at Court with all the forms it had acquired under

Louis XIV.; dignity alone was wanting. As to gaiety, there was none.

Versailles was not the place at which to seek for assemblies where French

spirit and grace were displayed. The focus of wit and intelligence was

Paris.

The King thought of nothing but the pleasures of the chase: it might have

been imagined that the courtiers indulged themselves in making epigrams by

hearing them say seriously, on those days when the King did not hunt, “The

King does nothing to-day.”--[In sporting usance (see SOULAIRE, p. 316).]

The arrangement beforehand of his movements was also a matter of great

importance with Louis XV. On the first day of the year he noted down in

his almanac the days of departure for Compiegne, Fontainebleau, Choisy,

etc. The weightiest matters, the most serious events, never deranged this

distribution of his time.

Since the death of the Marquise de Pompadour, the King had no titled

mistress; he contented himself with his seraglio in the Parc-aux-Cerfs. It

is well known that the monarch found the separation of Louis de Bourbon

from the King of France the most animating feature of his royal existence.

“They would have it so; they thought it for the best,” was his way of

expressing himself when the measures of his ministers were unsuccessful.

The King delighted to manage the most disgraceful points of his private

expenses himself; he one day sold to a head clerk in the War Department a

house in which one of his mistresses had lodged; the contract ran in the

name of Louis de Bourbon, and the purchaser himself took in a bag the

price of the house in gold to the King in his private closet.

[Until recently little was known about the Parc-aux-Cerfs, and it was

believed that a great number of young women had been maintained there at

enormous expense. The investigations of M. J. A. Le Roi, given in his

interesting work, “Curiosites Historiques sur Louis XIII., Louis XIV.,

Louis XV.,” etc., Paris, Plon, 1864, have thrown fresh light upon the

matter. The result he arrives at (see page 229 of his work) is that the

house in question (No. 4 Rue St. Mederic, on the site of the

Parc-aux-Cerfs, or breeding-place for deer, of Louis XIII) was very small,

and could have held only one girl, the woman in charge of her, and a

servant. Most of the girls left it only when about to be confined, and it

sometimes stood vacant for five or six months. It may have been rented

before the date of purchase, and other houses seem sometimes to have been

used also; but in any case, it is evident that both the number of girls

and the expense incurred have been absurdly exaggerated. The system

flourished under Madame de Pompadour, but ceased as soon as Madame du

Barry obtained full power over the King, and the house was then sold to M.

J. B. Sevin for 16,000 livres, on 27th May, 1771, Louis not acting under

the name of Louis de Bourbon, but as King,--“Vente par le Roi, notre

Sire.” In 1755 he had also been declared its purchaser in a similar

manner. Thus, Madame Campan is in error in saying that the King made the

contract as Louis de Bourbon.]--[And it also possible that Madam Campan

was correct and that the house she refers to as sold for a “bag of gold”

was another of the several of the seraglio establishments of Louis XV.

D.W.]

Louis XV. saw very little of his family. He came every morning by a

private staircase into the apartment of Madame Adelaide.

[Louis XV. seemed to feel for Madame Adelaide the tenderness he had had

for the Duchesse de Bourgogne, his mother, who perished so suddenly, under

the eyes and almost in the arms of Louis XIV. The birth of Madame

Adelaide, 23d March, 1732, was followed by that of Madame Victoire Louise

Marie Therese on the 11th May, 1733. Louis had, besides, six daughters:

Mesdames Sophie and Louise, who are mentioned in this chapter; the

Princesses Marie and Felicite, who died young; Madame Henriette died at

Versailles in 1752, aged twenty-four; and finally, Madame the Duchess of

Parma, who also died at the Court.]

He often brought and drank there coffee that he had made himself. Madame

Adelaide pulled a bell which apprised Madame Victoire of the King’s visit;

Madame Victoire, on rising to go to her sister’s apartment, rang for

Madame Sophie, who in her turn rang for Madame Louise. The apartments of

Mesdames were of very large dimensions. Madame Louise occupied the

farthest room. This latter lady was deformed and very short; the poor

Princess used to run with all her might to join the daily meeting, but,

having a number of rooms to cross, she frequently in spite of her haste,

had only just time to embrace her father before he set out for the chase.

Every evening, at six, Mesdames interrupted my reading to them to

accompany the princes to Louis XV.; this visit was called the King’s

‘debotter’,--[Debotter, meaning the time of unbooting.]--and was marked by

a kind of etiquette. Mesdames put on an enormous hoop, which set out a

petticoat ornamented with gold or embroidery; they fastened a long train

round their waists, and concealed the undress of the rest of their

clothing by a long cloak of black taffety which enveloped them up to the

chin. The chevaliers d’honneur, the ladies in waiting, the pages, the

equerries, and the ushers bearing large flambeaux, accompanied them to the

King. In a moment the whole palace, generally so still, was in motion;

the King kissed each Princess on the forehead, and the visit was so short

that the reading which it interrupted was frequently resumed at the end of

a quarter of an hour; Mesdames returned to their apartments, and untied

the strings of their petticoats and trains; they resumed their tapestry,

and I my book.

During the summer season the King sometimes came to the residence of

Mesdames before the hour of his ‘debotter’. One day he found me alone in

Madame Victoire’s closet, and asked me where ‘Coche’[Piggy] was; I

started, and he repeated his question, but without being at all the more

understood. When the King was gone I asked Madame of whom he spoke. She

told me that it was herself, and very coolly explained to me, that, being

the fattest of his daughters, the King had given her the familiar name of

‘Coche’; that he called Madame Adelaide, ‘Logue’ [Tatters], Madame Sophie,

‘Graille’[Mite], and Madame Louise, ‘Chiffie’[Rubbish]. The people of the

King’s household observed that he knew a great number of such words;

possibly he had amused himself with picking them out from dictionaries.

If this style of speaking betrayed the habits and tastes of the King, his

manner savoured nothing of such vulgarity; his walk was easy and noble, he

had a dignified carriage of the head, and his aspect, with out being

severe, was imposing; he combined great politeness with a truly regal

demeanour, and gracefully saluted the humblest woman whom curiosity led

into his path.

He was very expert in a number of trifling matters which never occupy

attention but when there is a lack of something better to employ it; for

instance, he would knock off the top of an egg-shell at a single stroke of

his fork; he therefore always ate eggs when he dined in public, and the

Parisians who came on Sundays to see the King dine, returned home less

struck with his fine figure than with the dexterity with which he broke

his eggs.

Repartees of Louis XV., which marked the keenness of his wit and the

elevation of his sentiments, were quoted with pleasure in the assemblies

of Versailles.

This Prince was still beloved; it was wished that a style of life suitable

to his age and dignity should at length supersede the errors of the past,

and justify the love of his subjects. It was painful to judge him

harshly. If he had established avowed mistresses at Court, the uniform

devotion of the Queen was blamed for it. Mesdames were reproached for not

seeking to prevent the King’s forming an intimacy with some new favourite.

Madame Henriette, twin sister of the Duchess of Parma, was much regretted,

for she had considerable influence over the King’s mind, and it was

remarked that if she had lived she would have been assiduous in finding

him amusements in the bosom of his family, would have followed him in his

short excursions, and would have done the honours of the ‘petits soupers’

which he was so fond of giving in his private apartments.

Mesdames too much neglected the means of pleasing the wing, but the cause

of that was obvious in the little attention he had paid them in their

youth.

In order to console the people under their sufferings, and to shut their

eyes to the real depredations on the treasury, the ministers occasionally

pressed the most extravagant measures of reform in the King’s household,

and even in his personal expenses.

Cardinal Fleury, who in truth had the merit of reestablishing the

finances, carried this system of economy so far as to obtain from the King

the suppression of the household of the four younger Princesses. They were

brought up as mere boarders in a convent eighty leagues distant from the

Court. Saint Cyr would have been more suitable for the reception of the

King’s daughters; but probably the Cardinal shared some of those

prejudices which will always attach to even the most useful institutions,

and which, since the death of Louis XIV., had been raised against the

noble establishment of Madame de Maintenon. Madame Louise often assured

me that at twelve years of age she was not mistress of the whole alphabet,

and never learnt to read fluently until after her return to Versailles.

Madame Victoire attributed certain paroxysms of terror, which she was

never able to conquer, to the violent alarms she experienced at the Abbey

of Fontevrault, whenever she was sent, by way of penance, to pray alone in

the vault where the sisters were interred.

A gardener belonging to the abbey died raving mad. His habitation,

without the walls, was near a chapel of the abbey, where Mesdames were

taken to repeat the prayers for those in the agonies of death. Their

prayers were more than once interrupted by the shrieks of the dying man.

When Mesdames, still very young, returned to Court, they enjoyed the

friendship of Monseigneur the Dauphin, and profited by his advice. They

devoted themselves ardently to study, and gave up almost the whole of

their time to it; they enabled themselves to write French correctly, and

acquired a good knowledge of history. Italian, English, the higher

branches of mathematics, turning and dialing, filled up in succession

their leisure moments. Madame Adelaide, in particular, had a most

insatiable desire to learn; she was taught to play upon all instruments,

from the horn (will it be believed!) to the Jew’s-harp.

Madame Adelaide was graced for a short time with a charming figure; but

never did beauty so quickly vanish. Madame Victoire was handsome and very

graceful; her address, mien, and smile were in perfect accordance with the

goodness of her heart. Madame Sophie was remarkably ugly; never did I

behold a person with so unprepossessing an appearance; she walked with the

greatest rapidity; and, in order to recognise the people who placed

themselves along her path without looking at them, she acquired the habit

of leering on one side, like a hare. This Princess was so exceedingly

diffident that a person might be with her daily for years together without

hearing her utter a single word. It was asserted, however, that she

displayed talent, and even amiability, in the society of some favourite

ladies. She taught herself a great deal, but she studied alone; the

presence of a reader would have disconcerted her very much. There were,

however, occasions on which the Princess, generally so intractable, became

all at once affable and condescending, and manifested the most

communicative good-nature; this would happen during a storm; so great was

her alarm on such an occasion that she then approached the most humble,

and would ask them a thousand obliging questions; a flash of lightning

made her squeeze their hands; a peal of thunder would drive her to embrace

them, but with the return of the calm, the Princess resumed her stiffness,

her reserve, and her repellent air, and passed all by without taking the

slightest notice of any one, until a fresh storm restored to her at once

her dread and her affability. [Which reminds one of the elder (and

puritanic) Cato who said that he “embraced” his wife only when it

thundered, but added that he did enjoy a good thunderstorm. D.W.]

Mesdames found in a beloved brother, whose rare attainments are known to

all Frenchmen, a guide in everything wanting to their education. In their

august mother, Maria Leczinska, they possessed the noblest example of

every pious and social virtue; that Princess, by her eminent qualities and

her modest dignity, veiled the failings of the King, and while she lived

she preserved in the Court of Louis XV. that decorous and dignified tone

which alone secures the respect due to power. The Princesses, her

daughters, were worthy of her; and if a few degraded beings did aim the

shafts of calumny at them, these shafts dropped harmless, warded off by

the elevation of their sentiments and the purity of their conduct.

If Mesdames had not tasked themselves with numerous occupations, they

would have been much to be pitied. They loved walking, but could enjoy

nothing beyond the public gardens of Versailles; they would have

cultivated flowers, but could have no others than those in their windows.

The Marquise de Durfort, since Duchesse de Civrac, afforded to Madame

Victoire agreeable society. The Princess spent almost all her evenings

with that lady, and ended by fancying herself domiciled with her.

Madame de Narbonne had, in a similar way, taken pains to make her intimate

acquaintance pleasant to Madame Adelaide.

Madame Louise had for many years lived in great seclusion; I read to her

five hours a day. My voice frequently betrayed the exhaustion of my

lungs; the Princess would then prepare sugared water for me, place it by

me, and apologise for making me read so long, on the score of having

prescribed a course of reading for herself.

One evening, while I was reading, she was informed that M. Bertin,

‘ministre des parties casuelles’, desired to speak with her; she went out

abruptly, returned, resumed her silks and embroidery, and made me resume

my book; when I retired she commanded me to be in her closet the next

morning at eleven o’clock. When I got there the Princess was gone out; I

learnt that she had gone at seven in the morning to the Convent of the

Carmelites of St. Denis, where she was desirous of taking the veil. I went

to Madame Victoire; there I heard that the King alone had been acquainted

with Madame Louise’s project; that he had kept it faithfully secret, and

that, having long previously opposed her wish, he had only on the

preceding evening sent her his consent; that she had gone alone into the

convent, where she was expected; and that a few minutes afterwards she had

made her appearance at the grating, to show to the Princesse de Guistel,

who had accompanied her to the convent gate, and to her equerry, the

King’s order to leave her in the monastery.

Upon receiving the intelligence of her sister’s departure, Madame Adelaide

gave way to violent paroxysms of rage, and reproached the King bitterly

for the secret, which he had thought it his duty to preserve. Madame

Victoire missed the society of her favourite sister, but she shed tears in

silence only. The first time I saw this excellent Princess after Madame

Louise’s departure, I threw myself at her feet, kissed her hand, and asked

her, with all the confidence of youth, whether she would quit us as Madame

Louise had done. She raised me, embraced me; and said, pointing to the

lounge upon which she was extended, “Make yourself easy, my dear; I shall

never have Louise’s courage. I love the conveniences of life too well;

this lounge is my destruction.” As soon as I obtained permission to do

so, I went to St. Denis to see my late mistress; she deigned to receive me

with her face uncovered, in her private parlour; she told me she had just

left the wash-house, and that it was her turn that day to attend to the

linen. “I much abused your youthful lungs for two years before the

execution of my project,” added she. “I knew that here I could read none

but books tending to our salvation, and I wished to review all the

historians that had interested me.”

She informed me that the King’s consent for her to go to St. Denis had

been brought to her while I was reading; she prided herself, and with

reason, upon having returned to her closet without the slightest mark of

agitation, though she said she felt so keenly that she could scarcely

regain her chair. She added that moralists were right when they said that

happiness does not dwell in palaces; that she had proved it; and that, if

I desired to be happy, she advised me to come and enjoy a retreat in which

the liveliest imagination might find full exercise in the contemplation of

a better world. I had no palace, no earthly grandeur to sacrifice to God;

nothing but the bosom of a united family; and it is precisely there that

the moralists whom she cited have placed true happiness. I replied that,

in private life, the absence of a beloved and cherished daughter would be

too cruelly felt by her family. The Princess said no more on the subject.

The seclusion of Madame Louise was attributed to various motives; some

were unkind enough to suppose it to have been occasioned by her

mortification at being, in point of rank, the last of the Princesses. I

think I penetrated the true cause. Her aspirations were lofty; she loved

everything sublime; often while I was reading she would interrupt me to

exclaim, “That is beautiful! that is noble!” There was but one brilliant

action that she could perform,--to quit a palace for a cell, and rich

garments for a stuff gown. She achieved it!

I saw Madame Louise two or three times more at the grating. I was

informed of her death by Louis XVI. “My Aunt Louise,” said he to me,

“your old mistress, is just dead at St. Denis. I have this moment

received intelligence of it. Her piety and resignation were admirable,

and yet the delirium of my good aunt recalled to her recollection that she

was a princess, for her last words were, ‘To paradise, haste, haste, full

speed.’ No doubt she thought she was again giving orders to her equerry.”

[The retirement of Madame Louise, and her removal from Court, had only

served to give her up entirely to the intrigues of the clergy. She

received incessant visits from bishops, archbishops, and ambitious priests

of every rank; she prevailed on the King, her father, to grant many

ecclesiastical preferments, and probably looked forward to playing an

important part when the King, weary of his licentious course of life,

should begin to think of religion. This, perhaps, might have been the case

had not a sudden and unexpected death put an end to his career. The

project of Madame Louise fell to the ground in consequence of this event.

She remained in her convent, whence she continued to solicit favours, as I

knew from the complaints of the Queen, who often said to me, “Here is

another letter from my Aunt Louise. She is certainly the most intriguing

little Carmelite in the kingdom.” The Court went to visit her about three

times a year, and I recollect that the Queen, intending to take her

daughter there, ordered me to get a doll dressed like a Carmelite for her,

that the young Princess might be accustomed, before she went into the

convent, to the habit of her aunt, the nun.--MADAME CAMPAN]

Madame Victoire, good, sweet-tempered, and affable, lived with the most

amiable simplicity in a society wherein she was much caressed; she was

adored by her household. Without quitting Versailles, without sacrificing

her easy chair, she fulfilled the duties of religion with punctuality,

gave to the poor all she possessed, and strictly observed Lent and the

fasts. The table of Mesdames acquired a reputation for dishes of

abstinence, spread abroad by the assiduous parasites at that of their

maitre d’hotel. Madame Victoire was not indifferent to good living, but

she had the most religious scruples respecting dishes of which it was

allowable to partake at penitential times. I saw her one day exceedingly

tormented by her doubts about a water-fowl, which was often served up to

her during Lent. The question to be determined was, whether it was

‘maigre’ or ‘gras’. She consulted a bishop, who happened to be of the

party: the prelate immediately assumed the grave attitude of a judge who

is about to pronounce sentence. He answered the Princess that, in a

similar case of doubt, it had been resolved that after dressing the bird

it should be pricked over a very cold silver dish; if the gravy of the

animal congealed within a quarter of an hour, the creature was to be

accounted flesh; but if the gravy remained in an oily state, it might be

eaten without scruple. Madame Victoire immediately made the experiment:

the gravy did not congeal; and this was a source of great joy to the

Princess, who was very partial to that sort of game. The abstinence which

so much occupied the attention of Madame Victoire was so disagreeable to

her, that she listened with impatience for the midnight hour of Holy

Saturday; and then she was immediately supplied with a good dish of fowl

and rice, and sundry other succulent viands. She confessed with such

amiable candour her taste for good cheer and the comforts of life, that it

would have been necessary to be as severe in principle as insensible to

the excellent qualities of the Princess, to consider it a crime in her.

Madame Adelaide had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was altogether

deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great,

abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her

more than imposing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a

high pitch. One of her chaplains was unlucky enough to say ‘Dominus

vobiscum’ with rather too easy an air; the Princess rated him soundly for

it after mass, and told him to remember that he was not a bishop, and not

again to think of officiating in the style of a prelate.

Mesdames lived quite separate from the King. Since the death of Madame de

Pompadour he had lived alone. The enemies of the Duc de Choiseul did not

know in what department, nor through what channel, they could prepare and

bring about the downfall of the man who stood in their way. The King was

connected only with women of so low a class that they could not be made

use of for any delicate intrigue; moreover, the Parc-aux-Cerfs was a

seraglio, the beauties of which were often replaced; it was desirable to

give the King a mistress who could form a circle, and in whose

drawing-room the long-standing attachment of the King for the Duc de

Choiseul might be overcome. It is true that Madame du Barry was selected

from a class sufficiently low. Her origin, her education, her habits, and

everything about her bore a character of vulgarity and shamelessness; but

by marrying her to a man whose pedigree dated from 1400, it was thought

scandal would be avoided. The conqueror of Mahon conducted this coarse

intrigue.

[It appeared at this period as if every feeling of dignity was lost. “Few

noblemen of the French Court,” says a writer of the time, “preserved

themselves from the general corruption. The Marechal de Brissac was one

of the latter. He was bantered on the strictness of his principles of

honour and honesty; it was thought strange that he should be offended by

being thought, like so many others, exposed to hymeneal disgrace. Louis

XV., who was present, and laughed at his angry fit, said to him: ‘Come, M.

de Brissac, don’t be angry; ‘tis but a trifling evil; take

courage.’--‘Sire,’ replied M. de Brissac, ‘I possess all kinds of courage,

except that which can brave shame.’”--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

Such a mistress was judiciously selected for the diversion of the latter

years of a man weary of grandeur, fatigued with pleasure, and cloyed with

voluptuousness. Neither the wit, the talents, the graces of the Marquise

de Pompadour, her beauty, nor even her love for the King, would have had

any further influence over that worn-out being.

He wanted a Roxalana of familiar gaiety, without any respect for the

dignity of the sovereign. Madame du Barry one day so far forgot propriety

as to desire to be present at a Council of State. The King was weak

enough to consent to it. There she remained ridiculously perched upon the

arm of his chair, playing all sorts of childish monkey tricks, calculated

to please an old sultan.

Another time she snatched a packet of sealed letters from the King’s hand.

Among them she had observed one from Comte de Broglie. She told the King

that she knew that rascal Broglie spoke ill of her to him, and that for

once, at least, she would make sure he should read nothing respecting her.

The King wanted to get the packet again; she resisted, and made him run

two or three times round the table, which was in the middle of the

council-chamber, and then, on passing the fireplace, she threw the letters

into the grate, where they were consumed. The King became furious; he

seized his audacious mistress by the arm, and put her out of the door

without speaking to her. Madame du Barry thought herself utterly

disgraced; she returned home, and remained two hours, alone, abandoned to

the utmost distress. The King went to her; she threw herself at his feet,

in tears, and he pardoned her.

Madame la Marechale de Beauvau, the Duchesse de Choiseul, and the Duchesse

de Grammont had renounced the honour of the King’s intimate acquaintance

rather than share it with Madame du Barry. But a few years after the

death of Louis XV., Madame la Marechale being alone at the Val, a house

belonging to M. de Beauvau, Mademoiselle de Dillon saw the Countess’s

calash take shelter in the forest of St. Germain during a violent storm.

She invited her in, and the Countess herself related these particulars,

which I had from Madame de Beauvau.

The Comte du Barry, surnamed ‘le roue’ (the profligate), and Mademoiselle

du Barry advised, or rather prompted, Madame du Barry in furtherance of

the plans of the party of the Marechal de Richelieu and the Duc

d’Aiguillon. Sometimes they even set her to act in such a way as to have

a useful influence upon great political measures. Under pretence that the

page who accompanied Charles I. in his flight was a Du Barry or Barrymore,

they persuaded the Comtesse du Barry to buy in London that fine portrait

which we now have in the Museum. She had the picture placed in her

drawing-room, and when she saw the King hesitating upon the violent

measure of breaking up his Parliament, and forming that which was called

the Maupeou Parliament, she desired him to look at the portrait of a king

who had given way to his Parliament.

[The “Memoirs of General Dumouriez,” vol. i., page 142, contain some

curious particulars about Madame Du Barry; and novel details respecting

her will be found at page 243 of “Curiosites Historiques,” by J. A. Le Rol

(Paris, Plon, 1864). His investigations lead to the result that her real

name was Jean Becu, born, 19th August, 1743, at Vaucouleurs, the natural

daughter of Anne Becu, otherwise known as “Quantiny.” Her mother

afterwards married Nicolas Rancon. Comte Jean du Barry met her among the

demi-monde, and succeeded, about 1767, and by the help of his friend

Label, the valet de chambre of Louis XV., in introducing her to the King

under the name of Mademoiselle l’Ange. To be formally mistress, a husband

had to be found. The Comte Jean du Barry, already married himself, found

no difficulty in getting his brother, Comte Guillaume, a poor officer of

the marine troops, to accept the post of husband. In the

marriage-contract, signed on 23d July, 1768, she was described as “the

daughter of Anne Becu and of an imaginary first husband, Sieur Jean

Jacques Gomard de Vaubernier,” and three years were taken off her age.

The marriage-contract was so drawn as to leave Madame du Barry entirely

free from all control by her husband. The marriage was solemnised on 1st

September, 1768, after which the nominal husband returned to Toulouse.

Madame du Barry in later years provided for him; and in 1772, tired of his

applications, she obtained an act of separation from him. He married

later Jeanne Madeleine Lemoine, and died in 1811. Madame du Barry took

care of her mother, who figured as Madame de Montrable. In all, she

received from the King, M. Le Roi calculates, about twelve and a half

millions of livres. On the death of Louis XV. she had to retire first to

the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux, then she was allowed to go to her

small house at St. Vrain, near Arpajon, and, finally, in 1775, to her

chateau at Louveciennes. Much to her credit be it said, she retained many

of her friends, and was on the most intimate terms till his death with the

Duc de Brissac (Louis Hercule Timoldon de Cosse-Brissac), who was killed

at Versailles in the massacre of the prisoners in September, 1792, leaving

at his death a large legacy to her. Even the Emperor Joseph visited her.

In 1791 many of her jewels were stolen and taken to England. This caused

her to make several visits to that country, where she gained her suit.

But these visits, though she took every precaution to legalise them,

ruined her. Betrayed by her servants, among them by Zamor, the negro

page, she was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, and was

guillotined on 8th December, 1793, in a frenzy of terror, calling for

mercy and for delay up to the moment when her head fell.]

The men of ambition who were labouring to overthrow the Duc de Choiseul

strengthened themselves by their concentration at the house of the

favourite, and succeeded in their project. The bigots, who never forgave

that minister the suppression of the Jesuits, and who had always been

hostile to a treaty of alliance with Austria, influenced the minds of

Mesdames. The Duc de La Vauguyon, the young Dauphin’s governor, infected

them with the same prejudices.

Such was the state of the public mind when the young Archduchess Marie

Antoinette arrived at the Court of Versailles, just at the moment when the

party which brought her there was about to be overthrown.

Madame Adelaide openly avowed her dislike to a princess of the House of

Austria; and when M. Campan, my father-in-law, went to receive his orders,

at the moment of setting off with the household of the Dauphiness, to go

and receive the Archduchess upon the frontiers, she said she disapproved

of the marriage of her nephew with an archduchess; and that, if she had

the direction of the matter, she would not send for an Austrian.