Book: Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete

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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.

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