Book: The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Volume 7

M >> Madame Campan >> The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Volume 7



MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE

Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan,
First Lady in Waiting to the Queen




Volume 7


CHAPTER IX.


The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the
Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five
louis.

[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis
had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting
her and me, and led to her death.--MADAME CAMPAN.]

I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she
would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly
should decree for her prison. I then returned home to prepare everything
that might be necessary for me to accompany her.

On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the
Feuillans. I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being
admitted. I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission
which had been given to me; I was again refused. I was told that the
Queen had as many people as were requisite about her. My sister was with
her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the
Abbaye on the 11th. I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and
entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to
whom I addressed myself.

I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple. I
went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place
in the post-office, and who was devoted to me. He determined to go up to
Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen's first woman, the
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four
hours.

From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.

The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio
which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again.
The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government
were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties.
They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked. The infamous Robespierre
bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen's private secretary, and said
that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure
part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important
papers. In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a
solitary letter from the Comte d'Artois, which, by its date, and the
subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued
correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the
trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son's had studied with
Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the
connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan,
required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death
of the latter. The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in
1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. "well,
then," resumed Robespierre, "bring me the certificate of his burial at
twelve to-morrow; it is a document for which I have pressing occasion."
Upon hearing the deputy's demand I instantly sent for a certificate of M.
Campan's burial, and Robespierre received it at nine o'clock the next
morning. But I considered that, in thinking of my father-in-law, they
were coming very near me, the real depositary of these important papers.
I passed days and nights in considering what I could do for the best under
such circumstances.

I was thus situated when the order to inform against those who had been
denounced as suspected on the 10th of August led to domiciliary visits. My
servants were told that the people of the quarter in which I lived were
talking much of the search that would be made in my house, and came to
apprise me of it. I heard that fifty armed men would make themselves
masters of M. Auguies house, where I then was. I had just received this
intelligence when M. Gougenot, the King's maitre d'hotel and
receiver-general of the taxes, a man much attached to his sovereign, came
into my room wrapped in a ridingcloak, under which, with great difficulty,
he carried the King's portfolio, which I had entrusted to him. He threw
it down at my feet, and said to me, "There is your deposit; I did not
receive it from our unfortunate King's own hands; in delivering it to you
I have executed my trust." After saying this he was about to withdraw. I
stopped him, praying him to consult with me what I ought to do in such a
trying emergency. He would not listen to my entreaties, or even hear me
describe the course I intended to pursue. I told him my abode was about
to be surrounded; I imparted to him what the Queen had said to me about
the contents of the portfolio. To all this he answered, "There it is;
decide for yourself; I will have no hand in it." Upon that I remained a
few seconds thinking, and my conduct was founded upon the following
reasons. I spoke aloud, although to myself; I walked about the room with
agitated steps; M. Gougenot was thunderstruck. "Yes," said I, "when we
can no longer communicate with our King and receive his orders, however
attached we may be to him, we can only serve him according to the best of
our own judgment. The Queen said to me, 'This portfolio contains scarcely
anything but documents of a most dangerous description in the event of a
trial taking place, if it should fall into the hands of revolutionary
persons.' She mentioned, too, a single document which would, under the
same circumstances, be useful. It is my duty to interpret her words, and
consider them as orders. She meant to say, 'You will save such a paper,
you will destroy the rest if they are likely to be taken from you.' If it
were not so, was there any occasion for her to enter into any detail as to
what the portfolio contained? The order to keep it was sufficient.
Probably it contains, moreover, the letters of that part of the family
which has emigrated; there is nothing which may have been foreseen or
decided upon that can be useful now; and there can be no political thread
which has not been cut by the events of the 10th of August and the
imprisonment of the King. My house is about to be surrounded; I cannot
conceal anything of such bulk; I might, then, through want of foresight,
give up that which would cause the condemnation of the King. Let us open
the portfolio, save the document alluded to, and destroy the rest." I
took a knife and cut open one side of the portfolio. I saw a great number
of envelopes endorsed by the King's own hand. M. Gougenot found there the
former seals of the King,

[No doubt it was in order to have the ancient seals ready at a moment's
notice, in case of a counter-revolution, that the Queen desired me not to
quit the Tuileries. M. Gougenot threw the seals into the river, one from
above the Pont Neuf, and the other from near the Pont Royal.--MADAME
CAMPAN.]

such as they were before the Assembly had changed the inscription. At
this moment we heard a great noise; he agreed to tie up the portfolio,
take it again under his cloak, and go to a safe place to execute what I
had taken upon me to determine. He made me swear, by all I held most
sacred, that I would affirm, under every possible emergency, that the
course I was pursuing had not been dictated to me by anybody; and that,
whatever might be the result, I would take all the credit or all the blame
upon myself. I lifted up my hand and took the oath he required; he went
out. Half an hour afterwards a great number of armed men came to my
house; they placed sentinels at all the outlets; they broke open
secretaires and closets of which they had not the keys; they 'searched the
flower-pots and boxes; they examined the cellars; and the commandant
repeatedly said, "Look particularly for papers." In the afternoon M.
Gougenot returned. He had still the seals of France about him, and he
brought me a statement of all that he had burnt.

The portfolio contained twenty letters from Monsieur, eighteen or nineteen
from the Comte d'Artois, seventeen from Madame Adelaide, eighteen from
Madame Victoire, a great many letters from Comte Alexandre de Lameth, and
many from M. de Malesherbes, with documents annexed to them. There were
also some from M. de Montmorin and other ex-ministers or ambassadors.
Each correspondence had its title written in the King's own hand upon the
blank paper which contained it. The most voluminous was that from
Mirabeau. It was tied up with a scheme for an escape, which he thought
necessary. M. Gougenot, who had skimmed over these letters with more
attention than the rest, told me they were of so interesting a nature that
the King had no doubt kept them as documents exceedingly valuable for a
history of his reign, and that the correspondence with the Princes, which
was entirely relative to what was going forward abroad, in concert with
the King, would have been fatal to him if it had been seized. After he
had finished he placed in my hands the proces-verbal, signed by all the
ministers, to which the King attached so much importance, because he had
given his opinion against the declaration of war; a copy of the letter
written by the King to the Princes, his brothers, inviting them to return
to France; an account of the diamonds which the Queen had sent to Brussels
(these two documents were in my handwriting); and a receipt for four
hundred thousand francs, under the hand of a celebrated banker. This sum
was part of the eight hundred thousand francs which the Queen had
gradually saved during her reign, out of her pension of three hundred
thousand francs per annum, and out of the one hundred thousand francs
given by way of present on the birth of the Dauphin.

This receipt, written on a very small piece of paper, was in the cover of
an almanac. I agreed with M. Gougenot, who was obliged by his office to
reside in Paris, that he should retain the proces-verbal of the Council
and the receipt for the four hundred thousand francs, and that we should
wait either for orders or for the means of transmitting these documents to
the King or Queen; and I set out for Versailles.

The strictness of the precautions taken to guard the illustrious prisoners
was daily increased. The idea that I could not inform the King of the
course I had adopted of burning his papers, and the fear that I should not
be able to transmit to him that which he had pointed out as necessary,
tormented me to such a degree that it is wonderful my health endured the
strain.

The dreadful trial drew near. Official advocates were granted to the
King; the heroic virtue of M. de Malesherbes induced him to brave the most
imminent dangers, either to save his master or to perish with him. I hoped
also to be able to find some means of informing his Majesty of what I had
thought it right to do. I sent a man, on whom I could rely, to Paris, to
request M. Gougenot to come to me at Versailles he came immediately. We
agreed that he should see M. de Malesherbes without availing himself of
any intermediate person for that purpose.

M. Gougenot awaited his return from the Temple at the door of his hotel,
and made a sign that he wished to speak to him. A moment afterwards a
servant came to introduce him into the magistrates' room. He imparted to
M. de Malesherbes what I had thought it right to do with respect to the
King's papers, and placed in his hands the proces-verbal of the Council,
which his Majesty had preserved in order to serve, if occasion required
it, for a ground of his defence. However, that paper is not mentioned in
either of the speeches of his advocate; probably it was determined not to
make use of it.

I stop at that terrible period which is marked by the assassination of a
King whose virtues are well known; but I cannot refrain from relating what
he deigned to say in my favour to M. de Malesherbes:

"Let Madame Campan know that she did what I should myself have ordered her
to do; I thank her for it; she is one of those whom I regret I have it not
in my power to recompense for their fidelity to my person, and for their
good services." I did not hear of this until the morning after he had
suffered, and I think I should have sunk under my despair if this
honourable testimony had not given me some consolation.




SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER IX.


MADAME CAMPAN'S narrative breaking off abruptly at the time of the painful
end met with by her sister, we have supplemented it by abridged accounts
of the chief incidents in the tragedy which overwhelmed the royal house
she so faithfully served, taken from contemporary records and the best
historical authorities.


The Royal Family in the Temple.

The Assembly having, at the instance of the Commune of Paris, decreed that
the royal family should be immured in the Temple, they were removed
thither from the Feuillans on the 13th of August, 1792, in the charge of
Potion, Mayor of Paris, and Santerre, the commandant-general. Twelve
Commissioners of the general council were to keep constant watch at the
Temple, which had been fortified by earthworks and garrisoned by
detachments of the National Guard, no person being allowed to enter
without permission from the municipality.

The Temple, formerly the headquarters of the Knights Templars in Paris,
consisted of two buildings,--the Palace, facing the Rue de Temple, usually
occupied by one of the Princes of the blood; and the Tower, standing
behind the Palace.

[Clery gives a more minute description of this singular building: "The
small tower of the Temple in which the King was then confined stood with
its back against the great tower, without any interior communication, and
formed a long square, flanked by two turrets. In one of these turrets
there was a narrow staircase that led from the first floor to a gallery on
the platform; in the other were small rooms, answering to each story of
the tower. The body of the building was four stories high. The first
consisted of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a small room in the
turret, where there was a library containing from twelve to fifteen
hundred volumes. The second story was divided nearly in the same manner.
The largest room was the Queen's bedchamber, in which the Dauphin also
slept; the second, which was separated from the Queen's by a small
antechamber almost without light, was occupied by Madame Royale and Madame
Elisabeth. The King's apartments were on the third story. He slept in
the great room, and made a study of the turret closet. There was a
kitchen separated from the King's chamber by a small dark room, which had
been successively occupied by M. de Chamilly and M. de Hue. The fourth
story was shut up; and on the ground floor there were kitchens of which no
use was made." --"Journal," p. 96.]

The Tower was a square building, with a round tower at each corner and a
small turret on one side, usually called the Tourelle. In the narrative
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme she says that the soldiers who escorted the
royal prisoners wished to take the King alone to the Tower, and his family
to the Palace of the Temple, but that on the way Manuel received an order
to imprison them all in the Tower, where so little provision had been made
for their reception that Madame Elisabeth slept in the kitchen. The royal
family were accompanied by the Princesse de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel
and her daughter Pauline, Mesdames de Navarre, de Saint-Brice, Thibaut,
and Bazire, MM. de Hug and de Chamilly, and three men-servants--An order
from the Commune soon removed these devoted attendants, and M. de Hue
alone was permitted to return. "We all passed the day together," says
Madame Royale. "My father taught my brother geography; my mother history,
and to learn verses by heart; and my aunt gave him lessons in arithmetic.
My father fortunately found a library which amused him, and my mother
worked tapestry . . . . We went every day to walk in the garden, for
the sake of my brother's health, though the King was always insulted by
the guard. On the Feast of Saint Louis 'Ca Ira' was sung under the walls
of the Temple. Manuel that evening brought my aunt a letter from her
aunts at Rome. It was the last the family received from without. My
father was no longer called King. He was treated with no kind of respect;
the officers always sat in his presence and never took off their hats.
They deprived him of his sword and searched his pockets . . . . Petion
sent as gaoler the horrible man--[Rocher, a saddler by trade] who had
broken open my father's door on the 20th June, 1792, and who had been near
assassinating him. This man never left the Tower, and was indefatigable
in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the 'Caramgnole,'
and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother
disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in
that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be
in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through
his room. My father suffered it all with gentleness, forgiving the man
from the bottom of his heart. My mother bore it with a dignity that
frequently repressed his insolence." The only occasion, Madame Royale
adds, on which the Queen showed any impatience at the conduct of the
officials, was when a municipal officer woke the Dauphin suddenly in the
night to make certain that he was safe, as though the sight of the
peacefully sleeping child would not have been in itself the best
assurance.

Clery, the valet de chambre of the Dauphin, having with difficulty
obtained permission to resume his duties, entered the Temple on the 24th
August, and for eight days shared with M. de Hue the personal attendance;
but on the 2d September De Hue was arrested, seals were placed on the
little room he had occupied, and Clery passed the night in that of the
King. On the following morning Manuel arrived, charged by the Commune to
inform the King that De Hue would not be permitted to return, and to offer
to send another person. "I thank you," answered the King. "I will manage
with the valet de chambre of my son; and if the Council refuse I will
serve myself. I am determined to do it." On the 3d September Manual
visited the Temple and assured the King that Madame de Lamballe and all
the other prisoners who had been removed to La Force were well, and safely
guarded. "But at three o'clock," says Madame Royale, "just after dinner,
and as the King was sitting down to 'tric trac' with my mother (which he
played for the purpose of having an opportunity of saying a few words to
her unheard by the keepers), the most horrid shouts were heard. The
officer who happened to be on guard in the room behaved well. He shut the
door and the window, and even drew the curtains to prevent their seeing
anything; but outside the workmen and the gaoler Rocher joined the
assassins and increased the tumult. Several officers of the guard and the
municipality now arrived, and on my father's asking what was the matter, a
young officer replied, 'Well, since you will know, it is the head of
Madame de Lamballe that they want to show you.' At these words my mother
was overcome with horror; it was the only occasion on which her firmness
abandoned her. The municipal officers were very angry with the young man;
but the King, with his usual goodness, excused him, saying that it was his
own fault, since he had questioned the officer. The noise lasted till
five o'clock. We learned that the people had wished to force the door,
and that the municipal officers had been enabled to prevent it only by
putting a tricoloured scarf across it, and allowing six of the murderers
to march round our prison with the head of the Princess, leaving at the
door her body, which they would have dragged in also."

Clery was not so fortunate as to escape the frightful spectacle. He had
gone down to dine with Tison and his wife, employed as servants in the
Temple, and says: "We were hardly seated when a head, on the end of a
pike, was presented at the window. Tison's wife gave a great cry; the
assassins fancied they recognised the Queen's voice, and responded by
savage laughter. Under the idea that his Majesty was still at table, they
placed their dreadful trophy where it must be seen. It was the head of
the Princesse de Lamballe; although bleeding, it was not disfigured, and
her light hair, still in curls, hung about the pike."

At length the immense mob that surrounded the Temple gradually withdrew,
"to follow the head of the Princess de Lamballe to the Palais Royal."

[The pike that bore the head was fixed before the Duc d'Orleans's window
as he was going to dinner. It is said that he looked at this horrid sight
without horror, went into the dining-room, sat down to table, and helped
his guests without saying a word. His silence and coolness left it
doubtful whether the assassins, in presenting him this bloody trophy,
intended to offer him an insult or to pay him homage.--DE MOLLEVILLE'S
"Annals of the French Revolution," vol. vii., p. 398.]

Meanwhile the royal family could scarcely believe that for the time their
lives were saved. "My aunt and I heard the drums beating to arms all
night," says Madame Royale; "my unhappy mother did not even attempt to
sleep. We heard her sobs."

In the comparative tranquillity which followed the September massacres,
the royal family resumed the regular habits they had adopted on entering
the Temple. "The King usually rose at six in the morning," says Clery.
"He shaved himself, and I dressed his hair; he then went to his
reading-room, which, being very small, the municipal officer on duty
remained in the bedchamber with the door open, that he might always keep
the King in sight. His Majesty continued praying on his knees for some
time, and then read till nine. During that interval, after putting his
chamber to rights and preparing the breakfast, I went down to the Queen,
who never opened her door till I arrived, in order to prevent the
municipal officer from going into her apartment. At nine o'clock the
Queen, the children, and Madame Elisabeth went up to the King's chamber to
breakfast. At ten the King and his family went down to the Queen's
chamber, and there passed the day. He employed himself in educating his
son, made him recite passages from Corneille and Racine, gave him lessons
in geography, and exercised him in colouring the maps. The Queen, on her
part, was employed in the education of her daughter, and these different
lessons lasted till eleven o'clock. The remaining time till noon was
passed in needlework, knitting, or making tapestry. At one o'clock, when
the weather was fine, the royal family were conducted to the garden by
four municipal officers and the commander of a legion of the National
Guard. As there were a number of workmen in the Temple employed in pulling
down houses and building new walls, they only allowed a part of the
chestnut-tree walk for the promenade, in which I was allowed to share, and
where I also played with the young Prince at ball, quoits, or races. At
two we returned to the Tower, where I served the dinner, at which time
Santerre regularly came to the Temple, attended by two aides-de-camp. The
King sometimes spoke to him,--the Queen never.

"After the meal the royal family came down into the Queen's room, and
their Majesties generally played a game of piquet or tric-trac. At four
o'clock the King took a little repose, the Princesses round him, each with
a book . . . . When the King woke the conversation was resumed, and I
gave writing lessons to his son, taking the copies, according to his
instructions, from the works of, Montesquieu and other celebrated authors.
After the lesson I took the young Prince into Madame Elisabeth's room,
where we played at ball, and battledore and shuttlecock. In the evening
the family sat round a table, while the Queen read to them from books of
history, or other works proper to instruct and amuse the children. Madame
Elisabeth took the book in her turn, and in this manner they read till
eight o'clock. After that I served the supper of the young Prince, in
which the royal family shared, and the King amused the children with
charades out of a collection of French papers which he found in the
library. After the Dauphin had supped, I undressed him, and the Queen
heard him say his prayers. At nine the King went to supper, and
afterwards went for a moment to the Queen's chamber, shook hands with her
and his sister for the night, kissed his children, and then retired to the
turret-room, where he sat reading till midnight. The Queen and the
Princesses locked themselves in, and one of the municipal officers
remained in the little room which parted their chamber, where he passed
the night; the other followed his Majesty. In this manner was the time
passed as long as the King remained in the small tower."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.