Book: The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3
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MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XV. AND XVI.
Being Secret Memoirs of Madame du Hausset,
Lady's Maid to Madame de Pompadour,
and of an unknown English Girl
and the Princess Lamballe
BOOK 3.
SECRET COURT MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XVI. AND THE ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE
INTRODUCTION.
I should consider it great presumption to intrude upon the public
anything respecting myself, were there any other way of establishing the
authenticity of the facts and papers I am about to present. To the
history of my own peculiar situation, amid the great events I record,
which made me the depositary of information and documents so important, I
proceed, therefore, though reluctantly, without further preamble.
I was for many years in the confidential service of the Princesse de
Lamballe, and the most important materials which form my history have
been derived not only from the conversations, but the private papers of
my lamented patroness. It remains for me to show how I became acquainted
with Her Highness, and by what means the papers I allude to came into my
possession.
Though, from my birth, and the rank of those who were the cause of it
(had it not been from political motives kept from my knowledge), in point
of interest I ought to have been very independent, I was indebted for my
resources in early life to His Grace the late Duke of Norfolk and Lady
Mary Duncan. By them I was placed for education in the Irish Convent,
Rue du Bacq, Faubourg St. Germain, at Paris, where the immortal Sacchini,
the instructor of the Queen, gave me lessons in music. Pleased with my
progress, the celebrated composer, when one day teaching Marie
Antoinette, so highly overrated to that illustrious lady my infant
natural talents and acquired science in his art, in the presence of her
very shadow, the Princesse de Lamballe, as to excite in Her Majesty an
eager desire for the opportunity of hearing me, which the Princess
volunteered to obtain by going herself to the convent next morning with
Sacchini. It was enjoined upon the composer, as I afterwards learned,
that he was neither to apprise me who Her Highness was, nor to what
motive I was indebted for her visit. To this Sacchini readily agreed,
adding, after disclosing to them my connections and situation, "Your
Majesty will be, perhaps, still more surprised, when I, as an Italian,
and her German master, who is a German, declare that she speaks both
these languages like a native, though born in England; and is as well
disposed to the Catholic faith, and as well versed in it, as if she had
been a member of that Church all her life."
This last observation decided my future good fortune: there was no
interest in the minds of the Queen and Princess paramount to that of
making proselytes to their creed.
The Princess, faithful to her promise, accompanied Sacchini. Whether it
was chance, ability, or good fortune, let me not attempt to conjecture;
but from that moment I became the protege of this ever-regretted angel.
Political circumstances presently facilitated her introduction of me to
the Queen. My combining a readiness in the Italian and German languages,
with my knowledge of English and French, greatly promoted my power of
being useful at that crisis, which, with some claims to their confidence
of a higher order, made this august, lamented, injured pair more like
mothers to me than mistresses, till we were parted by their murder.
The circumstances I have just mentioned show that to mere curiosity, the
characteristic passion of our sex and so often its ruin, I am to ascribe
the introduction, which was only prevented by events unparalleled in
history from proving the most fortunate in my life as it is the most
cherished in my recollection.
It will be seen, in the course of the following pages, how often I was
employed on confidential missions, frequently by myself, and, in some
instances, as the attendant of the Princess. The nature of my situation,
the trust reposed in me, the commissions with which I was honoured, and
the affecting charges of which I was the bearer, flattered my pride and
determined me to make myself an exception to the rule that "no woman can
keep a secret." Few ever knew exactly where I was, what I was doing, and
much less the importance of my occupation. I had passed from England to
France, made two journeys to Italy and Germany, three to the Archduchess
Maria Christiana, Governess of the Low Countries, and returned back to
France, before any of my friends in England were aware of my retreat, or
of my ever having accompanied the Princess. Though my letters were
written and dated at Paris, they were all forwarded to England by way of
Holland or Germany, that no clue should be given for annoyances from idle
curiosity. It is to this discreetness, to this inviolable secrecy,
firmness, and fidelity, which I so early in life displayed to the august
personages who stood in need of such a person, that I owe the unlimited
confidence of my illustrious benefactress, through which I was furnished
with the valuable materials I am now submitting to the public.
I was repeatedly a witness, by the side of the Princesse de Lamballe, of
the appalling scenes of the bonnet rouge, of murders a la lanterne, and
of numberless insults to the unfortunate Royal Family of Louis XVI., when
the Queen was generally selected as the most marked victim of malicious
indignity. Having had the honour of so often beholding this much injured
Queen, and never without remarking how amiable in her manners, how
condescendingly kind in her deportment towards every one about her, how
charitably generous, and withal, how beautiful she was,--I looked upon
her as a model of perfection. But when I found the public feeling so
much at variance with my own, the difference became utterly
unaccountable. I longed for some explanation of the mystery. One day I
was insulted in the Tuileries, because I had alighted from my horse to
walk there without wearing the national ribbon. On this I met the
Princess: the conversation which grew out of my adventure emboldened me
to question her on a theme to me inexplicable.
"What," asked I, "can it be which makes the people so outrageous against
the Queen?"
Her Highness condescended to reply in the complimentary terms which I am
about to relate, but without answering my question.
"My dear friend!" exclaimed she, "for from this moment I beg you will
consider me in that light, never having been blessed with children of my
own, I feel there is no way of acquitting myself of the obligations you
have heaped upon me, by the fidelity with which you have executed the
various commissions entrusted to your charge, but by adopting you as one
of my own family. I am satisfied with you, yes, highly satisfied with
you, on the score of your religious principles; and as soon as the
troubles subside, and we have a little calm after them, my father-in-law
and myself will be present at the ceremony of your confirmation."
The goodness of my benefactress silenced me gratitude would not allow me
to persevere for the moment. But from what I had already seen of Her
Majesty the Queen, I was too much interested to lose sight of my
object,--not, let me be believed, from idle womanish curiosity, but from
that real, strong, personal interest which I, in common with all who ever
had the honour of being in her presence, felt for that much-injured, most
engaging sovereign.
A propitious circumstance unexpectedly occurred, which gave me an
opportunity, without any appearance of officious earnestness, to renew
the attempt to gain the end I had in view.
I was riding in the carriage with the Princesse de Lamballe, when a lady
drove by, who saluted my benefactress with marked attention and respect.
There was something in the manner of the Princess, after receiving the
salute, which impelled me, spite of myself, to ask who the lady was.
"Madame de Genlis," exclaimed Her Highness, with a shudder of disgust,
"that lamb's face with a wolf's heart, and a fog's cunning." Or, to
quote her own Italian phrase which I have here translated, "colla faccia
d'agnello, il cuore dun lupo, a la dritura della volpe."
In the course of these pages the cause of this strong feeling against
Madame de Genlis will be explained. To dwell on it now would only turn
me aside from my narrative. To pursue my story, therefore:
When we arrived at my lodgings (which were then, for private reasons, at
the Irish Convent, where Sacchini and other masters attended to further
me in the accomplishments of the fine arts), "Sing me something," said
the Princess, "'Cantate mi qualche cosa', for I never see that woman"
(meaning Madame de Genlis) "but I feel ill and out of humour. I wish it
may not be the foreboding of some great evil!"
I sang a little rondo, in which Her Highness and the Queen always
delighted, and which they would never set me free without making me sing,
though I had given them twenty before it.
[The rondo I allude to was written by Sarti for the celebrated Marches!
Lungi da to ben mio, and is the same in which he was so successful in
England, when he introduced it in London in the opera of Giulo Sabino.]
Her Highness honoured me with even more than usual praise. I kissed the
hand which had so generously applauded my infant talents, and said, "Now,
my dearest Princess, as you are so kind and good-humoured, tell me
something about the Queen!"
She looked at me with her eyes full of tears. For an instant they stood
in their sockets as if petrified: and then, after a pause, "I cannot,"
answered she in Italian, as she usually did, "I cannot refuse you
anything. 'Non posso neyarti niente'. It would take me an age to tell
you the many causes which have conspired against this much-injured Queen!
I fear none who are near her person will escape the threatening storm
that hovers over our heads. The leading causes of the clamour against
her have been, if you must know, Nature; her beauty; her power of
pleasing; her birth; her rank; her marriage; the King himself; her
mother; her imperfect education; and, above all, her unfortunate
partialities for the Abbe Vermond; for the Duchesse de Polignac; for
myself, perhaps; and last, but not least, the thorough, unsuspecting
goodness of her heart!
"But, since you seem to be so much concerned for her exalted, persecuted
Majesty, you shall have a Journal I myself began on my first coming to
France, and which I have continued ever since I have been honoured with
the confidence of Her Majesty, in graciously giving me that unlooked-for
situation at the head of her household, which honour and justice prevent
my renouncing under any difficulties, and which I never will quit but
with my life!"
She wept as she spoke, and her last words were almost choked with sobs.
Seeing her so much affected, I humbly begged pardon for having
unintentionally caused her tears, and begged permission to accompany her
to the Tuileries.
"No," said she, "you have hitherto conducted yourself with a profound
prudence, which has insured you my confidence. Do not let your curiosity
change your system. You shall have the Journal. But be careful. Read
it only by yourself, and do not show it to any one. On these conditions
you shall have it."
I was in the act of promising, when Her Highness stopped me.
"I want no particular promises. I have sufficient proofs of your
adherence to truth. Only answer me simply in the affirmative."
I said I would certainly obey her injunctions most religiously.
She then left me, and directed that I should walk in a particular part of
the private alleys of the Tuileries, between three and four o'clock in
the afternoon. I did so; and from her own hand I there received her
private Journal.
In the following September of this same year (1792) she was murdered!
Journalising copiously, for the purpose of amassing authentic materials
for the future historian, was always a favourite practice of the French,
and seems to have been particularly in vogue in the age I mention. The
press has sent forth whole libraries of these records since the
Revolution, and it is notorious that Louis XV. left Secret Memoirs,
written by his own hand, of what passed before this convulsion; and had
not the papers of the Tuileries shared in the wreck of royalty, it would
have been seen that Louis XVI. had made some progress in the memoirs of
his time; and even his beautiful and unfortunate Queen had herself made
extensive notes and collections for the record of her own disastrous
career. Hence it must be obvious how one so nearly connected in
situation and suffering with her much-injured mistress, as the Princesse
de Lamballe, would naturally fall into a similar habit had she even no
stronger temptation than fashion and example. But self-communion, by
means of the pen, is invariably the consolation of strong feeling, and
reflecting minds under great calamities, especially when their
intercourse with the world has been checked or poisoned by its malice.
The editor of these pages herself fell into the habit of which she
speaks; and it being usual with her benefactress to converse with all the
unreserve which every honest mind shows when it feels it can confide, her
humble attendant, not to lose facts of such importance, commonly made
notes of what she heard. In any other person's hands the Journal of the
Princess would have been incomplete; especially as it was written in a
rambling manner, and was never intended for publication. But connected
by her confidential conversations with me, and the recital of the events
to which I personally bear testimony, I trust it will be found the basis
of a satisfactory record, which I pledge myself to be a true one.
I do not know, however, that, at my time of life, and after a lapse of
thirty years, I should have been roused to the arrangement of the papers
which I have combined to form this narrative, had I not met with the work
of Madame Campan upon the same subject.
This lady has said much that is true respecting the Queen; but she has
omitted much, and much she has misrepresented: not, I dare say,
purposely, but from ignorance, and being wrongly informed. She was often
absent from the service, and on such occasions must have been compelled
to obtain her knowledge at second-hand. She herself told me, in 1803, at
Rouen, that at a very important epoch the peril of her life forced her
from the seat of action. With the Princesse de Lamballe, who was so much
about the Queen, she never had any particular connexion. The Princess
certainly esteemed her for her devotedness to the Queen; but there was a
natural reserve in the Princess's character, and a mistrust resulting
from circumstances of all those who saw much company, as Madame Campan
did. Hence no intimacy was encouraged. Madame Campan never came to the
Princess without being sent for.
An attempt has been made since the Revolution utterly to destroy faith in
the alleged attachment of Madame Campan to the Queen, by the fact of her
having received the daughters of many of the regicides for education into
her establishment at Rouen. Far be it from me to sanction so unjust a
censure. Although what I mention hurt her character very much in the
estimation of her former friends, and constituted one of the grounds of
the dissolution of her establishment at Rouen, on the restoration of the
Bourbons, and may possibly in some degree have deprived her of such aids
from their adherents as might have made her work unquestionable, yet what
else, let me ask, could have been done by one dependent upon her
exertions for support, and in the power of Napoleon's family and his
emissaries? On the contrary, I would give my public testimony in favour
of the fidelity of her feelings, though in many instances I must withhold
it from the fidelity of her narrative. Her being utterly isolated from
the illustrious individual nearest to the Queen must necessarily leave
much to be desired in her record. During the whole term of the Princesse
de Lamballe's superintendence of the Queen's household, Madame Campan
never had any special communication with my benefactress, excepting once,
about the things which were to go to Brussels, before the journey to
Varennes; and once again, relative to a person of the Queen's household,
who had received the visits of Petion, the Mayor of Paris, at her private
lodgings. This last communication I myself particularly remember,
because on that occasion the Princess, addressing me in her own native
language, Madame Campan, observing it, considered me as an Italian, till,
by a circumstance I shall presently relate, she was undeceived.
I should anticipate the order of events, and incur the necessity of
speaking twice of the same things, were I here to specify the express
errors in the work of Madame Campan. Suffice it now that I observe
generally her want of knowledge of the Princesse de Lamballe; her
omission of many of the most interesting circumstances of the Revolution;
her silence upon important anecdotes of the King, the Queen, and several
members of the first assembly; her mistakes concerning the Princesse de
Lamballe's relations with the Duchesse de Polignac, Comte de Fersan,
Mirabeau, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others; her great miscalculation of
the time when the Queen's confidence in Barnave began, and when that of
the Empress-mother in Rohan ended; her misrepresentation of particulars
relating to Joseph II.; and her blunders concerning the affair of the
necklace, and regarding the libel Madame Lamotte published in England,
with the connivance of Calonne:--all these will be considered, with
numberless other statements equally requiring correction in their turn.
What she has omitted I trust I shall supply; and where she has gone
astray I hope to set her right; that, between the two, the future
biographer of my august benefactresses may be in no want of authentic
materials to do full justice to their honoured memories.
I said in a preceding paragraph that I should relate a circumstance about
Madame Campan, which happened after she had taken me for an Italian and
before she was aware of my being in the service of the Princess.
Madame Campan, though she had seen me not only at the time I mention but
before and after, had always passed me without notice. One Sunday, when
in the gallery of the Tuileries with Madame de Stael, the Queen, with her
usual suite, of which Madame Campan formed one, was going, according to
custom, to hear Mass, Her Majesty perceived me and most graciously
addressed me in German. Madame Campan appeared greatly surprised at
this, but walked on and said nothing. Ever afterwards, however, she
treated me whenever we met with marked civility.
Another edition of Boswell to those who got a nod from Dr. Johnson!
The reader will find in the course of this work that on the 2nd of
August, 1792, from the kindness and humanity of my, august
benefactresses, I was compelled to accept a mission to Italy, devised
merely to send me from the sanguinary scenes of which they foresaw they
and theirs must presently become victims. Early in the following month
the Princesse de Lamballe was murdered. As my history extends beyond the
period I have mentioned, it is fitting I should explain the indisputable
authorities whence I derived such particulars as I did not see.
A person, high in the confidence of the Princess, through the means of
the honest coachman of whom I shall have occasion to speak, supplied me
with regular details of whatever took place, till she herself, with the
rest of the ladies and other attendants, being separated from the Royal
Family, was immured in the prison of La Force. When I returned to Paris
after this dire tempest, Madame Clery and her friend, Madame de Beaumont,
a natural daughter of Louis XV., with Monsieur Chambon of Rheims, who
never left Paris during the time, confirmed the correctness of my papers.
The Madame Clery I mention is the same who assisted her husband in his
faithful attendance upon the Royal Family in the Temple; and this
exemplary man added his testimony to the rest, in the presence of the
Duchesse de Guiche Grammont, at Pyrmont in Germany, when I there met him
in the suite of the late sovereign of France, Louis XVIII., at a concert.
After the 10th of August, I had also a continued correspondence: with
many persons at Paris, who supplied me with thorough accounts of the
succeeding horrors, in letters directed to Sir William Hamilton, at
Naples, and by him forwarded to me. And in addition to all these high
sources, many particular circumstances: have been disclosed to me by
individuals, whose authority, when I have used it, I have generally
affixed to the facts they have enabled me to communicate.
It now only remains for me to mention that I have endeavoured to arrange
everything, derived either from the papers of the Princesse de Lamballe,
or from her remarks, my own observation, or the intelligence of others,
in chronological order. It will readily be seen by the reader where the
Princess herself speaks, as I have invariably set apart my own
recollections and remarks in paragraphs and notes, which are not only
indicated by the heading of each chapter, but by the context of the
passages themselves. I have also begun and ended what the Princess says
with inverted commas. All the earlier part, of the work preceding her
personal introduction proceeds principally from her pen or her lips: I
have done little more than change it from Italian into English, and
embody thoughts and sentiments that were often disjointed and detached.
And throughout, whether she or others speak, I may safely say this work
will be found the most circumstantial, and assuredly the most authentic,
upon the subject of which it treats, of all that have yet been presented
to the public of Great Britain. The press has been prolific in fabulous
writings upon these times, which have been devoured with avidity. I hope
John Bull is not so devoted to gilded foreign fictions as to spurn the
unadorned truth from one of his downright countrywomen: and let me advise
him en passant, not to treat us beauties of native growth with
indifference at home; for we readily find compensation in the regard,
patronage, and admiration of every nation in Europe. I am old now, and
may speak freely.
I have no interest whatever in the work I submit but that of endeavouring
to redeem the character of so many injured victims. Would to Heaven my
memory were less acute, and that I could obliterate from the knowledge of
the world and posterity the names of their infamous destroyers; I mean,
not the executioners who terminated their mortal existence for in their
miserable situation that early martyrdom was an act of grace--but I mean
some, perhaps still living, who with foul cowardice, stabbing like
assassins in the dark, undermined their fair fame, and morally murdered
them, long before their deaths, by daily traducing virtues the slanderers
never possessed, from mere jealousy of the glory they knew themselves
incapable of deserving.
Montesquieu says, "If there be a God, He must be just!" That divine
justice, after centuries, has been fully established on the descendants
of the cruel, sanguinary conquerers of South America and its butchered
harmless Emperor Montezuma and his innocent offspring, who are now
teaching Spain a moral lesson in freeing themselves from its insatiable
thirst for blood and wealth, while God Himself has refused that blessing
to the Spaniards which they denied to the Americans! Oh, France! what
hast thou not already suffered, and what hast thou not yet to suffer,
when to thee, like Spain, it shall visit their descendants even unto the
fourth generation?
To my insignificant losses in so mighty a ruin perhaps I ought not to
allude. I should not presume even to mention that fatal convulsion which
shook all Europe and has since left the nations in that state of agitated
undulation which succeeds a tempest upon the ocean, were it not for the
opportunity it gives me to declare the bounty of my benefactresses. All
my own property went down in the wreck; and the mariner who escapes only
with his life can never recur to the scene of his escape without a
shudder. Many persons are still living, of the first respectability, who
well remember my quitting this country, though very young, on the budding
of a brilliant career. Had those prospects been followed up they would
have placed me beyond the caprice of fickle fortune. But the dazzling
lustre of crown favours and princely patronage outweighed the slow,
though more solid hopes of self-achieved independence. I certainly was
then almost a child, and my vanity, perhaps, of the honour of being
useful to two such illustrious personages got the better of every other
sentiment. But now when I reflect, I look back with consternation on the
many risks I ran, on the many times I stared death in the face with no
fear but that of being obstructed in my efforts to serve, even with my
life, the interests dearest to my heart--that of implicit obedience to
these truly benevolent and generous Princesses, who only wanted the means
to render me as happy and independent as their cruel destiny has since
made me wretched and miserable! Had not death deprived me of their
patronage I should have had no reason to regret any sacrifice I could
have made for them, for through the Princess, Her Majesty, unasked, had
done me the honour to promise me the reversion of a most lucrative as
well as highly respectable post in her employ. In these august
personages I lost my best friends; I lost everything--except the tears,
which bathe the paper as I write tears of gratitude, which will never
cease to flow to the memory of their martyrdom.