Madame Campan

“ 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. ”

“ In this note the Queen said: "Address yourself with full confidence to Madame Campan; the conduct of her brother in Russia has not at all influenced her sentiments; she is wholly devoted to us; and if, hereafter, you should have anything to say to us verbally, you may rely entirely upon her devotion and discretion."
The mobs which gathered almost nightly in the faubourgs alarmed the Queen's friends; they entreated her not to sleep in her room on the ground floor of the Tuileries. She removed to the first floor, to a room which was between the King's apartments and those of the Dauphin. ”

“ In Eugenie Grandet Balzac writes:
"Do you know what Madame Campan used to say to us? 'My children, so
long as a man is a Minister, adore him; if he falls, help to drag
him to the ditch. Powerful, he is a sort of deity; ruined, he is
below Marat in his sewer, because he is alive, and Marat, dead.
Life is a series of combinations, which must be studied and
followed if a good position is to be successfully maintained.'"
Since Madame Campan was femme de chambre of Marie Antoinette, Balzac probably heard this maxim through Madame de Berny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If ever there was the maker of an important thing it was this woman and if ever there was an important thing proceeding entirely from one individual, that thing is the collection which still remains to us.
There is a sort of parallel which can be drawn between Madame Tussaud and Madame Campan. Both of them have seen, and worked at, the Palace of Louis XVI, under and in connection with his Queen. Both were much of an age, Madame Campan eight years senior to Madame Tussaud. Both lived on through the Revolution and the Empire, the one till 1822, the other beyond the revolutionary year of 1848. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though they did not accept her offer, their Majesties were affected at her gratitude. The Comtesse du Barry was, as is well known, one of the victims of the Revolution. She betrayed at the last great weakness, and the most ardent desire to live. She was the only woman who wept upon the scaffold and implored for mercy. Her beauty and tears made an impression on the populace, and the execution was hurried to a conclusion.—MADAME CAMPAN. ”

“ Marie, she told the capitaine, should be equal to herself in the establishment, when once she was entitled to be called Madame Campan, and she should be to her quite as a daughter. She should have her cup of coffee every evening, and dine at the big table, and wear a silk gown at church, and the servants should all call her Madame; a great career should be open to her, if she would only give up her foolish girlish childish love for Adolphe. And all these great promises were repeated to Marie by the capitaine. ”

“ As we entered the first room, a person who was there said to me, "Ah! you are a brave woman; but where is that Thierry,
[M. Thierry, who never ceased to give his sovereign proofs of unalterable attachment, was one of the victims of the 2d of September.—MADAME CAMPAN.]
that man loaded with his master's bounties?"—"He is here," said I; "he is following me. I perceive that even scenes of death do not banish jealousy from among you." ”

“ Is it some general going to inspect his army? Does all this military display become a young Queen adored by her subjects?” He would call to her mind the simplicity with which Maria Theresa lived; the visits she made without guards, or even attendants, to the Prince d’Esterhazy, to the Comte de Palfi, passing whole days far from the fatiguing ceremonies of the Court. The Abbe thus artfully flattered the inclinations of Marie Antoinette, and showed her how she might disguise, even from herself, her aversion for the ceremonies observed by the descendants of Louis XIV.-MADAME CAMPAN. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Madame Campan wrote to Madame Louis about her young pupil as follows: "I am certainly surprised at the way Mademoiselle Stéphanie has turned out since she returned from Saint Leu. She may become a very charming woman, but not if she stays at Saint Cloud. Royal palaces have never been good schools; pleasures, the taste for excitement and flattery, corrupt not merely those who are young, but even those who go there already matured, unless they are protected by the highest principles. ”

“ The Queen said, as she read this letter, "Perhaps he speaks but too truly; who can decide upon so disastrous a position as ours has become?" The day on which I gave the Queen my brother's first letter to read she had several audiences to give to ladies and other persons belonging to the Court, who came on purpose to inform her that my brother was an avowed constitutionalist and revolutionist. The Queen replied, "I know it; Madame Campan has told me so." ”

“ Princesses are not obliged to be kind; they must, however, be obliging and dignified; but to understand the limits of propriety and not to go beyond them they must have acquired certain habits from infancy; here the Grand Duchess Stephanie was wanting, and Madame Campan has not been able to amend the defect. I believe her to be at bottom an excellent person. Her life shows devotion and courage in the misfortunes through which she has passed with great credit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Madame de Campan probably gives a more correct report of the queen's feelings than the general himself, whom the consciousness of his own integrity of purpose very probably misled into believing that he had convinced her of it. But, though, if Marie Antoinette did listen to his professions and advice with some degree of mistrust, she undoubtedly did him less than justice: she can hardly be blamed for indulging such a feeling, when it is remembered in what an atmosphere of treachery she had lived for the last three years. ”

“ But the populace, who had been flattered for three years, required far different homage to its power, and the poor man was unnoticed. The King had been awakened, and so had Madame Elisabeth, who had gone to him. The Queen, yielding to the weight of her griefs, slept till nine o'clock on that day, which was very unusual with her. The King had already been to know whether she was awake; I told him what I had done, and the care I had taken not to disturb her. He thanked me, and said, "I was awake, and so was the whole palace; she ran no risk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I was alone by her bedside at one o'clock in the morning; we heard somebody walking softly down the corridor, which passes along the whole line of her apartments, and which was then locked at each end. I went out to fetch the valet de chambre; he entered the corridor, and the Queen and myself soon heard the noise of two men fighting. The unfortunate Princess held me locked in her arms, and said to me, "What a situation! insults by day and assassins by night!" The valet de chambre cried out to her from the corridor, "Madame, it is a wretch that I know; I have him!"—"Let him go," said the Queen ”

“ Ducis turned this attic, which he called his "lookout," into a place of delight.
I met Mme. Campan again with much pleasure. She was then playing a somewhat important part in what was soon to become the reigning family. One day she asked me to dinner at Saint Germain, where her boarding-school was established. At table I sat near Mme. Murat, Napoleon's sister, but we were so placed that I could see only her profile, particularly as she did not turn her head in my direction. In the evening the young ladies of the school gave us a performance of "Esther," in which Mlle. ”

“ M. Campan remained till midnight with the Duchess to see her enter her carriage. She was disguised as a femme de chambre, and got up in front of the Berlin; she requested M. Campan to remember her frequently to the Queen, and then quitted for ever that palace, that favour, and that influence which had raised her up such cruel enemies. ”

“ I am just embarked in Campan’s voluminous memoirs, and regret the time I must give to her sensible gossip—for such it is—not a lueur of genius; I know, too, she must be partial, and her volume contains as much as half Hume’s History. But every one is reading her; and as there are now few amusements, fewer invitations, and no spare money, all the world is occupied with books; and not to be qualified to talk of Mad. Campan is to abdicate your place in conversation. I saw a very fine performance of Esther by her élèves when I first went to Paris. ”

“ The three Princesses, the two brothers of the King, and Messieurs Campan, father and son, were the sole performers, but they endeavoured to keep this amusement as secret as an affair of State; they dreaded the censure of Mesdames, and they had no doubt that Louis XV. would forbid such pastimes if he knew of them. They selected for their performance a cabinet in the entresol which nobody had occasion to enter.
A kind of proscenium, which could be taken down and shut up in a closet, formed the whole theatre. The Comte de Provence always knew his part with imperturbable accuracy ”