Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 4: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen — John Shaqi
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 4: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the QueenCampan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
History
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 4: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Campan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
France -- Court and courtiers; Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
The procureur general's information was severe on the Cardinal. The
Houses of Conde and Rohan and the majority of the nobility saw in this
affair only an attack on the Prince's rank, the clergy only a blow aimed
at the privileges of a cardinal. The clergy demanded that the unfortunate
business of the Prince Cardinal de Rohan should be submitted to
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, then
President of the Convocation, made representations upon the subject to the
King; the bishops wrote to his Majesty to remind him that a private
ecclesiastic implicated in the affair then pending would have a right to
claim his constitutional judges, and that this right was refused to a
cardinal, his superior in the hierarchical order. In short, the clergy
and the greater part of the nobility were at that time outrageous against
authority, and chiefly against the Queen.
The procureur-general's conclusions, and those of a part of the heads of
the magistracy, were as severe towards the Cardinal as the information had
been; yet he was fully acquitted by a majority of three voices; the woman
De Lamotte was condemned to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned; and her
husband, for contumacy, was condemned to the galleys for life.
[The following extract is from the "Memoirs" of the Abbe Georgel: "The
sittings were long and multiplied; it was necessary to read the whole
proceedings; more than fifty judges sat; a master of requests; a friend of
the Prince, wrote down all that was said there, and sent it to his
advisers, who found means to inform the Cardinal of it, and to add the
plan of conduct he ought to pursue." D'Epremesnil, and other young
counsellors, showed upon that occasion but too much audacity in braving
the Court, too much eagerness in seizing an opportunity of attacking it.
They were the first to shake that authority which their functions made it
a duty in them to respect.--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
M. Pierre de Laurencel, the procureur general's substitute, sent the Queen
a list of the names of the members of the Grand Chamber, with the means
made use of by the friends of the Cardinal to gain their votes during the
trial. I had this list to keep among the papers which the Queen deposited
in the house of M. Campan, my father-in-law, and which, at his death, she
ordered me to preserve. I burnt this statement, but I remember ladies
performed a part not very creditable to their principles; it was by them,
in consideration of large sums which they received, that some of the
oldest and most respected members were won over. I did not see a single
name amongst the whole Parliament that was gained directly.
The belief confirmed by time is, that the Cardinal was completely duped by
the woman De Lamotte and Cagliostro. The King may have been in error in
thinking him an accomplice in this miserable and criminal scheme, but I
have faithfully repeated his Majesty's judgment about it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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