Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 6: 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 6: 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 6: 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
[I received by night only the King's answer, written with his own hand, in
the margin of my letter. I always sent him back with the day's letter
that to which he had replied the day before, so that my letters and his
answers, of which I contented myself with taking notes only, never
remained with me twenty-four hours. I proposed this arrangement to his
Majesty to remove all uneasiness from his mind; my letters were generally
delivered to the King or the Queen by M. de Marsilly, captain of the
King's Guard, whose attachment and fidelity were known to their Majesties.
I also sometimes employed M. Bernard de Marigny, who had left Brest for
the purpose of sharing with his Majesty's faithful servants the dangers
which threatened the King.--"Memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville," vol.
ii., p. 12.]
He came to me the first time with a note from the Queen directed to M.
Bertrand himself. 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. Being awake
always from daybreak, she ordered that neither the shutters nor the
window-blinds should be closed, that her long sleepless nights might be
the less weary. About the middle of one of these nights, when the moon
was shining into her bedchamber, she gazed at it, and told me that in a
month she should not see that moon unless freed from her chains, and
beholding the King at liberty. She then imparted to me all that was
concurring to deliver them; but said that the opinions of their intimate
advisers were alarmingly at variance; that some vouched for complete
success, while others pointed out insurmountable dangers. She added that
she possessed the itinerary of the march of the Princes and the King of
Prussia: that on such a day they would be at Verdun, on another day at
such a place, that Lille was about to be besieged, but that M. de J-----,
whose prudence and intelligence the King, as well as herself, highly
valued, alarmed them much respecting the success of that siege, and made
them apprehensive that, even were the commandant devoted to them, the
civil authority, which by the constitution gave great power to the mayors
of towns, would overrule the military commandant. She was also very
uneasy as to what would take place at Paris during the interval, and spoke
to me of the King's want of energy, but always in terms expressive of her
veneration for his virtues and her attachment to himself.--"The King,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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