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
M. Campan having been unable to benefit by the waters of Mont d'Or, and
the first popular effervescence having subsided, I thought I might return
to Clermont. The committee of surveillance, or that of general safety,
had resolved to arrest me there; but the Abbe Louis, formerly a
parliamentary counsellor, and then a member of the Constituent Assembly,
was kind enough to affirm that I was in Auvergne solely for the purpose of
attending my father-in-law, who was extremely ill. The precautions
relative to my absence from Paris were limited to placing us under the
surveillance of the 'procureur' of the commune, who was at the same time
president of the Jacobin club; but he was also a physician of repute, and
without having any doubt that he had received secret orders relative to
me, I thought it would favour the chances of our safety if I selected him
to attend my patient. I paid him according to the rate given to the best
Paris physicians, and I requested him to visit us every morning and every
evening. I took the precaution to subscribe to no other newspaper than
the Moniteur. Doctor Monestier (for that was the physician's name)
frequently took upon himself to read it to us. Whenever he thought proper
to speak of the King and Queen in the insulting and brutal terms at that
time unfortunately adopted throughout France, I used to stop him and say,
coolly, "Monsieur, you are here in company with the servants of Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette. Whatever may be the wrongs with which the nation
believes it has to reproach them, our principles forbid our losing sight
of the respect due to them from us." Notwithstanding that he was an
inveterate patriot, he felt the force of this remark, and even procured
the revocation of a second order for our arrest, becoming responsible for
us to the committee of the Assembly, and to the Jacobin society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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