Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 7: 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 7: 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
Produced by David Widger
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE
Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan,
First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Volume 7
CHAPTER IX.
The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the
Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five
louis.
[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis
had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting
her and me, and led to her death.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she
would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly
should decree for her prison. I then returned home to prepare everything
that might be necessary for me to accompany her.
On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the
Feuillans. I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being
admitted. I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission
which had been given to me; I was again refused. I was told that the
Queen had as many people as were requisite about her. My sister was with
her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the
Abbaye on the 11th. I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and
entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to
whom I addressed myself.
I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple. I
went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place
in the post-office, and who was devoted to me. He determined to go up to
Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen's first woman, the
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four
hours.
From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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