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
[The body of Louis was, immediately after the execution, removed to the
ancient cemetery of the Madeleine. Large quantities of quicklime were
thrown into the grave, which occasioned so rapid a decomposition that,
when his remains were sought for in 1816, it was with difficulty any part
could be recovered. Over the spot where he was interred Napoleon
commenced the splendid Temple of Glory, after the battle of Jena; and the
superb edifice was completed by the Bourbons, and now forms the Church of
the Madeleine, the most beautiful structure in Paris. Louis was executed
on the same ground where the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, and so many other
noble victims of the Revolution perished; where Robespierre and Danton
afterwards suffered; and where the Emperor Alexander and the allied
sovereigns took their station, when their victorious troops entered Paris
in 1814! The history of modern Europe has not a scene fraught with
equally interesting recollections to exhibit. It is now marked by the
colossal obelisk of blood-red granite which was brought from Thebes, in
Upper Egypt, in 1833, by the French Government.--ALLISON.]
The Royal Prisoners.--Separation of the Dauphin from His Family.
--Removal of the Queen.
On the morning of the King's execution, according to the narrative of
Madame Royale, his family rose at six: "The night before, my mother had
scarcely strength enough to put my brother to bed; She threw herself,
dressed as she was, on her own bed, where we heard her shivering with cold
and grief all night long. At a quarter-past six the door opened; we
believed that we were sent for to the King, but it was only the officers
looking for a prayer-book for him. We did not, however, abandon the hope
of seeing him, till shouts of joy from the infuriated populace told us
that all was over. In the afternoon my mother asked to see Clery, who
probably had some message for her; we hoped that seeing him would occasion
a burst of grief which might relieve the state of silent and choking agony
in which we saw her." The request was refused, and the officers who
brought the refusal said Clery was in "a frightful state of despair" at
not being allowed to see the royal family; shortly afterwards he was
dismissed from the Temple.
"We had now a little more freedom," continues the Princess; "our guards
even believed that we were about to be sent out of France; but nothing
could calm my mother's agony; no hope could touch her heart, and life or
death became indifferent to her. Fortunately my own affliction increased
my illness so seriously that it distracted her thoughts . . . . My
mother would go no more to the garden, because she must have passed the
door of what had been my father's room, and that she could not bear. But
fearing lest want of air should prove injurious to my brother and me,
about the end of February she asked permission to walk on the leads of the
Tower, and it was granted."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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