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
In their anxiety to make a German princess of Marie Therese, her imperial
relations suppressed her French title as much as possible. When, with
some difficulty, the Duc de Grammont succeeded in obtaining an audience of
her, and used the familiar form of address, she smiled faintly, and bade
him beware. "Call me Madame de Bretagne, or de Bourgogne, or de
Lorraine," she said, "for here I am so identified with these
provinces--[which the Emperor wished her to claim from her uncle Louis
XVIII.]--that I shall end in believing in my own transformation." After
these discussions she was so closely watched, and so many restraints were
imposed upon her, that she was scarcely less a prisoner than in the old
days of the Temple, though her cage was this time gilded. Rescue,
however, was at hand.
In 1798 Louis XVIII. accepted a refuge offered to him at Mittau by the
Czar Paul, who had promised that he would grant his guest's first request,
whatever it might be. Louis begged the Czar to use his influence with the
Court of Vienna to allow his niece to join him. "Monsieur, my brother,"
was Paul's answer, "Madame Royale shall be restored to you, or I shall
cease to be Paul I." Next morning the Czar despatched a courier to Vienna
with a demand for the Princess, so energetically worded that refusal must
have been followed by war. Accordingly, in May, 1799, Madame Royale was
allowed to leave the capital which she had found so uncongenial an asylum.
In the old ducal castle of Mittau, the capital of Courland, Louis XVIII.
and his wife, with their nephews, the Ducs d'Angouleme
[The Duc d'Angonleme was quiet and reserved. He loved hunting as means of
killing time; was given to early hours and innocent pleasures. He was a
gentleman, and brave as became one. He had not the "gentlemanly vices" of
his brother, and was all the better for it. He was ill educated, but had
natural good sense, and would have passed for having more than that had he
cared to put forth pretensions. Of all his family he was the one most ill
spoken of, and least deserving of it.--DOCTOR DORAN.]
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