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 — John Shaqi
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
and de Berri, were awaiting her, attended by the Abbe Edgeworth, as chief
ecclesiastic, and a little Court of refugee nobles and officers. With
them were two men of humbler position, who must have been even more
welcome to Madame Royale,--De Malden, who had acted as courier to Louis
XVI. during the flight to Varennes, and Turgi, who had waited on the
Princesses in the Temple. It was a sad meeting, though so long anxiously
desired, and it was followed on 10th June, 1799, by an equally sad
wedding,--exiles, pensioners on the bounty of the Russian monarch,
fulfilling an engagement founded, not on personal preference, but on
family policy and reverence for the wishes of the dead, the bride and
bridegroom had small cause for rejoicing. During the eighteen months of
tranquil seclusion which followed her marriage, the favourite occupation
of the Duchess was visiting and relieving the poor. In January, 1801, the
Czar Paul, in compliance with the demand of Napoleon, who was just then
the object of his capricious enthusiasm, ordered the French royal family
to leave Mittau. Their wanderings commenced on the 21st, a day of bitter
memories; and the young Duchess led the King to his carriage through a
crowd of men, women, and children, whose tears and blessings attended them
on their way.
[The Queen was too ill to travel. The Duc d'Angouleme took another route
to join a body of French gentlemen in arms for the Legitimist cause.]
The exiles asked permission from the King of Prussia to settle in his
dominions, and while awaiting his answer at Munich they were painfully
surprised by the entrance of five old soldiers of noble birth, part of the
body-guard they had left behind at Mittau, relying on the protection of
Paul. The "mad Czar" had decreed their immediate expulsion, and,
penniless and almost starving, they made their way to Louis XVIII. All
the money the royal family possessed was bestowed on these faithful
servants, who came to them in detachments for relief, and then the Duchess
offered her diamonds to the Danish consul for an advance of two thousand
ducats, saying she pledged her property "that in our common distress it
may be rendered of real use to my uncle, his faithful servants, and
myself." The Duchess's consistent and unselfish kindness procured her
from the King, and those about him who knew her best, the name of "our
angel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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