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
[Clery gives a more minute description of this singular building: "The
small tower of the Temple in which the King was then confined stood with
its back against the great tower, without any interior communication, and
formed a long square, flanked by two turrets. In one of these turrets
there was a narrow staircase that led from the first floor to a gallery on
the platform; in the other were small rooms, answering to each story of
the tower. The body of the building was four stories high. The first
consisted of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a small room in the
turret, where there was a library containing from twelve to fifteen
hundred volumes. The second story was divided nearly in the same manner.
The largest room was the Queen's bedchamber, in which the Dauphin also
slept; the second, which was separated from the Queen's by a small
antechamber almost without light, was occupied by Madame Royale and Madame
Elisabeth. The King's apartments were on the third story. He slept in
the great room, and made a study of the turret closet. There was a
kitchen separated from the King's chamber by a small dark room, which had
been successively occupied by M. de Chamilly and M. de Hue. The fourth
story was shut up; and on the ground floor there were kitchens of which no
use was made." --"Journal," p. 96.]
The Tower was a square building, with a round tower at each corner and a
small turret on one side, usually called the Tourelle. In the narrative
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme she says that the soldiers who escorted the
royal prisoners wished to take the King alone to the Tower, and his family
to the Palace of the Temple, but that on the way Manuel received an order
to imprison them all in the Tower, where so little provision had been made
for their reception that Madame Elisabeth slept in the kitchen. The royal
family were accompanied by the Princesse de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel
and her daughter Pauline, Mesdames de Navarre, de Saint-Brice, Thibaut,
and Bazire, MM. de Hug and de Chamilly, and three men-servants--An order
from the Commune soon removed these devoted attendants, and M. de Hue
alone was permitted to return. "We all passed the day together," says
Madame Royale. "My father taught my brother geography; my mother history,
and to learn verses by heart; and my aunt gave him lessons in arithmetic.
My father fortunately found a library which amused him, and my mother
worked tapestry . . . . We went every day to walk in the garden, for
the sake of my brother's health, though the King was always insulted by
the guard. On the Feast of Saint Louis 'Ca Ira' was sung under the walls
of the Temple. Manuel that evening brought my aunt a letter from her
aunts at Rome. It was the last the family received from without. My
father was no longer called King. He was treated with no kind of respect;
the officers always sat in his presence and never took off their hats.
They deprived him of his sword and searched his pockets . . . .
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