fatal purpose only a few hours, she would have been saved, for the car on which Robespierre was conducted to the scaffold actually stopped the hearse of Madame Auguié. The fall of that execrable tyrant delivered Madame Campan from the terrors of the guillotine.

In her retreat at Coubertin she had superintended the education of her nieces, daughters of her ill-fated sister, one of whom became afterward the wife of Marshal Ney. She had now to support an aged mother, a sick husband, a son nine years old, and another part of her family. She tells us herself that she had at this time only an assignat of 500 francs, and that she had made herself responsible for 30,000 francs to discharge the debts of her husband. She therefore projected a school, and selected St. Germain for her residence, She could not afford to print her prospectus, and was obliged to write a hundred copies of her plan with her own hand. At the end of a year, she had sixty pupils, and soon afterward a hundred. Indeed, the reputation of the institution, and its profits, increased every day: for a school, directed by a lady who had the tone, the air, the habits, and the conversation of the best society, was sure to be munificently patronized. Before the marriage of Madame de Beauharnais with Bonaparte, she placed her daughter Hortense under the care of Madame Campan; and when he returned from Italy, that victorious General, (as he then was,) being much satisfied with the progress of his daughter-in-law, invited her to Malmaison, and attended the performance of Racine's Esther, which had been undertaken by the young ladies. After the battle of Austerlitz, an asylum for the sisters, daughters, and nieces of those who were decorated with the Cross of Honor was established at Ecouen, and it was placed under the superintendence of Madame Campan. The important duties of this responsible charge she fulfilled with the greatest talent and assiduity; and, when Bonaparte visited the establishment, the order and regularity of the house, and the appearance of the children, extorted from him his usual eulogium, Tout est bien. *

* The establishment of Madame Campan is stated to have been the subject of conversation between Napoleon and his co-exiles at St. Helena, in the Journal of Count las Cases, vol. ii. part ii. p. 316. where a curious anecdote occurs of his having placed there also Mademoiselle Stephanie Beauharnais, afterward Princess of Baden, and of the care and interest which he took respecting this young relative of Josephine. Napoleon seemed to have a good opinion of Madame Campan, as we shall farther see in the progress of this article.

By

By a strange fatality, the restoration of the Bourbons was the termination of Madame Campan's prosperity. The school at Ecouen was suppressed; the most absurd but malicious calumnies were circulated against her; and she retired to Mantes, to wear out the remnant of an existence embittered by sorrow, enfeebled by age, and suffering under acute and incurable disease: finding, however, some distraction from the melancholy with which the sad vicissitudes of her life had tinged her feelings, in preparing and revising these Memoirs. She died at Mantes, 16th March, 1822.

We repeat, then, that Madame C. is apparently a credible witness respecting all that she saw and knew: but a great many things happened which she did not see and could not know; and she often attempts to explain and account for events which were beyond her powers of comprehension and developement. We must add that it is unavoidable to observe with what naiveté so respectable a woman can relate circumstances of indelicacy, which in this country no such female would commit to paper, or acknowlege to have read. She tells us more than once (vol. i. pp. 85. 181. and 188.) that Louis XVI. lived many years with his queen in a state of such total indifference to her that she was 66. a wife and no wife," but that at length Marie Antoinette informed her (Mad. C.) that she was really Queen of France, and hoped soon to have children.' Besides this, however, in her miscellaneous Recollections, Sketches, &c. at the end of vol. i. she gives an anecdote of Louis XV. (p. 407.) which is still more plainly indecent; and in pages 443-446. other stories of that monarch's amours are yet worse, -but they are added by the editor.

At the beginning of the first volume we meet with one or two anecdotes of Louis XV., and an amusing sketch of the court at the period when Madame Campan first obtained her situation at Versailles.

Marie Leckzinska, (wife of Louis XV.) was just dead; the death of the Dauphin had preceded hers by three years; the Jesuits were suppressed, and piety was to be found at court only in the apartments of the Princesses. The Duke de Choiseul was in power.

The King thought of nothing but the pleasures of the chase; it might have been imagined that the courtiers indulged themselves in epigrammatizing, by hearing them say seriously on those days when the King did not hunt, the King does nothing to-day.

Little journies were also affairs of great importance with the King. On the first day of the year, he noted down in his almanack the days of departure for Compiegne, for Fontainebleau,

I 3

Choisy,

Choisy, &c. The weightiest matters, the most serious events, never deranged this distribution of his time.

Etiquette still existed at court with all the severity it had acquired under Louis XIV.; dignity alone was wanting. As to gaiety, it was out of the question: Versailles was no longer a rallying point to display the wit and grace of Frenchmen. The focus of sense and intelligence was Paris.

Since the death of the Marchioness de Pompadour, the King had had no avowed mistress; he contented himself with the pleasures presented to him by his little seraglio of the Parc-au-Cerfs. It is well known that the monarch found the separation of Louis de Bourbon from the King of France the most animating feature of his royal existence. "They would have it so; they thought it for the best;" was his way of expressing himself when the measures of his ministers were unsuccessful. The King delighted to manage the most disgraceful points of his private expences himself; he one day sold to a head clerk in the war-department a house in which one of his mistresses had lodged; the contract ran in the name of Louis de Bourbon; and the purchaser himself took in a bag the price of the house in gold, to the King in his private closet.

'Louis XV. saw very little of his family; he came every morning by a private staircase into the apartment of Madame Adelaide. He often brought and drank there coffee that he had made himself. Madame Adelaide pulled a bell, which apprized Madam Victoire of the King's visit; Madame Victoire, on rising to go to her sister's apartment, rang for Madame Sophie, who in her turn rang for Madame Louise. The apartments of the Princesses were of very large dimensions. Madame Louise occupied the farthest room. This latter lady was deformed and very short; the poor Princess used to run with all her might to join the daily meeting, but having a number of rooms to cross, she frequently, in spite of her haste, had only just time to embrace her father, before he set out for the chase.

Every evening at six, the ladies interrupted my reading to them, to accompany the Princes to Louis XV.; this visit was called the King's debotter *, and was marked by a kind of etiquette. The Princesses put on an enormous hoop, which set out a petti coat ornamented with gold or embroidery; they fastened a long train round their waists, and concealed the undress of the rest of their clothing, by a long cloak of black taffety which enveloped them up to the chin. The gentlemen-ushers, the ladies in waiting, the pages, the esquires, and the ushers bearing large flambeaux, accompanied them to the King. In a moment the whole palace, generally so still, was in motion; the King kissed each Princess on the forehead, and the visit was so short, that the reading which it interrupted was frequently resumed at the end of a quarter of an hour: the Princesses returned to their apartments, and untied the strings of their petticoats and trains; they resumed their tapestry, and I my book.'

* Debotter, meaning the time of unbooting. - Tr.'

In

In the Recollections, &c. p. 415., we have an illustration of the political character of this monarch.

Weak as Louis XV. was, the parliaments would never have obtained his consent to the convocation of the States-general. I heard an anecdote on this subject from two officers attached to that Prince's household. It was at the period when the remonstrances of the parliaments, and the refusals to register the decrees for levying taxes, produced alarm with respect to the state of the finances. This became the subject of conversation one evening at the coucher of Louis XV.: "You will see, Sire," said a courtier, whose office placed him in close communication with the King, "that all this will make it absolutely necessary to assemble the States-general." The King, roused by this speech from the habitual apathy of his character, seized the courtier by the arm, and said to him, in a passion, "Never repeat those words: I am not sanguinary; but had I a brother, and he were to dare to give me such advice, I would sacrifice him, within twenty-four hours, to the duration of the monarchy, and the tranquillity of the kingdom."'

It is lamentable to think that, amid all the luxury and elegance of the court, the daughters of the King had received scarcely that ordinary degree of education which, in our own country, almost every tradesman now confers on his children. They had been simple pensionnaires in a convent, 24 leagues from Versailles. At twelve years of age, Madame Louise did not know her letters, and she could not read with fluency till she returned to Versailles; and poor Victoire was subject to fits of terror for her whole life, which originated in her having been frightened at the Abbaye de Fonterrault, by being sent to repeat her prayers in the vault where the nuns were buried. The Dauphin (afterward Louis XVI.) was in some sort their tutor, and they owed to his care the little instruction which they afterward obtained. Sophie was very ugly, walked in great haste, and was silent and sullen. Sometimes, indeed, she was affable and communicative; as when a thunder-storm occurred, of which she had a great dread: she would then speak to every body, and a flash of lightning made her grasp the hand of the first person whom she met but, when the storm was over, her ill-humour returned, which lasted till another clap of thunder renewed her alarms and her affability. They, if such there be, who have sighed for the splendors of a royal station, would do well to revolve in their minds the present author's description of the gloom and monotony, the heavy solitude and mechanical routine, of the lives of these ladies. If, says she, the Princesses had not imposed on themselves a variety of employments, they would have been quite wretched. They loved walking, but

could walk only in the public gardens of Versailles: they had a natural taste for flowers, but could cultivate them only on their windows.

When Louis had become sated with his low amours, it was still necessary to supply him with another mistress; and his people soon found him one, who governed him with a sway as absolute as Madame de Pompadour. This was Madame du Barry. Having prevailed on a Viscount du Barry to espouse her, (a man of a low education, but connected with the old nobility,) the conductors of this intrigue, hoping, through her ascendancy, to undermine the Duke de Choiseul, presented her at court: Habituated as they were to the scandalous enormities of the regency, and the open violation of every moral duty, the Parisians could scarcely observe without shame the humiliating spectacle of a common prostitute dispensing the favors of the crown. The political object, however, succeeded, and Choiseul was its victim. The devotees, who never forgave the destruction of the Jesuits, influenced the Princesses; the Dauphin was led away by the prejudices infused into him by his governor, the Duke de la Vauguyon; a new ministry was formed, composed of the Duke D'Aiguillon, the Chancellor Maupeou, and the Abbé Terrai; and this was the posture of things at Versailles, when the young and beautiful Archduchess Marie Antoinette arrived at that court, at the very point of time when the party, by whose means she was brought thither, was overthrown.

Notwithstanding the talents of Maria Theresa, the education of her daughter had been neglected. She knew thoroughly, however, all that had been taught her; and the fault was in her masters. Metastasio, indeed, who taught her Italian, did his duty, and she spoke and translated that language with the greatest facility. She did not write French correctly, but talked it with ease. German she never attempted to learn. She was devotedly fond of music, but could not play well on any instrument; yet she read music at sight. She acquired this last talent in France; for, when she first arrived there, and La Garde was introduced to her as her musicmaster, she was ashamed of her own ignorance of the elements of the art; and, having put off her lessons to an indefinite period, under pretence of requiring time to repose from the fatigues of her journey and the fêtes and rejoicings of Versailles, she received, in the mean while, private lessons from the son of M. Campan for three months. "The Dauphiness," she observed," must take charge of the Archduchess's reputation." Three months of diligent application answered the purpose, and she astonished M. La Garde with

her