Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette Queen Of France Being The Historic Memoirs Of Madam Campan First Lady In Waiting To The Queen

Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan was a French educator who worked under Marie Antoinette and ended up writing memoirs about the notorious queen who was beheaded during the French Revolution.

Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan was a French educator who worked under Marie Antoinette and ended up writing memoirs about the notorious queen who was beheaded during the French Revolution.

Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette is an inside look into the life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, written by her First Lady in Waiting Madame Campan. Born in 1755 and married to Louis XVI of France at the age of 14, Antoinette was renowned for her fabled excesses. She was condemned for treason in 1793 at the zenith of the French Revolution, forfeiting her life to the razor-edge of a guillotine.

Louis XVI. meant to write his own memoirs; the manner in which his private papers were arranged indicated this design. The Queen also had the same intention; she long preserved a large correspondence, and a great number of minute reports, made in the spirit and upon the event of the moment. But after the 20th of June, 1792, she was obliged to burn the larger portion of what she had so collected, and the remainder were conveyed out of France. Considering the rank and situations of the persons I have named as capable of elucidating by their writings the history of our political storms, it will not be imagined that I aim at placing myself on a level with them; but I have spent half my life either with the daughters of Louis XV. or with Marie Antoinette. I knew the characters of those Princesses; I became privy to some extraordinary facts, the publication of which may be interesting, and the truth of the details will form the merit of my work. I was very young when I was placed about the Princesses, the daughters of Louis XV., in the capacity of reader. I was acquainted with the Court of Versailles before the time of the marriage of Louis XVI. with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette.