Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan

Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, born Genet (* October 2, 1752 in Paris, † March 16, 1822 in Mantes -la -Jolie ), was the first maid (French première femme de chambre ) Marie Antoinette.

Life

She was the daughter of Edme -Jacques Genet, a senior interpreter at the Royal outer office. At the age of fifteen, she was fluent in French, English and Italian. She became the voice on three daughters of Louis XV. A few years later she became the closest confidant of Marie Antoinette, as this came to Versailles. She married in 1774 the son of a cabinet secretary, Pierre Dominique François Berthollet, called Campan. A son was born in 1784; the unhappy marriage was divorced in 1790.

During the Tuileriensturms August 10, 1792 to protect her Marie Antoinette before the people's anger and was therefore separated from the captive queen, and left Paris. After the fall of Robespierre, she returned to Paris and founded to finance their livelihood a school in Saint- Germain -en- Laye, among other things, was visited by Napoleon's stepdaughter Hortense de Beauharnais and the daughter of the then U.S. ambassador James Monroe. Through the intercession of Hortense towards Campan by Napoleon in 1807 called to the head of the boarding school in Écouen, which was scheduled for daughters of members of the Legion of Honour.

1823 published her famous memoirs Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie- Antoinette, suivis de souvenirs et anecdotes historiques sur les règnes de Louis XIV, de Louis XV et de Louis XVI who, a revealing insight into the life of the French nobility before the Revolution especially for necklace affair, give. Were also published courtly anecdotes; Portraits of European personalities ( including Tsar Alexander I, Robespierre and Napoleon ); and their correspondence with Queen Hortense.