Private Life of Marie Antoinette

This volume was published in 1887.

Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, born Henriette Genet
(1752-1822) was a French educator and lady-in-waiting to
Queen Marie Antoinette before and during the French
Revolution. Her father, whose name was Genest, was
first clerk in the foreign office, and, although without fortune,
placed her in the most cultivated society. At the age of
fifteen she could speak English and Italian, and had gained
so high a reputation for her accomplishments as to be
appointed reader to the three daughters of Louis XV. At
court she was a general favorite, and when she bestowed
her hand upon M. Campan, son of the secretary of the royal
cabinet, the king gave her an annuity of 5000 livres as dowry.
She was soon afterwards appointed first lady of the bed-
chamber by Marie Antoinette; and she continued to be her
faithful attendant until she was forcibly separated from her
at the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792.

Madame Campan survived the dangers of the Terror, but
after the 9th of Thermidor finding herself almost penniless,
and being thrown on her own resources by the illness of her
husband, she bravely determined to support herself by estab-
lishing a school at St. Germain. The institution prospered,
and was patronized by Hortense de Beauharnais, whose
influence lead to the appointment of Madame Campan as
superintendent of the academy founded by Napoleon at
Ecouen for the education of the daughters and sisters of
members of the Legion of Honor. This post she held until it
was abolished at the restoration of the Bourbons, when she
retired to Mantes, where she spent the rest of her life amid
the kind attentions of affectionate friends, but saddened by
the loss of her only son, and by the calumnies circulated on
account of her connection with the Bonapartes.*

*......summary from wikipedia
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Some comments from the book's Preface:

The shelves of our libraries bend under the weight of the
volumes treating of the last years of the eighteenth century.
The great moral and political causes of our revolutions have
already been ably traced by superior intellects. But posterity
will look also for the secret springs by which those events were brought about. Memoirs, penned by ministers and favourites, will alone satisfy the inquisitiveness of our descendants, and even these only to a certain extent; for kings very seldom yield unbounded confidence.

Louis XVI. possessed an immense crowd of confidants, advisers, and guides; he selected them even from among the factions which attacked him. Never, perhaps, did he make a full disclosure to any one of them, and certainly he spoke with sincerity to but very few. He invariably kept the reins of all secret intrigues in his own hand; atid thence, doubtless, arose the want of cooperation and the weakness which were so conspicuous in his measures. From these causes considerable chasms will be found in the detailed history of the Revolution.