Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 3 Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
by Mme. Campan
- Pages
- about 98
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1.8 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
During the first few months of his reign Louis XVI. dwelt at La Muette,
Marly, and Compiegne. When settled at Versailles he occupied himself with
a general examination of his grandfather's papers. He had promised the
Queen to communicate to her all that he might discover relative to the
history of the man with the iron mask, who, he thought, had become so
inexhaustible a source of conjecture only in consequence of the interest
which the pen of a celebrated writer had excited respecting the detention
of a prisoner of State, who was merely a man of whimsical tastes and
habits.
I was with the Queen when the King, having finished his researches,
informed her that he had not found anything among the secret papers
elucidating the existence of this prisoner; that he had conversed on the
matter with M. de Maurepas, whose age made him contemporary with the epoch
during which the story must have been known to the ministers; and that M.
de Maurepas had assured him he was merely a prisoner of a very dangerous
character, in consequence of his disposition for intrigue. He was a
subject of the Duke of Mantua, and was enticed to the frontier, arrested
there, and kept prisoner, first at Pignerol, and afterwards in the
Bastille. This transfer took place in consequence of the appointment of
the governor of the former place to the government of the latter. It was
for fear the prisoner should profit by the inexperience of a new governor
that he was sent with the Governor of Pignerol to the Bastille.
Such was, in fact, the truth about the man on whom people have been
pleased to fix an iron mask. And thus was it related in writing, and
published by M. ----- twenty years ago. He had searched the archives of
the Foreign Office, and laid the real story before the public; but the
public, prepossessed in favour of a marvellous version, would not
acknowledge the authenticity of his account.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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