. CAMPAN (Jeanne Louise Henriette Genest,... - Lot 17 - Osenat

. CAMPAN (Jeanne Louise Henriette Genest, known as Madame). Autograph letter signed to the superintendent of the Saint-Denis education house, Adrienne-Charlotte Bonnet, widow of Colonel Du Bouzet. S.l., March 25, 1811. 3 pp. in-4, address on the back, fading, two tears due to the opening with damage to a letter. " ... I was quite convinced that Miss Adhot would be your first class lady for the music, especially since the choice is very good and that she is in a position to make your masses and the singing of the students work. I have to propose to replace her a most distinguished talent who, I hope, will be decided to come by my niece the d[uche]sse d'Elchingen [the wife of Marshal Ney, Aglaé Auguié, a former boarder of Madame Campan] who protects her. My son is much better, which is a great point for my peace of mind, but I am not happy with my health, I have had too many torments in the last three years, I wish you less, my dear child, and you will have less, we now know what we ask for, what we have the right to hope for when we come to our Houses, and I had the first whiff of unbounded pretensions, of independence that each year of the GLORIOUS REIGN OF OUR EMPEROR will make disappear from the head of the Franciscans, and that for their happiness because it is necessary to know how to have chiefs of various orders and a supreme chief for the tranquility of the Empires. So I wiped the plaster from the physical and moral... " A FAMILY PEDAGOGUE OF THE COURT OF THE FORMER REGIME AND THE EMPIRE, MADAME CAMPAN, was the daughter of an interpreter at the Foreign Affairs and received a brilliant education, learning for example Italian from Goldoni or music from Albanese. She was appointed lecturer to the daughters of King Louis XV, then chambermaid to Marie-Antoinette. The Revolution ruined her, but she founded an educational house in Saint-Germain in 1794 which soon met with immense success: she welcomed there, among others, the daughter of the future president Monroe, the daughter of the English ambassador, Hortense and Eugène de Beauharnais, or Pauline and Caroline Bonaparte. Napoleon, for a time befriended her and entrusted her with the superintendence of the educational house of the Legion of Honor in Écouen. In 1815, despite receiving pensions from Louis XVIII and Queen Hortense, she was ruined again and lived a sad end of life. She left a memoir published in 1823 which was a great success.