A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Campan, Jane Louisa Henrietta
CAMPAN, JANE LOUISA HENRIETTA,
Was born at Paris, 1752. She was the daughter of M. Genet, first clerk in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was fond of literature, and communicated a taste for it to his daughter, who early displayed considerable talents. She acquired a knowledge of foreign languages, particularly the Italian and English, and was distinguished for her skill in reading and recitation. These acquisitions procured for her the place of reader to the French princesses, daughters of Louis the Fifteenth. On the marriage of Maria Antoinette to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis the Sixteenth, Mademoiselle Genet was attached to her suite, and continued, during twenty years, to occupy a situation about her person.
Her general intelligence and talent for observation enabled Madame Campan, in the course of her service, to collect the materials for her "Memoirs of the Private Life of the Queen of France," first published in Paris, and translated and printed in London, 1823, in two volumes. This work is not only interesting for the information it affords, but is also very creditable to the literary talents of the authoress. Soon after her appointment at court. Mademoiselle Genet was married to M. Campan, son of the Secretary of the queen's closet. When Maria Antoinette was made a prisoner, Madame Campan begged to be permitted to accompany her royal mistress, and share her imprisonment, which was refused. Madame Campan was with the queen at the storming of the Tuilleries, on the 10th. of August, when she narrowly escaped with her life; and under the rule of Robespierre, she came near being sent to the guillotine. After the fall of that tyrant, she retired to the country and opened a private seminary for young ladies, which she conducted with great success. Josephine Beauhamais sent her daughter Hortense, to the seminary of Madame Campan. She had also the sisters of the Emperor under her care. In 1806, Napoleon founded the school of Ecouen, for the daughters and sisters of the officers of the Legion of Honour, and appointed Madame Campan to superintend it. This institution was suppressed at the restoration of the Bourbons, and Madame Campan retired to Nantes, where she partly prepared her "Memoirs," and other works.
She died in 1822, aged seventy. After her decease, her "Private Journal" was published; also "Familiar Letters to her Friends," And a work, which she considered her most important one, entitled "Thoughts on Education,"