A Childhood at Versailles: Chapter 2, Part 1
A New Translation from the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne
Mme de Boigne, née Adèle d’Osmond, was a French salon hostess and writer. She was born in Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled France during the Revolution. Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a salon in Paris, and became the confidante of King Louis-Philippe’s consort Marie-Amélie. Childless, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew. They languished in manuscript for decades after her death. Finally, in 1907, they were published in French under the title Récits d’une tante and in English as The Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne. My translation of the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, will be serialized here on Saturdays from early March to the beginning of October, 2024. I have included no notes except those given in the original French edition. If you have questions about anything, please ask in the comments. To read the earlier parts, please visit the archive on my Substack page.
Pictured: Adélaïde d’Osmond (1781-1866), called Adèle, Comtesse de Boigne by marriage.
In this part, the author recalls her parents’ lives in the service of Madame Adélaïde, Louis XVI’s eldest aunt.
From Sunday to Saturday one lived quietly at Versailles in a way that was horribly dull for people who tore themselves away from their usual society to come and serve there without being well established. However, it was a life not without interest for people who were definitively established; it was, in a way, a country house life of which the gossip revolved around important affairs. Most had no notion of the national interest while following the intrigues that exiled M de Malesherbes from the centre of power or brought M de Calonne to it. However, enlightened minds, such as my father’s, were interested in things other than a dispute over music or a rupture between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Princesse de Luxembourg, which were the great events in society at the time.
Pictured: Madame Adélaïde (1732-1800), the elder of the 2 surviving daughters of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska still alive at the time of the Revolution. This portrait by Labille-Guiard is in the Phoenix Art Museum, where I photographed it in March, 2023.
No one thought of public policy in general. If anyone did, it was done unreflectingly and motivated by a private interest of fortune or faction. Foreign governments were as unknown to us then as that of China is to us today. My father was considered a bit of a pedant for taking an interest in European affairs, and he read the only journal that took some notice of them.
Madame Adeläide asked him one day:
“M d’Osmond, is it true that you receive the Leiden Gazette?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“And you read it, do you?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Incredible.”
Despite this incredulity, Madame Adéläide ended up liking my father a great deal, and in the final years before the Revolution, he was always in her rooms although he was not part of her household. The Comte Louis de Narbonne, her gentleman-in-waiting, an intimate friend of my father’s, was enchanted by the fact that my father, without the title and the emoluments, frequently filled the position that he himself found it convenient to fill less than assiduously.
Pictured: The château of Bellevue, given by Louis XVI to his aunts as a summer residence. Public domain.
My mother was something of a favourite. I have said that she nursed me herself. Rather than give her leave during the nursing period, Madame Adéläide authorized her to bring me to Bellevue. She had to be given a separate apartment for all the baby mess. Since my father was with his regiment, Madame Adéläide wished her to stay at Bellevue for the whole summer. Whether from boredom or her courtier’s instinct, my mother refused, and such a stay did not happen until long afterwards.