A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 2.1, the author highlights the lack of interest that the courtiers at Versailles took in the outside world, which is revealed in an amusing exchange between her father and Mme Adéläide, the most senior princess at Court after the King’s wife and sisters-in-law.

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter 2 (Part 2.1)

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.

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.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.7, the final part of Chapter One, Mme de Boigne relates the strange tale of a pair of imposters posing as Greek refugee princes who hoodwinked Louis XVI, his ministers, the court, and high society.    

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter One, Part 7 (1.7)

The Court of France’s predilection for foreigners was exploited in a rather singular way by two illustrious Greeks, hounded from their homeland by Muslim provocations.  The Prince of Chios and Prince Justinian, his son, direct descendants of the Byzantine emperors, came to request the hospitality of Louis XVI at the beginning of his reign.  He accorded it to them nobly and grandly, as befitted a king of France.  While waiting for the claims he was making to the Sublime Porte for the restitution of his property to be resolved, the Prince of Chios was begged to accept a hefty pension, and Prince Justinian entered French service by taking command of a fine regiment.

These Greek princes lived off the royal munificence for some years, and were well received in the best society in Paris and at Versailles.  Their accent, and a bit of oddness in their manners, assured their success.  One day, when, for the hundredth time, they were dining at the table of the Comte de Maurepas, the latter saw the Prince of Chios, who was seated next to him, turn pale and look troubled.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.6, Mme de Boigne describes the influence of Mme de Polignac and her coterie on the Queen, and also gives us brief pen portraits of her royal siblings-in-law.    

Chapter One, Part 6 (1.6)

Mme de Polignac was much more fatal to her.  This was not because she was a bad person, but she was indolent and little wit; she intrigued out of weakness.  She was dominated by her sister-in-law, the Comtesse Diane, who was ambitious, as disorderly in her morals as she was greedy, and who wanted to win all possible favour for herself and her family.  She was tyrannized by her lover the Comte de Vaudreuil, a man as frivolous as he was immoral, and who, using the Queen as a tool, pillaged the public treasury for himself and his companions in dissoluteness.

He made scenes to Mme de Polignac whenever the satisfaction of his demands suffered some slight delay.  The Queen would find her favourite in tears and immediately busy herself to have his demands met.  As for her own fortune, Mme de Polignac, without asking too much, limited herself to accepting nonchalantly whatever favours the intrigues of the Comtesse Diane produced, and the poor Queen vaunted her disinterestedness.  She believed in it, and loved her sincerely.  On her side, her confidence was without limit for some years.

M de Calonne’s appointment restricted it somewhat.  He was one of Mme de Polignac’s intimates, and the Queen did not want a member of the King’s council to be caught up in that cabal.  She said so out loud, but the Polignac coterie, preferring first and foremost a comptroller-general of like mind, highlighted the benefits that would accrue to the Comte d’Artois himself.  It was indeed through him that M de Calonne was appointed, despite the Queen’s repugnance.  She nursed some discontent from this, which cooled her towards Mme de Polignac, and all of M de Calonne’s eagerness to please her failed to restore him to her good graces.  Nonetheless, he replied to her one day when she made a request of him: “If what the Queen desires is possible, it is already done; if it is not possible, it will be done somehow.”  Despite such politic words, the Queen never pardoned him.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.5, Mme de Boigne describes the behaviour that set malicious tongues wagging about Marie-Antoinette.    

“This excellent prince (Louis XVI) had a great deal of difficulty in overcoming a timidity of spirit, joined to boorishly free manners, the fruit of his childhood habits, which did him no favours with those who only saw this uncouth shell.  With the best intentions of being obliging to someone, the King would advance towards him until his back was against the wall.  If he could not think of anything to say, which happened often, he would give a great bark of laughter, turn on his heels and walk away.  The victim of this public scene always suffered from it, and if he was not a regular at Court, he would go away furious, persuaded that the King had wanted to do him some kind of insult.  In private, the King complained bitterly of the way he had been raised.  He used to say that the only man for whom he felt hatred was the Duc de La Vauguyon⁷, and in support of this sentiment he cited instances of the abject toadying addressed by the Duc to his brothers and himself.  Monsieur had less repugnance for the memory of the Duc de La Vauguyon.

M le Comte d’Artois shared the King’s opinion.  His happy disposition, his charm, perhaps even his frivolity, made him the spoiled favourite of the whole family.  Though he committed stupidity after stupidity, the King scolded him, pardoned him, and paid his debts.  Alas, the one that could never be made good was the discredit heaped on his own head and on the Queen’s!

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.4, Mme de Boigne discusses the fearsome protocol. “l’étiquette,” that governed life at court, not only at Versailles, but at every one of the royal residences.  

“Among the protocols at Versailles, there was one to which my father could never reconcile himself and of which I often heard him speak, which was the way of being invited to what was called the souper dans les cabinets.  The guest list for these suppers consisted of the royal family and about thirty invited guests.  They took place in the King’s private apartments, in rooms with so little space that the billiard table had to be covered with planks in order to put the buffet on it.  The King was forced to rush his game in order make way for the food.

The ladies had been warned that morning or the evening before.  For the occasion, they wore sack-backed gowns, an antiquated costume that had long fallen out of fashion in any other circumstance.  They presented themselves at the small theatre, where a bench was reserved for them.  After the performance, they followed the King and the royal family into the private apartments.

As for the men, their fate was less gentle…

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.3 (see below), Mme de Boigne recalls the sharp class distinctions among the courtiers residing at Versailles on the eve of the Revolution.  Hint: Not everyone who lived at Court was a courtier.  

A CHILDHOOD AT VERSAILLES, PART 1.3

It was soon after my parents settled into Versailles that I came into the world.  My mother had already been delivered of a still-born infant, so I was welcomed with transports of joy and pardoned for being a girl.  I was not swaddled, as was still the custom, but dressed in the English manner and nursed by my mother in the midst of Versailles.  I promptly became the plaything of the princes and the court, all the more since I was very well-behaved, and also since children in those days were as rare a species in a drawing room as they are common and tyrannical today.

My father fashioned a routine for himself and ended up reconciling himself with Court life.

Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.2 (see below), Mme de Boigne introduces the Dillons, her mother’s Irish family, and narrates the story of her parents’ difficult road to the altar.  Her mother, though beautiful and kind, had hardly a penny, you see…

A CHILDHOOD AT VERSAILLES, PART 1.2

I must now speak of my mother’s family.  Mr. Robert Dillon, of the Dillons of Roscommon, was an Irish Catholic gentleman possessed of a pretty fortune.  To augment it, given the state of Catholic disability, he entrusted it to one of his brothers to turn it to account in trade.  Mr. Dillon had married a rich heiress by whom he had an only daughter, Lady Swinburne.  Becoming widowed, he married Miss Dicconson, the youngest of three sisters, all beautiful as angels, whom their father, the governor of the Prince of Wales, had raised at Saint-Germain.  At the time of the wedding the parents had returned to England and established themselves at their home in Lancashire, a very beautiful estate.

Mr. Dillon and his charming wife settled in Worcestershire, and it was there that my mother and her six older siblings were born.  However, the brother in charge of the business affairs in Ireland died, and it became apparent that he had managed them badly.  Mr. Dillon was obliged to take charge of them himself.  The most important trade was with Bordeaux, and he decided to go there and take his family with him.  He liked it there, and his wife, who had been raised in France, preferred it to England.  He took a beautiful house in Bordeaux, bought a small estate called Terrefort nearby, and was living the life of a rich man when, rising from table one day, he clapped his hand to his head, cried, “Oh, my poor wife!  My poor children!” and expired.

His exclamation was quite justified.  He left Mme Dillon, aged thirty-two and pregnant with her thirteenth child, in a foreign land without a single relative or close connection, which the excessive jealousy of her husband would scarcely have tolerated.  This very isolation aroused interest and inspired protectors to step forward.  Her affairs, of which she had no notion, were looked into.  The upshot, as was discovered, was that Mr. Dillon had been living off capital that was about run out.  She was left with thirteen children and nothing to live on but a small property three leagues from Bordeaux that might produce four thousand a year in revenue.

Mme Dillon was still quite lovely, very kind and very virtuous.  Her children were also of a striking beauty.  This lovely, abandoned brood attracted interest and solicitude.  Everyone wanted to fly to their aid.  Such numbers did, in fact, that without ever leaving her little turrets at Terrefort, my grandmother kept up our family name and somehow unlocked the secret to raising thirteen children and establishing them in positions that promised a brilliant future.  Then the Revolution brought all their careers to a halt.  At the time of which I am speaking, only my mother remained to be married off.  She was beautiful and kind, but she had not a penny to her name.

Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her nephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In the first instalment (see below), Mme de Boigne breezily recounts her father’s family history down to the time that he met her mother.  

A Versailles Childhood – Chapter 1, Part 1.1

Such great events occupied the the life of the generation that precedes you and absorbed so much of its attention that the family traditions would be lost if some old woman such as I did not revisit her childhood memories in order to write them down.  I will endeavour to string a few together for your use, dear nephew.

Giannone, in his History of Naples, will instruct you in the most brilliant pretensions of your family, and Moréri will explain the rights that you have to believe yourself the descendant of those fortunate Norman adventurers who conquered Puglia, rights as well founded as are most of these family pretensions to antiquity.  Salisbury Cathedral shelters the mortal remains of one of its archbishops, Saint Osmond, to whom we also attach ourselves. The coat of arms of the county of Somerset has its vol, or pair of wings, which are also part of your arms; they have theirs from their lord Osmond, the compatriot of William the Conqueror.  These arms were given by the Duke of Normandy to his governor, Osmond, who had saved him from the vengeance of Louis d’Outremer.

The English branch was extinguished long ago, but its name has remained familiar and perpetually recurs in poems and novels.  The Norman branch impoverished itself through equal inheritance.  The eldest sons of the last three generations that preceded my father’s only had daughters, and in such great numbers that they made very poor marriages.  Thus one of my great-aunts, the Canoness of Remiremont, when her sister’s husband asked if she ever regretted never having married, replied, “No, brother, the Osmond girls are in the habit of making such bad marriages!”  This is all I will tell you about our family.

If, when the time comes that you go into the world, you attach some value to these noble memories, you will more easily find traces of these distant times than intimate details of what has happened in the last hundred or so years.  In any case, I am not very good at these tales.  I have never attached much value to the advantages of birth.  They were never called into question when I was a girl, and then as a woman I had no right to them; perhaps this situation has prevented me altogether from occupying myself with them as much as many others do.  Therefore, I only want to recount to you those details that come to mind from the memory of what I have personally heard or seen, without pretence of any great narrative, and only as anecdotes that will interest you by virtue of my relationships with the people in question.  It will be a sort of gossip, the whole value of which will be in its sincerity.

The salon hostess and writer Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, was literally born in the Château de Versailles, and spent her childhood at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

In the first chapter of her memoirs, Mme de Boigne writes, “It was soon after my parents settled into Versailles that I came into the world.  My mother had already been delivered of a still-born infant, so I was welcomed with transports of joy and pardoned for being a girl.  I was not swaddled, as was still the custom, but dressed in the English manner and nursed by my mother in the midst of Versailles.  I promptly became the plaything of the princes and the court, all the more since I was very well-behaved, and also since children in those days were as rare a species in a drawing room as they are common and tyrannical today.”

Adéle d’Osmond, Comtesse de Boigne (1781-1866).

This remarkable circumstance is due to the fact that her mother was a lady-in-waiting to Mme Adélaïde, one of the daughters of Louis XV.  She and her sisters were generally referred to as “Mesdames,”and later, in the reign of their nephew Louis XVI, as “Mesdames Tantes.”  It was not usual for ladies-in-waiting to keep their children at court, but Mme de Boigne’s parents, the Marquis and Marquise d’Osmond, chose — and were permitted — to do so.

We’ll get to my favourite bookshop in Lisbon, Livraria Sà da Costa, in a minute.

First, a word on Portuguese secondhand and antiquarian bookshops in general (called albufarristas in Portuguese) — I’ve never seen so many!  In both Lisbon and Porto, there seemed to be one everywhere I looked.  I’ve previously written about my favourite albufarrista in Porto, Livraria Moreira da Costa.

Livraria Moreira da Costa in Porto.  

I’ve since been informed by a Portuguese friend via Instagram that book publishing was an expensive undertaking in times past, and subject to heavy censorship for much of the 20th century while Portugal groaned under the Salazar dictatorship.  As a result, most people could only afford to buy secondhand books.  If anyone has another explanation, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.