COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS. VOL. CIV. MEMOIRS OF A FEMME DE CHAMBRE BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. IN ONE VOLUME. STAN MEMO FRS: OF A FEMME DE CHAMBRE. CHAPTER I. We live in an age when to write memoirs is almost as common, if not quite as easy, as to read them. It is the knowledge of this fact that gives me courage to attempt the task I have imposed on myself, and should I fail in executing it, I shall have at least achieved my principal object, that of noting down events from which some moral may be drawn, some warning taken. The sentiments and opinions of a person who has filled only a position generally deemed so subaltern a one, as that of a Femme de Chambre, may be considered beneath the notice of grave and highly polished readers; but she who has been brought in close contact and daily association with individuals of her own sex, allowed to possess cultivated minds, and placed in the highest class, must be indeed peculiarly dull and unobservant if she has not profited by such advantages, and has not become able to draw inferences, and to form comments on what she has witnessed. Who will deny that the Memoirs of Madame de Motteville furnish some entertaining and instructive anecdotes and information relative to her royal mistress, Anne of Austria, the suspected wife of Louis XIII.? and without the Memoirs of Madame de Staël, formerly Mademoiselle de Launay, of how many amusing facts connected with her haughty mistress, the Duchess de Maine, should we have remained ignorant? I do not presume to institute any comparison between Mesdames de Motteville, de Staël, and my humble self; far be such vanity from me. I only name them Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. 1 |