Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan

Born in Paris in 1752, Madame Campan received a strong education and entered the royal court while still very young. She served the daughters of Louis XV and later became a trusted attendant of Marie Antoinette, placing her at the center of court life during the last years of the ancien régime and the upheaval of the French Revolution.

After the fall of the monarchy, she remade her life as an educator. She founded a well-known school for girls at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where notable pupils included Hortense de Beauharnais and Caroline Bonaparte, and later became headmistress of the Maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur under Napoleon.

She is also remembered as a writer. Her memoirs, published after her death in 1822, became an important and much-read source on Marie Antoinette, Versailles, and the final years of the Bourbon court, even as historians continue to debate parts of her account.