ost constant object of her
thoughts, her zeal, and her devotion.

A new career now opened to Madame Campan. At Coubertin, surrounded by her
nieces, she was fond of directing their studies. This occupation caused
her ideas to revert to the subject of education, and awakened once more
the inclinations of her youth. At the age of twelve years she could never
meet a school of young ladies passing through the streets without feeling
ambitious of the situation and authority of their mistress. Her abode at
Court had diverted but not altered her inclinations. "A month after the
fall of Robespierre," she says, "I considered as to the means of providing
for myself, for a mother seventy years of age, my sick husband, my child
nine years old, and part of my ruined family. I now possessed nothing in
the world but an assignat of five hundred francs. I had become responsible
for my husband's debts, to the amount of thirty thousand francs. I chose
St. Germain to set up a boarding-school, for that town did not remind me,
as Versailles did, both of happy times and of the misfortunes of France.
I took with me a nun of l'Enfant-Jesus, to give an unquestionable pledge
of my religious principles. The school of St. Germain was the first in
which the opening of an oratory was ventured on. The Directory was
displeased at it, and ordered it to be immediately shut up; and some time
after commissioners were sent to desire that the reading of the Scriptures
should be suppressed in my school. I inquired what books were to be
substituted in their stead. After some minutes' conversation, they
observed: 'Citizeness, you are arguing after the old fashion; no
reflections. The nation commands; we must have obedience, and no
reasoning.' Not having the means of printing my prospectus, I wrote a
hundred copies of it, and sent them to the persons of my acquaintance who
had survived the dreadful commotions. At the year's end I had sixty
pupils; soon afterwards a hundred. I bought furniture and paid my debts."

The rapid success of the establishment at St. Germain was undoubtedly
owing to the talents, experience, and excellent principles of Madame
Campan, seconded by public opinion. All property had changed hands; all
ranks found themselves confusedly jumbled by the shock of the Revolution:
the grand seigneur dined at the table of the opulent contractor; and the
witty and elegant marquise was present at the ball by the side of the
clumsy peasant