Agathe de Rambaud
Agathe de Rambaud (born December 10, 1764 in Versailles as Agathe Rosalie Mottet , † October 19, 1853 in Aramon , department of Gard ) was the governess of the Dauphin Louis Joseph Xavier François de Bourbon from 1785 to 1792 .
Before the French Revolution
Agathe Mottet was the daughter of Louis Melchior Mottet, a commissioner general of the colonies, and Jeanne Agathe Le Proux de La Rivière, the daughter of a chief commissioner of the navy. Her grandfather was Baron Claude Nicolas Louis Mottet de La Motte, lord of La Motte, baron of Saint Corneille, lieutenant of the royal hunt ; Agathe was also the niece of Baron Benoît Mottet de La Fontaine, Royal Commissioner of French India , Governor of Pondicherry . She was baptized in the Saint Louis Cathedral of Versailles .
On March 7, 1785, in Versailles, in the church of Saint Louis, she married André Rambaud, whose father was captain and knight of the royal Ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis . Through this marriage, Agathe de Rambaud became sister-in-law of the admiral and later Minister of the Directory Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley.
Auguste de Rambaud, their first child, was born on January 11, 1786 and was baptized the next day in Versailles in the parish church of Saint Louis. Godfather was his uncle Pléville Le Pelley. When their daughter Madeleine Célinie de Rambaud was born in Versailles on July 29, 1787, her husband was no longer in France; he had meanwhile been appointed governor of the Kingdom of Galam in the Senegalese company . André de Rambaud died there in 1789 in the fortress of Saint-Joseph de Galam.
Agathe de Rambaud was chosen by Marie Antoinette to be the nanny of Charles Louis , born in 1785 , Duke of Normandy, who became heir to the throne after the death of his older brother Louis Joseph .
Alain Decaux writes about her: Mrs. de Rambaud was governess of the Crown Prince from the day of his birth until August 10, 1792, that is for seven years. During those seven years she never left him, she rocked him, she looked after him, she dressed him, she comforted him, she scolded him. She has been a real mother to him ten times, a hundred times more than Marie Antoinette .
From the French Revolution to the First Empire
On August 10, 1792, Agathe de Rambaud fled with Jean-Baptiste Cléry from the Tuileries Tower . They were stopped but not arrested. From the first day the royal family was detained in the Temple , Ms. de Rambaud sought in vain to be allowed to serve the Dauphin and his family members in prison.
She did not go into exile during the Reign of Terror , but was forced to go into hiding because of her previous role, as did some members of her family. After the fall of Robespierre and the Thermidorians , the majority of their members served in the Directory, the Consulate and the First Empire.
The restoration
Auguste de Rambaud withdrew from Napoleonic service and, like his family, joined the new King Louis XVIII on March 29, 1814 . in Compiègne . However, the expectations were too high. Because of her previous position at court, Agathe received a small pension of 1000 francs from the king. Even Auguste, war commissioner in Ghent, had to be content with half a salary.
Agathe de Rambaud met Marie Thérèse Charlotte, the elder sister of the late Dauphin, in Montfort-l'Amaury . She was accompanied by her former governess Madame de Tourzel . Even after the death of Louis XVIII. Agathe de Rambaud was received even more often by the royal court. Her granddaughter remembered seeing her in conversation with Marie Thérèse, that was when the King of Naples visited the castle in 1827, when Charles X put his hand on each of us, asked us about our age and a few moments with us our grandmother spoke and was pleased with her interest .
Mrs. de Rambaud was in good Parisian society, as were the friends of Duke de La Rochefoucauld, who later wrote about her: Madame de Rambaud was a very respectable lady .
The July Monarchy
The brief July Revolution of 1830 did not have a negative impact on the life of Agathe de Rambaud. On the contrary, she seemed to be one of the very few retirees on the old civil list who were considered worthy as a former governess of the son of Louis XVI. to receive a pension of 1000 francs. Her daughter-in-law received a pension of 600 francs from the new king as a child of former servants in the house of the royal children.
Her son - first war commissioner, later still working on half his salary in Vendôme - discovered that he had no future in the army, so he traveled to India and later to Mexico where he died in 1834. Since his wife, Thérèse Gaudelet d'Armenonville, remarried to Count Amédée d'Allonville, Agathe de Rambaud had to raise her grandchildren, Ernest de Rambaud, future student at the École polytechnique , and Ernestine alone.
At that time, a man emerged who claimed Louis XVII. to be. He lived with Agathe de Rambaud for more than a year. She questioned him extensively and he mentioned old memories. She found birthmarks on his body that resembled those of the Dauphin. Agathe de Rambaud was supposed to defend the supposed Dauphin, Karl Wilhelm Naundorff , almost until her death . Her home was searched by police officers who, in addition to hundreds of documents belonging to the prince, confiscated the family archives and even former gifts from the royal family.
The end of her life
Agathe de Rambaud died in Aramon in 1853 and was buried in the family vault on the Cimetière Saint-Véran in Avignon . For years she had lived with her granddaughter's husband on Rue Banasterie, in Avignon at the foot of the Papal Palace . A street in Avignon bears her birth name: Agathe Rosalie Mottet.
Many years after Agathe de Rambaud's death, after countless writings about her have appeared, her tomb became one of the most famous tombs in the Saint-Véran cemetery, and a stonemason was entrusted with its maintenance.
Film adaptations
- 1957: L'affaire Naundorf , Énigmes de l'histoire, Alain Decaux and André Castelot . Berthe Bovy , honorary member of the Comédie-Française , interpreted the main role, that of Agathe de Rambaud.
Web links
- Benoît Mottet de La Fontaine ( Memento of February 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rambaud, Agathe de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mottet, Agathe Rosalie (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Governess of the French Crown Prince |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 10, 1764 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Versailles |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 19, 1853 |
| Place of death | Aramon |