er, Madame Campan begged to be permitted to accompany her royal
mistress, and share her imprisonment, which was refused. Madame Campan
was with the queen at the storming of the Tuilleries, on the 10th of
August, when she narrowly escaped with her life: and, under the rule of
Robespierre, she came near being sent to the guillotine. After the fall
of that tyrant, she retired to the country, and opened a private
seminary for young ladies, which she conducted with great success.
Josephine Beauharnais sent her daughter, Hortense, to the seminary of
Madame Campan. She had also the sisters of the emperor under her care.
In 1806, Napoleon founded the school of Ecouen, for the daughters and
sisters of the officers of the Legion of Honor, and appointed Madame
Campan to superintend it. This institution was suppressed at the
restoration of the Bourbons, and Madame Campan retired to Nantes, where
she partly prepared her "Memoirs," and other works. She died in 1822,
aged seventy. After her decease, her "Private Journal" was published;
also, "Familiar Letters to her Friends," and a work, which she
considered her most important one, entitled "Thoughts on Education." We
will give extracts from these works.

From the "Private Journal."

MESMER AND HIS MAGNETISM.

At the time when Mesmer made so much noise in Paris with his magnetism,
M. Campan, my husband, was his partisan, like almost every person who
moved in high life. To be magnetized was then a fashion; nay, it was
more, it was absolutely a rage. In the drawing-rooms, nothing was talked
of but the brilliant discovery. There was to be no more dying; people's
heads were turned, and their imaginations heated in the highest degree.
To accomplish this object, it was necessary to bewilder the
understanding; and Mesmer, with his singular language, produced that
effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand
difficulty; and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the
court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very extravagant rate. However, he
was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day
led into the midst of the somnambulists. Such was the enthusiasm of the
spectators, that, in most of them, I could observe a wild rolling of the
eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have
fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton. Surprised
and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I