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 lately grown rich. In the absence of the ancient
distinctions, elegant manners and polished language now formed a kind of
aristocracy. The house of St. Germain, conducted by a lady who possessed
the deportment and the habits of the best society, was not only a school
of knowledge, but a school of the world.

"A friend of Madame de Beauharnais," continues Madame Campan, "brought me
her daughter Hortense de Beauharnais, and her niece Emilie de Beauharnais.
Six months afterwards she came to inform me of her marriage with a
Corsican gentleman, who had been brought up in the military school, and
was then a general. I was requested to communicate this information to
her daughter, who long lamented her mother's change of name. I was also
desired to watch over the education of little Eugene de Beauharnais, who
was placed at St. Germain, in the same school with my son.