“The first event which made any impression on me in my childhood,” she says in her reminiscences, “was the attempt of Damiens to assassinate Louis xv.  This occurrence struck me so forcibly that the most minute details relating to the confusion and grief which prevailed at Versailles on that day seem as present to my imagination as the most recent events.  I had dined with my father and mother, in company with one of their friends.  The drawing-room was lighted up with a number of candles, and four card-tables were already occupied, when a friend of the gentleman of the house came in, with a pale and terrified countenance, and said, in a voice scarcely audible, ’I bring you terrible news.  The King has been assassinated!’ Two ladies in the company fainted; a brigadier of the Body Guards threw down his cards and cried out, ’I do not wonder at it; it is those rascally Jesuits.’—­’What are you saying, brother?’ cried a lady, flying to him; ’would you get yourself arrested?’—­’Arrested!  For what?  For unmasking those wretches who want a bigot for a King?’ My father came in; he recommended circumspection, saying that the blow was not mortal, and that all meetings ought to be suspended at so critical a moment.  He had brought the chaise for my mother, who placed me on her knees.  We lived in the Avenue de Paris, and throughout our drive I heard incessant cries and sobs from the footpaths.

“At last I saw a man arrested; he was an usher of the King’s chamber, who had gone mad, and was crying out, ’Yes, I know them; the wretches! the villains!’ Our chaise was stopped by this bustle.  My mother recognised the unfortunate man who had been seized; she gave his name to the trooper who had stopped him.  The poor usher was therefore merely conducted to the gens d’armes’ guardroom, which was then in the avenue.

“I have often heard M. de Landsmath, equerry and master of the hounds, who used to come frequently to my father’s, say that on the news of the attempt on the King’s life he instantly repaired to his Majesty.  I cannot repeat the coarse expressions he made use of to encourage his Majesty; but his account of the affair, long afterwards, amused the parties in which he was prevailed on to relate it, when all apprehensions respecting the consequences of the event had subsided.  This M. de Landsmath was an old soldier, who had given proofs of extraordinary valour; nothing had been able to soften his manners or subdue his excessive bluntness to the respectful customs of the Court.  The King was very fond of him.  He possessed prodigious strength, and had often contended with Marechal Saxe, renowned for his great bodily power, in trying the strength of their respective wrists.

[One day when the King was hunting in the forest of St. Germain, Landemath, riding before him, wanted a cart, filled with the slime of a pond that had just been cleansed, to draw up out of the way.  The carter resisted, and even answered with impertinence.  Landsmath, without dismounting, seized him by the breast of his coat, lifted him up, and threw him into his cart.—­Madame Campan.]