The Countess of Hautefeuille and the castle of Vierville: biographical notice

- Born in Paris in 1786, died in 1861

- Daughter of Edouard-Marie de Marguerye, colonel of the Royal Guard of Louis XVI, guillotined in Paris on June 2, 1794, and Anna-Bella Drummond de Melfort, Scottish, lady of honor of Madame Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI.

- After August 10, 1792 and the flight of her parents to England, she was raised from 1792 to 1802 by her grandfather Gilles-Edouard de Marguerye (1709+1802), lord of Vierville and Lormel, and lord of Vaumisset by his wife, Marie-Thérèse de Pleurre. during this period she lived partly in the castle of Vierville and partly in Bayeux in the Hôtel de Marguerye.

- She was married in 1802 to Count Eugène Texier de Hautefeuille, future Marshal of France, officer in the service of France in the armies of Napoleon and the Restoration.

- Abandoned by her husband in 1809, she lived for many years under the Empire, the Restoration and the Second Empire, residing in particular in Paris, Bayeux, Ver-sur-Mer and Agy. She published from 1834 to 1859, 6 literary and political works, and actively campaigned against the death penalty and infamous penalties, and for women's right to divorce.

In the preface to her first collection of poems:"SUFFERANCES", published in 1834, she evokes her parents, her grandfather and the castle of Vierville:

« PREFACE

Another female author, they will say! Hey! My God yes!.. despite this timid convention that you have to risk it. Perhaps my audacity will be blamed; but, alone, from a young age, in the face of misfortune, having for many years no other duty to fulfill than that of supporting life, I thought I could help myself in this enterprise of some occupations that were not for me without sweetness. In vain I will look for other excuses; I have no more to offer to those of my readers who do not allow women to cultivate muses. May these too rigid minds, after the short presentation that will follow, thank the reason I state if they cannot absolutely admit it!

I was not five years old, and already the misfortunes of the revolution had hit me by taking my family. My father, a colonel in the custody of our first constitutional king, after miraculously escaping the day of August 10, led my mother, Mrs. Elisabeth's lady, to England; then worried about the fate of his two young children, about that of his old father, then sixty-year-old, he returned to France, approached us, and soon, he received in the prisons of Bayeux the last caresses of his young children, condemned to become orphans!

He recommended us to be good, virtuous, to always love each other. When I understood that I was going to lose my father; that, full of strength and life, he was going to perish on a scaffold, I let out pierced cries, and, attaching myself to him, I begged that I would be allowed to follow him to ask for his grace.

Two gendarmes, named Piedplus and Lutrop, in the custody of my father during his transfer from Bayeux to Paris, touched by our pain, offered to let him flee. After a moment of hesitation, he replied, no: the terrorists resent my fortune; to have it, they would kill my Father!

He tore himself from our arms, was taken to the Conciergerie, and, eight days later, he was brought before the revolutionary court, which sentenced him without examination to the death penalty.

Too young to understand the full extent of the loss I had just done, I was nevertheless struck by an event that upset my heart and confused my reason. I often reflected on the terrible way my father had perished; and perhaps my invincible horror for torment, and the shade of sadness from which even youth could not defend me, is due to the deep impression I received of such a catastrophe.

At this thought, my heart was seized by a bitter sadness; I turned away, and, kneeling near a sofa, which often served me as a rest bed, I put my head in my hands, and softly whispered the first verse of a lament that I had known by heart for a long time:

Ah! My people, what have I done to you?

I loved virtue, justice;

Your happiness was my only object

And you drag me to torture!

Then, I thought of this good Louis XVI, in whose memory it had been made; to my father, who died for him! And I was crying.

At that moment, my ancestor, who was resting near the fireplace, opened his eyes. Judging my despondency by the position I had taken, he got up, came to me, and told me with his voice broken by age: Caroline, my child, what do you have? I looked up; when he saw them all wet with tears, he made hear this little repeated cough which, at home, was a hint of a deep tenderness and he walked away. Falling back into his chair, he groaned painfully; then, joining his hands, he prayed. This sweet occupation having calmed the grief that I had had the misfortune to renew, the good old man, almost a hundred years old, resumed his usual pose, and went back to sleep.

During his sleep, I composed a few verses, the first that had still inspired me; they painted the pain of the orphan, the regrets of the abandoned child: they asked for him for grace in the future! ...

I attach this very imperfect composition to the last letter my father had written to us from the Conciergerie a few hours before his death. Crumpled by the misfortune that, since that first era of my life, has continued to hit me, when I feel the need to spread the tears of dilation that save us, I ask these two writings, and soon I feel them flow.

I stopped on these details, to make known the origin of my weak talent, and also to convince my readers, of whatever opinion they are, that I cannot love a revolution of which naturally I was the enemy of such a young age. Last offspring of two families who risked everything, lost everything for the cause of their kings, I have not forgotten that they have bequeathed me the inheritance of their fidelity, and that we do not renounce such a succession; but this fidelity, in me, does not exclude moderation; it admits many new ideas; does not want retrograde movement (intellectually speaking) and compromises with all the mistakes of good faith, which it will only attack with the moved weapons of persuasion and sweetness‐

I only have a few words left to say about the composition of this volume, thrown forward to enlighten me on the public's opinion. If she encourages me, I will immediately publish two small poems, one in verse, entitled the Nothingness of Life; the other in prose, entitled Disadness and Sensitivity. Their publication has been postponed to this day, because I had promised myself to publish my essays only after having reviewed them in the maturity of age, in order to save at least the reader these puffs of youth, that too much confidence, then, makes us afraid of masterpieces.

If some of the pieces I submit succeed, I will try to improve myself in the genre to which I would be called. May he be indicated to me by public favor! "

Countess Eugène d'Hautefeuille

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In another story, she tells that, the Terror following its course, her 85-year-old grandfather was arrested in turn at the Château de Vierville, probably in June or July 1794:

".... The frightened servants fled. Remaining alone in our deserted house, we burst into tears, my younger brother and I, then taking each other by the hand, we went at random to ask for mercy, assistance. A humble received us. Later we were offered another hospitality..."

Taken to Bayeux, then to Paris, Gilles-Edouard de Marguerye escaped the guillotine thanks to the fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) which marked the end of the Terror.

Extract from "The Renaissance of Bessin" 2005

A little-known character who lived in the Bessin

The aristocrat who wanted to abolish the death penalty

No one knows her. And yet, the life - painful - and the work - amazing - of Bayeusaine Anne-Marie Caroline de Marguerye, Countess of Hautefeuille, would have deserved more than one mention in the literary annals. Gérard Pouchain, associate professor of letters and member of the Society of Sciences, Arts and Fine Letters of Bayeux (SABL), is very happy to have exhumed this fascinating character...

A researcher's job, a real one. This is very pleasing to Gérard Pouchain, last Saturday's speaker at the auditorium. He shared with more than fifty people the fruit of his research on a certain Anne·Marie Caroline de Marguerye, Countess of Hautefeuille. Pleased to be able to introduce this woman, born in Paris in 1786, but who lived for a long time in Bayeux, Agy, Vierville and Luc-sur-Mer. Parisian by her father and Scottish by her mother, she married the Count of Hautefeuille "at the age of 15 years and 9 months". Badly took him because he quickly abandoned her for the benefit of his personal glory (he will become Marshal of France)

"She most likely had an impossible character. We know, for example, that she had big relationship problems, to the point that she had covered herself with debts that she would have had no difficulty in honoring..."

Big health problems and, to top it off, a serious accident will corner him on the verge of despair. "She found her salvation in writing." Between 1834 and 1859 (she died two years later), she published six books. Marguerye writes poetry collections that earned her in particular the compliments of Lamartine, undoubtedly sensitive to the romanticism that the languid verses of the Countess exhale. She also publishes philosophical works in which "she is interested in the fate of people by relying on her own unfortunate experience". It is thus a reflection in favor of women's right to divorce, something strictly unimaginable at the time, and, even more unimaginable, it dares to send all the deputies of France a vibrant plea against the death penalty. The Republic, which this very conservative aristocrat hates, guillotined his father...

It is "an exhumation" concludes Gérard Pouchain. It is also a great first: "since her death, she had not been the subject of any biography, no study, no conference. Not even an article! ". That's it, it's fixed,

Yann Scavarda