In the service of Marie Antoinette before and during the French Revolution, she was afterwards headmistress of the first Maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur, appointed by Napoleon in 1807 to promote the education of girls.
By the age of fifteen she could speak English and Italian, and had gained so high a reputation for her academic accomplishments as to be appointed reader to Louis XV's daughters (Mesdames Victoire, Sophie and Louise) in 1768, and Femme de chambre to Marie Antoinette in 1770.
She was a general favourite at court, and when in 1774 she bestowed her hand upon Pierre-Dominique-François Berthollet Campan, son of the secretary of the royal cabinet, the king gave her an annuity of 5,000 livres as dowry.
[2] She survived the Reign of Terror, but after the 9th of Thermidor, finding herself almost penniless, and being thrown on her own resources by the illness of her spouse, Campan determined to support herself by in 1794 establishing a school at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The institution prospered, and was patronized by Hortense de Beauharnais, whose influence led to the appointment of Campan as superintendent of the academy founded by Napoleon at Écouen for the education of the orphaned daughters of members of his Légion d'honneur in 1807.
She held this post until it was abolished at the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, when she retired to Mantes, where she spent the rest of her life amid the kind attentions of friends, but saddened by the loss of her only son, and by the calumnies circulated on account of her connection with the Bonapartes.