She was the daughter of Edme-Jacques Genet and Marie-Anne-Louise Cardon. Her father was the highest-ranking clerk in the foreign office, and, although without fortune, placed her in the most cultivated society. 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 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. The marriage was unhappy and the couple separated in 1790. Campan was promoted to Première femme de Chambre by Marie Antoinette in 1786; and she continued to attend on her until the 10 August 1792 storming of the Tuileries Palace, in which she was left behind in the palace when the queen and the royal family left prior to the storming. With her own house pillaged and burned that day, Henriette sought asylum in the countryside. 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.
Legacy
Henriette Campan died in 1822, leaving valuable Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, subtitled To which are Added Personal Recollections Illustrative of the Reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI (Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie Antoinette, suivis de souvenirs et anecdotes historiques sur les règnes de Louis XIV
