Early life Henriette-Lucy Dillon was born into a prominent Irish
Wild Geese Jacobite military family in France. She was daughter of
Arthur Dillon, colonel-proprietor of the
Dillon Regiment, and the lady-in-waiting
Thérèse-Lucy de Rothe (1751–1782). Her father had been born in England, so she was often regarded in France as English. However the family, of
Norman descent, was linked to the
Dillons of Costello-Gallen and the lords of
Drumraney in Ireland, who were granted lands in
County Westmeath in the thirteenth century. Following her mother's death and her father's subsequent posting abroad, where he remarried, Lucie lived in the household of her grandmother, Mme. de Rothe, and
Arthur Richard Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne, until marrying and joining the Court of France. She married , later Marquis de La Tour-du-Pin, an army officer and diplomat, in 1787. He was the son of
Jean-Frédéric de la Tour du Pin-Gouvernet, a French
Minister of War. Following her marriage, she was given her mother's place as an honorary or apprentice
lady-in-waiting (
Dame du Palais surnuméraire) to
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, and served as such every Sunday from 1787 until the outbreak of the French revolution in 1789.
During the revolution She was present at Versailles during the assembly of the
Estates General of 1789 and witnessed the
Women's March on Versailles at the outbreak of the French revolution. She also witnessed the peasant uprising called the
Great Fear in the countryside. Between October 1791 and March 1792, her husband served as ambassador to the
Dutch Republic in
The Hague, where she joined him, returning to France only in December 1792. During the
Reign of Terror of
Robespierre in 1793, many of her friends and family were executed, and she fled Paris for the family estate of
Le Bouilh in the
Gironde region. During the summer of that year, their estate was seized by the government, and her father-in-law was imprisoned and her husband went in hiding separate from her. With the help of
Thérésa Tallien, she managed to secure a passport for herself and her husband from
Jean-Lambert Tallien, a prominent member of the revolutionary French
National Convention. Directly after having secured their passports in 1794, she and her husband passed into exile for a new life on a dairy farm near
Albany in
Upstate New York. Although they were never officially listed as
émigrés, Frédéric had been living in hiding prior to departure. She regarded this time as the happiest of her life. She vividly described the reality of owning slaves and interactions with the local Dutch families and the few remaining
Native Americans of the area. She was close to
Talleyrand during his exile in the United States, and she returned to France (first freeing her four black slaves) as he did after the establishment of the
Directorate in 1796. The couple left the United States because her husband wanted to resume his career in public life and shore up the family fortunes.
Later life After the
French Coup of 1799, which brought Napoleon to power, her husband was able to resume his diplomatic career. She was able to promote his career under Napoleon, who was looking for aristocrats to lend legitimacy to his power and, from 1804, his court. Her memoirs described an insider's view of many events from the Imperial court of Napoleon. She continued to follow her husband to his various diplomatic appointments after the
Bourbon Restoration. They went into effective exile again after their son Aymar became involved in the anti-
Orléanist plot of
Caroline Ferdinande Louise, duchesse de Berry, in 1831, in the
Vendée. Aymar escaped France, but was condemned to death in his absence. The family sold its possessions in France soon after. Following her husband's death in
Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1837, she moved to Italy, where she died in
Pisa. ==Legacy==