Marie Antoinette (5 page)

May 7, 1769

I went to Father Confessor today. I wanted him to give me more rosaries to say than he did. I was hoping he would make me dress in scratchy wool and eat no meat, just porridge with no sugar for a week. But he didn’t. I must seek my own penance, I guess.

May 10, 1769

I have read the book of meditations Mama gave me for my last birthday. I have skipped two picnics. I have sat in the chapel for nearly ten hours over the past two days, and I refuse to eat meat.

May 11, 1769

Elizabeth came to my apartments today. She brought a plate of meat and a bowl of strong broth and a glass of ass’s milk. When I saw the ass’s milk, I knew Mama had to have had a hand in this.

Elizabeth behind those veils sees and understands more than anyone in the Court. She spoke softly. Her words stirred the veil like a summer breeze. “You want to wear a scratchy gown. You want a whip to beat yourself like the monks. You want only bread and water, and in that way you feel you can make it up to Mama. But Mama is so clever. She realizes that by saying nothing and giving you no penance this is the worst punishment of all. She is saying that there is no way you can make this up. And besides, she would never let you scratch your lovely skin with coarse material or not eat meat for fear the bloom will go out of your cheeks and then . . .”

And then I added, “I would be too ugly for the Dauphin.” The veil moved slowly up and down as Elizabeth nodded her head. “I understand,” I said.

Then she surprised me. For she said, “You don’t understand everything, Antonia.” I asked her what she meant. Then Elizabeth said the most astonishing thing. So I am writing every word down here as best as I can remember. “Mama has the power to punish you in this manner only insofar as you let her. Mama is skillful at filling people’s minds and bending their will to hers. But do not let her punish you in this way. What you did, yes, it was wrong. But it was not a sin, mortal or venial. She told Father Confessor not to give you many rosaries or severe penance because she knew she could do better. But Father Confessor would not have in any case. Father Confessor knows what is God’s domain and he knows what is Austria’s. You have sinned only against . . .”

“Austria,” I started to say.

But Elizabeth cut me off as sharply as I have ever heard her speak in my life. “No! Mama’s
idea
of Austria.” In that moment it was as if I could see straight through Elizabeth’s veils, and what I saw was a woman completely free, free of Mama, free of Austria, free of empires and husbands and filled only with her own music and love of God. If people, especially women, knew the secret of Elizabeth, she would be the most envied woman in the Empire, in Europe, in the world!

May 14, 1769

I picnic now. I go to chapel one hour each day instead of five. I practice my harp diligently and have asked Elizabeth to help, and I spend many minutes several times a day trying to concentrate on what Elizabeth said: not letting Mama fill my mind. This is difficult, for Mama is a strong presence even when she is not nearby. One has to really concentrate to get Mama out of one’s thoughts. I do not seek to be defiant of Mama, but I do seek to have my own thoughts and not let her will so completely invade my nature. It is after all
my
nature and not Mama’s. People have always said that I am much like dear Papa in spirit, but I must be something more, too. Something that is just me, and only me.

May 19, 1769

A masked ball tonight. Funny, I have not thought once about trying to persuade Elizabeth to attend. Titi wonders why, for this was to be our big project. It is hard for me to explain to her. She is so young. But now that I have seen how complete, how happy Elizabeth is, trying to force her to go to a masked ball seems rather silly.

May 20, 1769

The ball was beautiful. They moved the dancing platforms into the rose gardens, which were illuminated with huge torches, and they tinted the water pink in the fountains. I danced until I thought my feet would drop off. Master Noverre pranced up to me with his beaked eagle mask and whispered that the French delegation was enchanted with my gavotte. I have not truly mastered all the complicated figures of French dances. These are much more difficult than our simple Austrian dances. However, he complimented me on how cunning it was of me to add a
tendu
at the finish, which revealed my ankle. I didn’t even know I had revealed my ankle. It was certainly unintentional. I hope Mama didn’t see it. She would have been angry. It is just that Titi and I have had much ballet instruction since arriving at Schönbrunn and I guess it must somehow creep into my dancing. A
tendu
is an extension of the leg and of the foot. The foot must have the toes pointed, of course. I just seem to do it.

May 23, 1769

I went riding for the first time since The Incident. I did not ride astride and I did not gallop through mud. And it was not nearly as much fun.

May 27, 1769

Mama has gone back to Vienna for a few days. She always does this in the summer for she likes to visit Papa’s tomb. She cannot bear to be away from it for too long. So I went riding astride today but did not get mud-splattered. It was still fun.

May 28, 1769

Rode astride and got muddy. Even more fun.

May 29, 1769

Mama returned today. Rode sidesaddle through a meadow.

June 2, 1769

My brother Leopold arrived today with his wife, Maria Luisa of Spain. Their little boy Francis is enchanting. He looks like a little fat cherub, all rosy and golden. And he smiles all the time. This is amazing to Titi and me because Maria Luisa never smiles and is the most severe, somber person I have ever met.

June 4, 1769

Little Francis came running down the long corridor with his Nursey chasing him and spotted Titi and me at the ballet barre with Master Noverre. He charged right in and went up to the barre. He could barely reach it, but he started doing exactly what we were doing. Master Noverre was delighted. I think the child is a genius. He followed everything we did and pointed his toes and held up his arms for
port de bras
.

June 5, 1769

Little Francis is like a beam of sunshine darting around the palace. Mama, too, is enchanted with him. She gave him a puppy and a pony, and he loves to crawl up onto her lap and play with the emerald pendant she often wears. Do you know I cannot remember ever sitting in Mama’s lap? She must have been so busy with all sixteen of us, although three had died young. Maximillian, Ferdinand, and I are just one year apart. There would have hardly been time to dandle us on her lap. I do remember sitting on Papa’s lap. Papa had not nearly so much to do, however. For although Papa had the title of Emperor, he was not the one who ruled through birthright. That is Mama. Papa had been the Duke of Lorraine. Lorraine was a duchy, or province. Although it is now part of the Austrian Empire, it sits in the northeast corner of France. Very inconvenient, for it made it a borderland that has always been fought over between France and Austria, and Prussia and Spain, too. It was Mama and Papa’s marriage that set off a terrible fracas that is now called the Austrian War of Succession. The French wanted this horrid Bavarian lout to rule and be Emperor. The only way Mama could be Empress was to give Lorraine to Poland with the agreement that when Papa died, it would go back to France. And so it did, in 1766. Now if I marry the Dauphin and then become Queen at least I shall be ruling over what once belonged to Papa. That will make me most happy, and I hope from heaven Papa will smile down, too.

June 7, 1769

Mama has been having me visit her every morning for twenty minutes. Lulu accompanies me and we go over the etiquette of the Court of Versailles. I think as I see Mama reading the charts that Lulu has prepared that she sometimes thinks it is too much herself. Her eyebrow shot up this morning. “What is this? There is the Lady of Honor and then there is the tirewoman and the first
femme de chambre
and then there is the undertirewoman and a wardrobe woman? All that to get dressed?”

Mama especially does not like the part where the
femmes de chambre
have the right to sell the old discarded clothes of the Dauphine or the Queen and that they can have, as needed, all the wax candles of the bedchamber and card room for their own use. I asked Mama why not, and she answered simply, “It gives them too much power over others beneath them; they can buy and sell their influence this way. Not good. I would never permit it.”

Indeed, I had the distinct feeling that Mama felt the whole system was too elaborate and much too costly. “Two Ladies of the Bath! Ridiculous! You’ve been bathing yourself since you were six years old.” Then she paused. “Of course, if you insist on riding through muddy creeks, it might take four Ladies of the Bath!” and I thought I saw a little twinkle in Mama’s eye and a twitch at the corner of her lip. But she whisked out of the room so suddenly I couldn’t tell. But I do believe that this is the first joke Mama has ever made. I think it’s wonderful. Mama made a joke!

June 13, 1769

Oh my God! It has come at last — the marriage proposal! King Louis XV’s personal envoys arrived this morning. I was called immediately to Mama’s summer house, the Gloriette, where she works on the hottest days. I did not know what I was being called for. Indeed, I thought maybe Maria Luisa had told Mama about our picnic and I was to be reprimanded for hill rolling! But as soon as I set foot in the cool marble receiving room, Mama was out of her chair behind her desk and running toward me. She crushed me to her bosom and whispered, “Antonia, you are to be married! You are to be the Queen of France!” Her cheeks were wet with tears and soon mine were, too! She took me immediately to the chapel, where we both fell on our knees and thanked God for this great and good fortune. Mama held my hand tightly all through the prayers as they were chanted by Father Confessor. So it has all worked. All of Mama’s planning — the lessons, the hair treatment — all of it has worked. I have come so far in six months. Dear diary, I write so fluently now. Did you know that in the past when I was required to write even the simplest of notes, my old governess, Brandy, would first prepare the note in pencil and then I would write over the words in ink? And look at me now. Oh, I think when I am Queen of France I shall probably have to do much writing. Or maybe not. They probably have secretaries who write for you. But maybe I shall be like Mama and write my own letters.

June 14, 1769

People now regard me differently. And most certainly Maria Luisa does. I think she is slightly disappointed. She among others, I believe, never thought the marriage would come to be. But now they all know and their behavior tells the difference. They stop speaking when I come near, just as they do when my mother passes. They take a step back not just in the narrow corridors of Schönbrunn but in the very widest ones. And my teachers, like Noverre and, yes, the Abbé, too, act differently. All except for Lulu. She is still the same dear old Lulu.

June 15, 1769

Mama says we must make a pilgrimage to Mariazell, a village some miles away. There is a statue of the Virgin in wood and it is believed she brings luck and many children to young married couples. We leave tomorrow and shall stay there in a monastery for a week in retreat where we shall do nothing but pray and fast lightly, which means no meat but fish. No pastries. Just “simple food,” as Mama keeps saying. This means thin broths, ass’s milk (Mama’s favorite for everything), cheeses, and, of course, bread. Perhaps a pear from the monastery orchards.

I think it shall be very boring, as I am not even permitted to write. But that perhaps is good, for if I brought you, dear diary, and Mama and I share a room, well, she might discover you. Even in a monastery my mother could not resist poking her nose into a private diary!

But in all honesty I do not mind going. If this is what Mama wants and she wants it only for my happiness in marriage, then this is the least I can do.

July 5, 1769

Back from Mariazell. It was not as boring as I thought. Each day we spent many hours praying to the Virgin. Her lovely face has been nearly worn smooth of paint and her expression seems dim. Each day as I looked at her and prayed, I seemed to see her in a new light, and finally in the last days I realized that she indeed did remind me of my sister Elizabeth, for it was as if the years of wear, the thinning of the paint, the smoothing of the wood, dropped a veil of sorts across her face — a veil of tranquility and complete acceptance.

When we were not praying, we helped the nuns with their embroidery. We took walks in the nearby hills, which were sprigged with field flowers, and we drank lots of ass’s milk. It was quiet. It was simple and it rests in a corner of my mind like a calm little island.

July 7, 1769