The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette

by Clegg, Melanie

  And yet another year begins with champagne, schnapps, dancing and fireworks high up in the sky above Vienna. It is snowing now and I can hear the courtiers dashing on their clattering high heels around the corridors of the Hofburg, giving each other gifts and hallooing 'Prosit Neujahr!' at each other.

  I feel oddly deflated and apprehensive about how this year will unfold for me, which is only natural I suppose.

  Perhaps I should go back to bed for a bit.

  Tuesday, 2nd January, morning.

  I was not permitted to return to bed for my brother Joseph came to my rooms and informed me that little Theresia wanted me present at the puppet show that she has been working on for weeks. Of course I was delighted to accompany him and with Clementina, Anna and Anton following close behind we made our way to the nurseries, bumping into Durfort outside my salon door as we went. He looked highly embarrassed and stammered his way through a speech about how happy the French court are that this year will see me finally embraced to their bosom and other such nonsense. I nodded very coolly, much to Joseph's unashamed amusement and swept past.

  'You know, you really should do your best not to alienate Durfort,' my brother whispered to me as we ran arm in arm up the stairs to Theresia's rooms upstairs. 'I know that he is utterly absurd in every possible way but he is still the envoy of the French King and you can be sure that he sends very full reports back to Versailles about you and your behaviour.'

  I flushed scarlet, not having thought of this before. 'I did not know.'

  Joseph smiled down at me and patted my hand consolingly. 'I am sure that all will be forgiven as soon as they set eyes upon you, my dearest one.'

  We had reached the nurseries and went into the large white and pink salon, which had been set up as a miniature theatre with rows of gilt and crimson chairs arranged in front of a specially erected shallow stage upon which the puppet theatre stood. Theresia was waiting by the door to receive us and gave cries of delight as she hugged first her father and then myself before taking our hands and leading us to the very front, where Mama was already sitting with Christina on one side and Elizabeth on the other.

  'I hope that you will like the play,' Theresia whispered to me, looking a little bit nervous. 'My governess wrote it and there are a great many long words!'

  I laughed, instantly reminded of poor dear Countess Brandeis and her attempts to hoodwink Mama by writing my exercises for me in pencil so that I could trace over them in ink and pass them off as my own. 'I am sure that it will be wonderful,' I reassured her with a kiss.

  I truth, it was terribly boring – a series of short vignettes illustrating memorable scenes from Mama's reign but Theresia looked so proud and relieved when it was all over that we all stood up and applauded her as though it had been a masterpiece. I squeezed Joseph's arm as he applauded, touched by how happy and proud he looked of his daughter.

  Thursday, 11th January.

  A bitterly cold day which I spent curled up beneath a blanket on a sofa beside the stove in my little sitting room, eating marzipan dipped in chocolate and drinking warm cinnamon flavoured milk while Anna and Lucia took it in turns to read aloud to me.

  'I do wish that there was a more elegant way to combat the cold,' Clementina said with a laugh, lifting her red velvet skirts to reveal several brightly coloured woolen petticoats and her thick and distinctly inelegant green knitted stockings. 'I am so glad that no one can see this!'

  'Except us,' Lucia broke off reading to say rather tersely. 'Now, do please put them away.'

  Vermond came to see me in the afternoon, which cheered us all up excessively as he is a great favourite with my ladies in waiting who consider him infinitely more charming than horrid Durfort, who looks down his long nose at them and makes it clear that he thinks that they are not as pretty or refined as the ladies of his precious Versailles. He smiled to see me bundled up beneath a blanket and handed me a small wooden box saying, 'I thought it might amuse you to see this.'

  I opened the box to find a small, gleaming medal with my very much idealised likeness embossed on one side and 'From the most august blood she has seen the light of day, yet her high birth is the least of her merits' inscribed in flowery French on the other. I could not help but go into a peal of laughter. 'But how absurd!' I cried to Vermond, who was also laughing. 'They really do not know anything at all about me, do they?' I passed the box to my ladies so that they too could examine the medal and share the joke.

  He grinned. 'I think not, your Highness.'

  'I wonder what these merits are?' I pretended to muse before collapsing into giggles again. 'Oh, it is all just too ridiculous! They are going to be so disappointed when they finally get to see me!'

  Saturday, 20th January.

  Poor Theresia has developed a horrible cough and is being confined to her bed. Joseph is terribly worried but hides it as best he can by being his usual fond, smiling, joking self. I went to visit her this morning and it was pitiful indeed to see the poor child lying marooned in her enormous canopied bed and looking so ill and pale with her long fair hair spread in thick plaits on the pillows.

  'Aunt Antoinette,' she whispered when she saw me and I instantly smiled and sat on the edge of the bed and gave her my hand to hold, trying not to look concerned when I felt how dry and warm her little hand was against my own. 'Oh I am so bored and my head hurts so much.'

  'Poor little darling,' I murmured, leaning over her and kissing her hot forehead before motioning one of her ladies to come forward with a cloth and cooling bowl of cold water and lavender. 'You will be well again soon,' I said as gaily as I could as I wet the cloth and then gently pressed it against her forehead and scarlet cheeks. 'Just in time for the Spring.' I looked quickly up at Joseph and saw that he was frowning as he watched us.

  'I do not like that red, hectic colour in her cheeks,' he muttered as we left together. 'It does not look right. I am sure that there is more that can be done.' We could hear Theresia's terrible hacking cough from behind the door and looked at each other in fright. 'There must be something that can be done.'

  Monday, 22nd January, late.

  Theresia has slipped into a fever and is terribly ill. Joseph is beside himself. The doctors say that it is not small pox but is some sort of horrible colicky disorder. They have tried bleeding her but to no avail. I am going now with Elizabeth and Marianna to the chapel to light candles and pray for her as we don't know what else to do.

  Tuesday, 23rd January.

  Theresia slipped away from us forever earlier this evening while Joseph held her in his arms. Poor little girl.

  I cannot write any more.

  Thursday, 25th January.

  We are all in mourning and Durfort went in all his state, followed by a trail of black velvet clad page boys and absolutely stinking of rose water, to inform Mama and Joseph that as Theresia was the great granddaughter of King Louis and therefore une fille de France the whole of the French court and the capital, Paris has gone into mourning also for her passing. How strange it must be for them all to be wearing black and looking sad and attending Masses for the death of a little girl who lived far away and that not one of them had ever seen with their own eyes. It is different for us of course for we all knew and loved her.

  Mama nodded and smiled her thanks of course but Joseph went red and for a moment looked as though he wanted to turn his back on the ambassador.

  'It is an honour, of course,' he said to me when he came to visit me in my rooms later on and we were able to talk privately. 'It is just that the damned fakery and arrogance of the French really sticks in my craw and as for my poor Theresia being une fille de France? She was my daughter first but of course that means nothing to them!'

  I sighed and patted his hand, not really knowing what to say for the best. 'I think that they thought only of the honour that they were showing to you and to Theresia,' I murmured. 'I do not think they wanted to cause you any pain.'

  Joseph took my hand and raised it to his lips. 'It makes me sorry t
hat you have to go there and live amongst them.' He sighed. 'I fear that they will do everything in their power to turn you against us.'

  I was shocked. 'No! No, such a thing could never be possible! I will always be an Austrian first and foremost!' I thought of Durfort and his snide comments about how he hoped that I would not introduce anything of Viennese manners to his precious Versailles and of his insistence that as Dauphine of France I should only be surrounded by French faces.

  My brother pulled a face. 'Don't, for the love of all that is holy, let Durfort hear you say anything like that! He told me that you had requested that you be allowed to take your own ladies in waiting to Versailles with you and was very proud of himself for having turned you down.'

  'Yes, he did look very pleased indeed,' I replied with a scowl. 'What a horrid little man he is!'

  Joseph sighed. 'I am sorry that he could not be more compliant, that the French could not be more compliant. In my view you are far too young to be sent defenceless into the midst of strangers but the French have decreed otherwise it would seem.' He stretched his long black stockinged legs out in front of him. 'As usual.'

  Tuesday, 6th February.

  Another death. This time it was the Countess Lerchenfeld who was snatched away from us, never to be seen again. I have hated and loathed that woman ever since she was made my governess but now that she is gone forever I find that I cannot find it in my heart to feel anything else but the most profound sadness for her passing.

  I should write to Carolina to let her know.

  Tuesday, 6th February, later.

  I have the most terrible stomach pains and have had to spend much of the evening lying on my bed with a pillow clutched to myself. A physician was called for but he does not know what ails me.

  Could it be that I am next to die? I am too afraid to sleep in case I do not wake up in the morning.

  Wednesday, 8th February, morning.

  I am still alive and, it would seem, I am now officially a woman.

  Yes, that is right. The cramps went on all night to the terror of my poor attendants who seemed to believe that I was surely about to die. I was in tears myself thinking of poor Josepha and how she never made it to Naples and how dreadful it would be to die before I had even been married. Oh, we were all a very sorry sight indeed until I decided in the early hours to get up and use my close stool and Lucia noticed that there was blood on my white cotton nightdress.

  Of course I was terribly afraid at first and started to panic and cry even more, thinking that blood must surely mean that I was about to expire but then Anna laughed, put her arms around me and whispered that it was only the start of my monthly courses and meant no harm at all and how could I have remained so ignorant when I have so many elder sisters to tell me about it. In fact it is a good thing as it means that I am now a woman at last and able to bear a child to my husband.

  'Your Mama will have to know immediately,' Clementina said with a smile as they sent my maids away in search of a basin of warm water, cloths, towels and hot wine and then stripped me of my stained nightdress. 'She will be so pleased.'

  'I fail to see what is so pleasing about something so utterly revolting,' I remarked, covering my nakedness with my hands and perching delicately on the edge of my bed. 'Am I really to endure this every month from now on?'

  Anna nodded. 'Unless you are with child, in which case it will stop.' A maid brought in a china basin of water and a pile of cloths and immediately started to help me clean myself. 'There are ways of making it hurt less,' she whispered.

  'I am pleased to hear it,' I muttered, feeling embarrassed and rather shameful in front of them all. When I was clean again, the ladies showed me how to make a pad out of linen and place it in my undergarments and then pulled a new nightdress over my head and gently put me back to bed with the glass of warm wine.

  An urgent message has been sent to Mama to let her know and I expect everyone at court will find out shortly after that, if they don't know already. Oh dear. The thought of all the fuss and scrutiny makes me want to stay in bed forever.

  Wednesday, 8th February, late.

  Mama is thrilled. Of course. She sent a message requesting that I see her as soon as I had finished breakfast and so dutifully I trotted wearily to her rooms, remembering to wrap a thick blue velvet cloak around my shoulders on the way as of course all of her windows would be wide open as usual and it was bitterly cold today.

  'My dearest, darling girl!' She jumped up from behind her huge desk, which as usual was covered with documents, books and random bits of screwed up paper and greeted me with arms outstretched and a wide smile. 'I am so delighted by your news!'

  I curtseyed. 'I am glad.' Snow was blowing in through the windows and landing on the floor but my mother did not seem to care at all. I shivered and pulled my cloak even closer, praying that this interview would be short lived.

  'It is terribly uncomfortable of course and unpleasant but as an Archduchess of Austria you will not concern yourself with that,' Mama continued airily. 'A small amount of inconvenience is a small price to pay when one is fated to be the mother of princes and kings.'

  I nodded, my teeth chattering so loudly in my head that I was sure that she must be able to hear them. 'Yes, of course.'

  Mama sighed and touched my pale cheeks. 'It is always hard at first but it will get easier, my dear child. I myself had terrible courses when I was a young girl but it improved immeasurably once I was married and bringing forth children and I am sure that it will be much the same for you.'

  'Yes, Mama.' I sighed inwardly, thinking not for the first time that it was terribly unfair to have a mother who was such a fearless and splendidly healthy specimen and one moreover who assumed that each of her daughters was just as impervious as she. I longed to tell her that actually it did hurt and I minded the inconvenience very much but did not dare.

  Mama smiled and swept back to her desk, picking up a letter and waving it in the air. 'I have written to announce our happy news to King Louis,' she said triumphantly. 'He will be delighted to learn that you have attained maturity already and with only a few months left to go before the wedding. It is an excellent omen for the future happiness of your match.'

  I blushed. 'Is that really necessary?' Does everyone in Europe need to know?

  Mama looked shocked and dropped the letter back on to the desk, where it fell amongst a huge and untidy pile of other letters and papers. 'But of course it is necessary!' she exclaimed. 'Can you not see that your aptness and readiness to conceive is of paramount importance right now? Your marriage is not just about pretty dresses and new shoes and Paris! It is about creating an alliance between your country and France and cementing it by producing heirs for the French throne.' She began to pace a little, her heavy black taffeta skirts swishing briskly above her black silk shoes. 'Heirs who will be half Austrian by blood. Everything depends upon this.' She swung around to face me. 'I hope that you are not going to be silly about this, Antoinette?'

  I paled and shook my head. 'No, of course not! No! I want to have children!' And this is the absolute truth. My sisters may complain at length about how awful it is to be expected to have babies and bemoan losing their neat figures as the result of pregnancy but I personally cannot wait.

  Mama nodded and looked pleased. 'I am glad to hear it,' she said, sitting down behind her desk again and absentmindedly sifting through a large pile of letters. 'I have often worried that you might have the same unfortunate attitude as your elder sisters to such matters. It is all very well for them to complain about the necessity of bearing children but they are not married to the heir to France.' She looked me directly in the eye in a way that made me shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. 'I hope that you fully understand that this matter is of primary importance.'

  I nodded, longing now to escape back to my own nice snug, warm rooms and have some hot chocolate and then curl up for a little nap. 'Yes, Mama, I understand.'

  She sighed and picked up a pen, which sh
e tapped to her forehead as she spoke. 'Very well. I am pleased to hear it. Let my own physician know if you are in any discomfort and he will attend to you immediately.' And with this I was dismissed from her presence and no doubt from her very thoughts also.

  Friday, 16th February, late.

  Another letter from Amélie, this time hidden beneath a large porcelain pot of violet and lily hair powder.