After the ceremony guns were fired at the Spitalplatz, and then . the banquet.
I was to leave my home two days later, and suddenly I began to realise what this was going to mean. It struck me that I might never see my mother again. She called me to her room and again gave me many instructions. I listened fearfully; I was beginning to feel apprehensive.
She told me to be seated at a desk and take up my pen. I was to write a letter to my grandfather, for the King of France would now be that.
I must remember it. I must seek to please him. I must obey him and never offend him. And now I must write to him. I was glad I was not expected to compose the letter. That would, indeed, have been beyond my powers; it was bad enough to have to write to my mother’s dictation. She watched me. I can imagine her fears. There I sat, my head on one side, frowning in concentration, biting my tongue, the tip of which protruded slightly, making the utmost effort, but only managing to produce a childish scrawl with crooked lines. I remember asking the King of France to be indulgent to me and begging him to ask the indulgence of the Dauphin on my behalf.
I paused to think of the Dauphin, the other important player in this . farce, comedy or tragedy? How could I know which it was to be?
Later I came to think of it as all three. What of the Dauphin? No one spoke much of him. Sometimes my attendants referred to him as though he were a handsome hero . as all princes should be. Of course he would be handsome. We should dance together and we should have babies.
How I longed for babies! Little goldenhaired children who would adore me. When I became a mother I should cease to be a child. Then I thought of Caroline—those poor pathetic letters of hers.
“He is very ugly … but one grows accustomed to that….” My mother had talked to me of everything that I might encounter at the Court of France . except my bridegroom.
My mother then put her arm about me and held me to her while she wrote to the King of France. I looked at her quick pen, admiring the skill with which it travelled over the paper. She was begging the King of France to care for her ‘very dear child. “
“I pray you be indulgent towards any thoughtless act of my dear child’s. She has a good heart, but she is impulsive and a little wild….” I felt the tears coming to my eyes because I was sorry for her. That seemed strange, but she was so worried because she knew me so well and she could guess at the sort of world into which I was being thrust.
The Marquis de Durfort had brought with him to Austria two carriages which the King of France had had made for the sole purpose of taking me to France. We had heard of these carriages in advance. They had been made by Francien, the leading camagemaker in Paris, and the King of France had ordered that no expense should be spared in the making.
Prancien had lived up to his reputation arid they were quite magnificent, lined with satin and decorated with paintings in delicate colours, with gold crowns on the outside to proclaim them royal carriages. I was to discover that they were not only the most beautiful I had ever travelled in but the most comfortable.
The Marquis came with a hundred and seventeen bodyguards, all in coloured uniforms; and it was boasted that the cost of this merry little cavalcade was about three hundred and fifty thousand ducats.
On the twenty-first of April my journey to France began. During the last few years I have often thought of my mother when she said goodbye to me. She knew it was the last time she would hold me in her arms, the last time she would kiss me. No doubt words came into her mind.
Remember this. Don’t do that. Surely she had said it all to me in her icy bedroom; but knowing me, she would realise that I had forgotten half of it by now. In any case I should have heard little of what she said to me. Now I knew she was praying silently to God and the Saints, asking them to guard me. She saw me as a helpless child wandering in the jungle.
“My dearest child,” she whispered; and suddenly I did not want to leave her. This was my home. I wanted to stay in it-even if it did mean lessons and painful hairstyles and lectures in a cold bedroom. I should not be fifteen until November and suddenly I felt very young and inexperienced. I wanted to plead to be allowed to stay at home for a little longer, but Monsieur de Durfort’s magnificent carriages were waiting; Kaunitz was looking impatient and relieved that all the bargaining was over. Only my mother was sad and I wondered if I could be alone with her and beg to be allowed to stay. But of course I could not. Much as she loved me she would never allow my whims to interfere with state affairs. It was a state affair. The thought made me want to laugh—and it pleased me too. I really was a very important person.
“Goodbye, my dearest child. I shall write to you regularly. It will be as though I am with you.”
“Yes, Mamma.”
“We shall be apart but I shall never cease to think of you until I die. Love me always. It is the only thing that can console me.”
And then I was getting into the carriage with Joseph, who was to accompany me for the first day. I had had little to do with Joseph, who was so much older and had become so important now that he was Emperor and co-ruler with my mother. He was kind, but because of my mood I found his pomposity irritating, and all the time he gave me advice to which I did not want to listen. I wanted to think about my little dogs, which the servants had assured me they would care for.
When we passed the Schonbrunn Palace I looked at the yellow walls and the green shutters and remembered how Caroline, Ferdinand, Max and I used to watch the older ones perform their plays, operas and ballets.
I remembered how the servants used to bring refreshments to us in the gardens—lemonade, which my mother thought was good for us, and little Viennese cakes covered with cream.
Before I left, my mother had given me a packet of papers which she said I was to read regularly. I had glanced at them and saw that they contained rules and regulations which she had already given me during our talks. I would read them later, I promised myself. I wanted now to think about the old times—the pleasantness of the days before Caroline and Maria Amalia had been so unhappy. I glanced at Joseph, who had had his own tragedies, and thought he seemed to have recovered as he sat there so serenely against the gorgeous satin upholstery.
“Always remember you are a German…. I wanted to yawn. Joseph in his laboured way was trying to impress upon me the importance of my marriage. Did I realise that my retinue consisted of one hundred and thirty-two persons? Yes, Joseph, I had heard it all before.
“Ladies-in-waiting, your servants, your hairdressers, dressmakers, secretaries, surgeons, pages, furriers, chaplains, cooks and so on.
Your grand postmaster the Prince of Paar has thirty-four subordinates.”
“Yes, Joseph, it is a great number.”
“It is not to be supposed that we should allow the French to think that we cannot send you off in a style to match their own. Did you know that we are using three hundred and seventy-six horses and that these horses have to be changed four or five times a day?”
“No, Joseph. But now you have told me.”
“You should know these things. Twenty thousand horses have been placed along the road from Vienna to Strasbourg to convey you and your retinue there.”
“It is a great number.”
I wished that he had talked to me more of his marriage and had warned me what to expect of mine. I was bored by these figures, and all the time I was fighting my desire to cry.
At Moick, which we reached after eight hours’ driving, we stayed at the Benedictine convent, where the scholars per formed an opera for us. It was a bore. I felt very sleepy, and as I kept thinking of the previous night, which I had spent in my mother’s bedroom in the Hofburg, I felt I wanted to cry for the comfort she could give me. For oddly enough, in spite of the lectures, she had comforted me; with out knowing it I had felt that while she was there, omnipotent and omniscient, I was safe because all her care was for me.
Joseph left me the next day and I was not sorry. He was a good brother who loved me but his conversation ma
de me so tired and I always found it difficult to concentrate at the best of times.
What a long journey! The Princess of Paar shared my carriage and tried to comfort me by talking of the wonders of Versailles and what a brilliant future lay before me. To Enns, to Lambach, on to Nymphenburg. At Giinsburg we rested for two days with my father’s sister. Princess Charlotte I had vague memories of her at Schonbrunn for she had at one time been a member of our household. My father had been very fond of her and they used to take long walks together, but my mother resented her presence. Perhaps she resented anyone of whom my father was fond; and eventually Charlotte retired to Remiremont, where she became the Abbess. She talked lovingly of my father and I went with her to distribute food to the poor, which was a change from all the banquets and balls.
We crossed the Black Forest and came to the Abbey of Schiittern, where I was visited by the Comte de Noailles who was to be my guardian. He was old and very proud of the duty which had been entrusted to him by his friend the Due de Choiseul. I thought he was a vain old fellow and I was not sure whether I liked him. He did not stay long with me for there arose a difficulty about the ceremony which lay before me. It was again a matter of whose names should come first on a document.
Prince Starhemburg, who was going to hand me formally over to the French, was in a great passion about this; and so was the Comte de Noailles.
I felt very sad that night because I knew it was going to be my last on German soil. I suddenly found myself crying bitterly in the arms of the Princess of Paar and saying over and over again: “I shall never see my mother again.”
That day a letter had reached me from her. She must have sat down and written it as soon as I left; and I knew that she had written it in tears. Snatches of it come back to me now:
My dear child, you are now where Providence has placed you. Even if one were to think no more of the greatness of your position, you are the happiest of your brothers and sisters. You will find a tender father who will be at the same time your friend. Have every confidence in him. Love him and be submissive to him. I do not speak of the Dauphin. You know my delicacy on that subject. A wife is subject to her husband in all things and you should have no other aim than to please him and do his will. The only real happiness in this world comes through a happy marriage. I can say this from experience. And all depends on the woman, who should be willing, gentle and able to amuse. “
I read and re-read that letter. That night it was my greatest comfort.
The next day I would pass into my new country;
I would say goodbye to so many of the people who had accompanied me so far. There was so much I had to learn, so much which would be expected of me—and all I could do was cry for my mother.
“I shall never see her again,” I murmured into my pillow.
The Bewildered Bride
The Golden Age will be born from such a union, and under the happy rule of Mane Antoinette and Louis-Auguste our nephews will see the continuation of the happiness we enjoy under Louis the Well-Beloved.
PRINCE DE ROHAN AT STRASBOURG
On the no-man’s land of a sandbank in the middle of the Rhine a building had been erected, and in this was to take place the ceremony of the Remise. The Princess of Paar had impressed on me that this was the most important ceremony so far, for during it I should cease to be Austrian. I was to walk into that building on one side as an Austrian Archduchess and emerge on the other as a French Dauphine.
It was not a very impressive building, for it had been hastily constructed; it would be used for this purpose only and that would be an end of it. Once on the island I was led into a kind of antechamber where my women stripped me of all my clothes, and I felt so wretched standing there naked before them all that I had to think of my mother at her most stern to prevent myself breaking into sobs. I put my hand up to the chain necklace which I had worn for so many years, as though I were trying to hide it. But I could not save it. The poor thing was Austrian and therefore had to come off.
I was shivering as they dressed me in my French clothes, but I could not help noticing that they were finer than anything I had had in Austria and this lifted my spirits. Clothes meant a great deal to me and I never lost my excitement for a new material, a new fashion or a diamond. When I was dressed I was taken to the Prince Starhemburg who was waiting for me; he held my hand firmly and led me into the hall
which formed the centre of this building. It seemed large after the little antechamber, and in the centre was a table which was covered with a crimson velvet cloth. Prince Starhemburg referred to this room as the Salon de Remise, and he pointed out that the table symbolised the frontier between my old country and my new.
The walls of the room were hung with tapestries, which were beautiful, though the scenes depicted on them were horrible, for they represented the story of Jason and Medea. I found my eyes straying to them during the short ceremony, and when I should have been listening to what was being said I was thinking of Jason’s murdered children and the Furies’ flaming chariot. Years later I heard that before the ceremony the poet Goethe, then a young law student at Strasbourg University, had come to look at the hall and had expressed his horror it the tapestries, adding that he could not believe anyone would have put them where a young bride was to enter her us band country. They were pictures, he said, of ‘the most horrible marriage that could be imagined. ” People would see it as an omen, too.
The ceremony was fortunately short. I was led to the other de of the table, a few words were spoken, and I had become ench.
I was then relinquished by Prince Starhemburg and given into the hands of the Comte de Noailles, who led me into the antechamber on the French side of the building, where he presented me to his wife, who with him was to share the guardianship. I felt bewildered and scarcely glanced at her. All I knew was that I felt lonely and frightened, and that this woman was to look after me, and without thinking I threw myself into her arms, subconsciously feeling sure that this childish and impulsive gesture would charm her.
When I felt her stiffen, I looked up into her face. She seemed old . very old; her face was wrinkled and set into lines of severity. For a second or so my behaviour had startled her; and then gently, but firmly, she withdrew herself and said:
“I beg leave of Madame la Dauphine to present to her her Mistress of the Robes, the Duchesse de Villars.”
I was too surprised to show that I was hurt. In any case dignity had been stressed in my upbringing and my mother’s instructions to such an extent that it was almost intuitive, so, accepting the fact that I could hope for small comfort from Madame de Noailles, I turned to the Duchesse de Villars, to find that she too was old, cold and remote.
“And Madame la Dauphine’s maids of honour.” There they stood: the Duchesse de Picquigny, the Marquise de Duras, the Comtesse de Saulx-Tavannes and the Comtesse de Mailly —and all old. A band of severe old ladies!
I found myself coolly acknowledging their greeting.
From no-man’s island the brilliant cavalcade made its way to Strasbourg, the Alsace possession which had gone to France at the conclusion of the Peace of Ryswick nearly a hundred years before. The people of Strasbourg were delighted with the wedding, because they were so dangerously near the frontier and they were anxious to show their pleasure. The greeting I received in that town took away the flavour of the chilly reception in the Salon de Remise and my introduction to the ladies who had been chosen for me. This was the sort of occasion in which I revelled. In the streets of the city, children dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses brought flowers to me, and I loved the pretty little creatures and wished that all the solemn men and women would leave me with the children. The people of Strasbourg had had the happy idea of lining the route with small boys dressed as Swiss Guards; they looked adorable; and when I arrived at the Bishop’s Palace, where I was to stay that night, I asked if these little boys might be my guard for the night. When the little boys heard this they jumped about and laughed with pleasure; and
next morning I peeped out of my window and saw them there. They saw me and cheered me. That was my most pleasant memory of Strasbourg.
At the Cathedral I was met by Cardinal de Rohan, an ancient man who moved as though he suffered acutely from the gout. There followed a grand banquet and a visit to the theatre. From a balcony of the Palace we watched the decorated barges on the river, and the firework display
was very exciting, particularly when I saw my initials entwined with those of the Dauphin, high in the sky. After that—to bed, to be guarded by my little Swiss Guards.
The next morning I went to the Cathedral to hear Mass, expecting to see the old Cardinal again; but on this occasion he was too unwell to attend and in his place was his nephew, a very handsome young man, Bishop-Coadjutor of the Diocese, Prince Louis de Rohan, who would most certainly become a Cardinal when his uncle died, which from the look of the old man could not be long.
He had one of the most beautiful voices I had ever heard-but perhaps I thought this because I was unaccustomed to the French love of the gracefully-spoken word. In a few days’ time I was to think that the King of France had the most beautiful voice in the world. But on this occasion I was charmed by that of Prince Louis. He was very respectful, but there was a gleam in his eye which disturbed me. He made me feel very young and inexperienced, even though his words were all that even my mother could have wished for.
Tor us, Madame,” he said, ‘you will be the living image of that dear Empress who for so long has been the admiration of Europe, as she will be in the ages to come. The soul of Maria Theresa will be united with that of the Bourbons.”
That sounded very fine, and I was happy to hear that they thought so highly of my mother.
“The Golden Age will be born from such a union, and under the happy rule of Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste our nephews will see the continuation of the happiness we enjoy under Louis the Well-Beloved.”
The Queen`s Confession Page 4
