by Juliet Grey
My beloved Toinette:
You asked what it is like to become the wife of a man you have never met, let alone know if you can ever love. One suffers real martyrdom, which is all the greater because one must pretend outwardly to be happy, while unknown to all, your heart withers on its vine. I would rather die than endure again what I had to suffer. My husband has less sense than a pig, although his manners and habits are similar enough to one. The first night … was so unspeakably humiliating. He came to bed reeking of garlic and onions, hopped upon me as though I were a sack of potatoes and then, when his duty (and mine, we mustn’t forget) was done, had the insouciance to accuse me of smelling rank and of having an ugly face! This from a man whose hair, even when he bothers to comb and powder it, has the color and consistency of dung-colored straw, whose vacuous countenance is marred with pustules, and who lacks the maturity of a simpleton.
You are either laughing as you read this, or you are terrified that I will be punished for writing such things about the king of the Two Sicilies. But no one here speaks German, so they cannot read my correspondence.
I must end this letter sooner than I had expected. A dispatch has arrived from the prime minister. Ferdinand is, as usual, off to the hunt. This leaves me to deal with Mr. Acton; and it will not surprise you to learn that I am making the most of this opportunity. Maman would be proud, I think. This little Hapsburg is fortunate in nothing else but in having a husband who cares even less for governance than he does for fashion.
Please keep me in your prayers, dear sister: I have much need of them.
Your loving sister Charlotte,
Queen of the Two Sicilies
Maman had granted my request for the fashion dolls to be placed in my suite of rooms. Sometimes I would invite a pair of playfellows—the daughters of my wet nurse, Frau Weber—to enjoy them with me. Although the Hapsburgs were a close-knit family, Maman fiercely believed that we should behave as any bourgeois brood might and mingle with “ordinary” children, the better to understand our subjects and to appreciate the benefits of our birthright. But this mandate only went so far. Commoners were not our friends, she would remind us. There would always be an unseen, but nevertheless impenetrable, barrier between an archduchess of Austria and the offspring of a servant or tradesperson. We might share our toys with Frau Weber’s children, but never our secrets.
Consequently, in the absence of Charlotte the French dolls became my companions and confidantes. Their red painted lips could not reveal my fears; their tiny wooden ears heard only what I wished them to know. And the grandes pandores who so resembled my much older siblings, even down to the color of their eyes and hair—why, my imagination brought me closer to them than we had truly been. The smaller dolls, the poupées de la mode, were each a miniature marvel of mantua making. In the privacy of my rooms, I peeked up their dresses to inspect their undergarments, examples of the very things I would wear next to my skin. They were so delicate, so elaborate, so tiny! Silk stockings, as white as virgin snow, with reinforced toes and heels, enveloped legs no thicker than two of my fingers; doll-sized sets of stays, embroidered and embellished; frothy flounced petticoats—and, oh, the shoes! Every doll wore a different pattern. With so many garments being prepared for my bridal trousseau, I imagined that the most difficult decision of the day, once I became dauphine, would be choosing what to wear.
“Maman says she spent four hundred thousand livres to dress all of you,” I whispered to the dolls one November night. I had taken to sleeping beside one of the grandes pandores, my arm crooked about her torso, crumpling her sumptuous wedding gown. Mops did not conceal his jealousy of my new bedfellows; several times I scolded him for gnawing on their legs and tearing at their skirts with his teeth.
“But,” I confided to the doll I’d named Charlotte, “I overheard Maman tell the duc de Choiseul that Louis has not yet formalized his offer for my hand in marriage to his grandson the dauphin.”
“Charlotte” looked at me with her pale blue glass eyes. Her lashes were tiny dots painted in a row beneath them. “Perhaps I won’t have to leave Vienna after all.” But that thought gave way to the fear of failing Maman. I knew she had done everything the French diplomats—as well as Austria’s ambassador to Versailles, the comte de Mercy—had advised. Still, the expected commitment from Louis Quinze had not materialized.
A sharp knock at my bedroom door startled me. I blew out the candle in haste and pretended to be asleep. Then the door was flung open. I clasped “Charlotte” more tightly and buried my face in her satin-clad shoulder.
“Antonia!”
I bolted upright. “Maman?” I could not recall the last time she had visited my bedroom. We came to the empress, as bidden; she did not make it a habit to look in on her children, particularly in the middle of the night.
Behind her a servant carried a candle; the silhouette of the flame flickered ominously on the wall above my bed. My mother peered at me, her fist clutched to her chest to close her dressing gown. Even in shadow I could see her displeasure, evident in the set of her mouth, in her narrowed eyes. “What do you think you are doing?” she demanded, her voice and manner as alert as if it were already breakfast time.
“Sleeping?” I replied meekly. The word squeaked out as a feeble question.
“With that,” Maman amended, pointing to the grande pandore beside me in the bed.
“It’s ‘Charlotte,’ ” I insisted.
“It’s nonsense,” my mother said sharply. “God and Louis of France willing, you are going to be a bride, Antonia; you are far too old to play with dolls. Some girls your age are already mothers.”
“Because they have met Générale Krottendorf,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, Maman,” I murmured.
My mother’s rebuke fixed my decision not to inform her that I pretended that the poupées de la mode were my make-believe children by the dauphin, although I also had to imagine that some of the dolls were little boys, so that they could inherit the throne. Because boys wore dresses until they were breeched, it was not such an absurd conceit. When I was all alone I would speak to them as if they were my babies, scolding or coddling depending on the scenario I imagined. I knew nothing of what it meant to be a bride, other than to wear an enviably beautiful gown, like the grandes pandores. Was it a surprise that I should be afraid of the one-way journey to an alien court, where I would forever speak a foreign tongue? Maman, who brooked no weakness in anyone, least of all herself, would not have countenanced a word of my childish fretting.
“God has answered my prayer,” she announced. “Of late I have been convinced that only divine intervention could prepare you to become dauphine, and through the good offices of the duc de Choiseul and the Archbishop of Toulouse, a savior has arrived. Your tutelage will commence immediately.” She gestured to the brocade bellpull hanging alongside my bed. “Ring for Liesl and have her dress you in your blue striped robe à l’anglaise. In half an hour I will expect you to attend me in the audience chamber.”
The “savior” was, at thirty-four, only a few years older than my brother, the Emperor Franz Joseph; but having just attained the age of thirteen, I found him positively ancient. He was introduced to us by a bleary-eyed duc de Choiseul who had ridden through the night to escort Abbé Jacques-Mathieu de Vermond to Vienna. This priest, with his unprepossessing manner and thatch of russet hair, was to mold my mind and finish my education.
In his long black soutane with its narrow white jabot at the throat, the abbé seemed at the time even older than his years. His pale eyes were, to my own sleepy ones, alert but not immensely intelligent, lacking the requisite fire I imagined would be the hallmark of a brilliant man of parts. As my mother peppered him with questions regarding his pedagogical qualifications, his morals, his manners, and the entire history of his family, I watched his face closely. Did such an interrogation (and before the sun had risen, no less) intimidate him? Evidently, it did not—and if he had been overwhelmed
by the presence of the empress of Austria or by the interview itself, he possessed the admirable equanimity not to reveal his anxiety.
“The abbé is nothing if not patient,” the duc de Choiseul asserted with a chuckle, tipping a nod to his new protégé.
“Then we shall test his mettle,” my mother replied. Turning to address the raven-clad cleric, she added, “The archbishop speaks of you with the highest of compliments. Consequently I place my faith, and that of my entire realm, in your hands. I regret to admit that the archduchess has too many academic deficiencies to be blithely overlooked, and it will be up to you, monsieur l’abbé, to ameliorate the matter.”
The stakes could not have been greater. My mother had placed the fate of an empire on the perfectly ordinary shoulders of a simple priest with nothing but a pair of recommendations and a certificate from the Sorbonne to commend him.
Abbé Vermond nodded his head and bowed respectfully. “Merci, Your Imperial Majesty. I thank you for bringing me to Austria and hope that God sees fit to make me worthy of the trust you have placed in my hands and of the education of madame l’archiduchesse.”
Maman waved her hand dismissively; at that small hour of the morning she lacked the patience for obsequiousness. “You will be shown to your rooms where a pot of coffee or chocolate will await you. There will of course be a basin and ewer with which to cleanse yourself after such a long journey. At the hour of six I will expect you to be in the Rosenzimmer, prepared to begin your tutorials. I will also expect daily reports as to my daughter’s progress. And do not mince words. Time will not wait upon her improvement.” Maman looked from the abbé to the duc de Choiseul, as if to seek additional confirmation that she had indeed engaged a redeemer. Although the nobleman’s mouth betrayed no emotion, his dark eyes were intense with meaning. “Well then!” she said briskly. “Good morning and welcome to the court of Vienna, Monsieur de Vermond.”
——
It would be a trial by fire and I had been plunged into the cauldron. With so many other lessons occupying my time, Maman accorded the abbé Vermond just one hour a day in which to improve my education. The abbé spoke no German, so my lessons would of course be conducted in French, making them all the more arduous. The endless conjugations and grammatical exercises bored me to distraction. And as the wintry frosts began to thaw and Vienna burst into bud, nothing could have been more onerous than composing essays on French history and geography. “I cannot learn on paper,” I insisted. “My mind just won’t retain it.”
But the abbé was very clever; he would see my attention flagging and turn a lesson into a game. One day he spread a large document on our work table. “Here is a map of Europe,” he said. “Show me Vienna.”
I gave him my best smile. “I can show you Vienna better out of doors.”
“But then you will miss the journey,” he replied cryptically. Endeavoring to conceal his exasperation, he said, “We begin here: Vienna.” His pale finger pointed to a dot on the map. By the end of the hour I had traced a line across Europe, marking my entourage’s eventual excursion across the Hapsburg empire and into Bourbon France, memorizing the locations of every destination between the Hofburg and Versailles. Cities and villages that had been no more than unfamiliar names printed on a sheet of colorful paper suddenly had meaning to me. Armed with the knowledge that my carriage would clatter through countless towns, I wished to know about each of them. What did they look like? What did the people eat? How did they dress?
Some destinations held more mystery for me than others. Near Strasbourg, the border between our realm and that of Louis XV, I would make the magical transformation from Austrian archduchess to dauphine of France. In the forest of Compiègne, outside Paris, I would finally meet the king and his grandson—who by then would be my husband!
This lesson was augmented by a catechism of sorts: identifying the various men involved in arranging my marriage. For every correct answer, I was permitted to take a bite out of a raspberry tart dusted with powdered sugar.
“Who is the comte de Mercy-Argenteau?” Vermond asked.
“Comte de Mercy is Austria’s ambassador to France.” The abbé nodded and I bit into the pastry.
“And who is Prince Starhemberg?”
“Maman’s Envoy Extraordinary—her special envoy—who will lead the Hapsburg delegation into France. His father was a great field marshal who brought glory to Austria, which is why Maman singled him out for the special honor.” I took another nibble of the tart. “An Envoy Extraordinary is not as lofty as a minister—or even as an ambassador, like monsieur le comte de Mercy. His sovereign may send him on all sorts of assignments, and to many different places, depending upon what he is required to do at any given time.”
“The duc de Choiseul?”
“France’s Chief Minister,” I replied, licking the sugar from my fingertips. “Maman says it was his idea—as well as hers, of course—to marry me to the dauphin of France.” I marveled at how the duc managed to serve two masters with such agility. I once overheard Maman mention that King Louis “stirred up controversy even as he shrank from it”; and she herself was the hardest woman in Europe to please, I was sure of it.
“That is correct, madame l’archiduchesse. And for an additional bite of raspberry tart, tell me why your marriage is so important to the duc.”
“An alliance between Austria and France will dissuade England—France’s enemy—from any notions of invading France, because Britain would then have our imperial army to contend with as well. And with the support of France on our side, Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia will think twice about overrunning our borders and conquering part of our empire, like Frederick did with Silesia before we entered the treaty with France.”
“Your tart, madame!”
Grinning my thanks, I made sure to savor my extra bite.
“And what about the marquis de Durfort? What is his role in your marriage plans?”
I reached for the pastry again, but the abbé deftly pushed it just beyond my grasp. “Durfort is France’s ambassador to the Austrian court.” Abbé Vermond moved the raspberry tart closer; I covered it with my palm as I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And he has developed a tendre for the Countess von Dorfli, even though he has a wife back in France. It’s all quite shocking.”
I could see that the abbé was trying to suppress a chuckle. “Très bien, madame l’archiduchesse. Except for that bit about the transgression of the sixth commandment.” He cleared his throat. “And tell me about Prince Kaunitz.”
The tart was almost gone. “Prince Kaunitz is Austria’s chancellor—Maman’s most important minister.” It was Prince Kaunitz who had been in large measure responsible for our treaty with France in 1756. Our countries had been enemies before that. After the duc de Choiseul had embarrassed me so many months ago with his question regarding the treaty, I made it my business to learn all about it. “I do believe Prince Kaunitz has the most amusing nose; it swoops down at a precipitous angle and then rises up again at the tip. Do you not think so?” I grinned at my tutor.
“It is not for me to say,” the abbé replied diplomatically.
Although he was no pinch-faced Countess von Lerchenfeld, abbé Vermond was far from doting. I still missed my beloved Countess von Brandeiss. And in those first few weeks I fear I sorely tested the abbé’s customary patience. But in time, we achieved a mutual respect, albeit a begrudging one.
“You have the hand of a child,” he said one day, referring to my immature, loopy penmanship. Herr Mesmer, my writing teacher, had failed me miserably, being more interested in his experiments on the workings of the mind than on the empty one of the youngest archduchess. I was considered by my family and tutors to be rather proficient with pen and ink, a tolerable artist (for an archduchess, of course); and yet my handwriting—which I agonized over—produced an ungrammatical, misspelled mess of blots and scrawls.
“Let’s try this sentence, madame l’archiduchesse: The quee
n is kind and amiable.”
I dipped my quill and began to write, Le rein est gentille et—Vermond halted my belabored progess by silently touching the tip of his pencil to the word rein. Glancing from my error to the abbé and back, a peal of laughter issued from my belly. “Mon Dieu!” I exclaimed. “I almost wrote ‘the kidney is kind and amiable’!” I began anew: La reine est gentille et aimable.
Later, when the time came to stand before Maman and offer her a report of my progress, he did not toss me to the wolves. There was much he could have said, and perhaps he did so when I was not in the room. Or perhaps he recognized that my mother was taskmaster enough for two.
That progress report I recall above all others. Maman was taking coffee in her breakfast room. She questioned my tutor as if I wasn’t there; it was often her way when she conversed with another adult in my presence.
“Your Imperial Majesty, it pleases me to say that Madame Antonia is more intelligent than has been generally supposed,” the abbé responded.
Maman raised an eyebrow.
“Your daughter deserves praise where it is due,” Vermond conceded. “She has many fine qualities, traits that cannot be taught, but which are innate and genuine. Madame Antonia will make an exceptional dauphine in due time.” He pressed on. “Physically, she is becoming quite a beauty. Even a man of my bent,” he said, indicating his clerical soutane, “can see that she has a most graceful figure; holds herself well; and if (as may be hoped) she grows a little taller, she will have all the good qualities one could wish for in a great princess. Her character, her heart, are excellent.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. His words made me stand a little straighter, raise my chin a bit higher. If I could have become taller in that moment, I would have done so, knowing that it would please the abbé. As of that moment, I ceased to regard him as merely my tutor; the gentle cleric had become my friend.
Maman peered at Vermond, lifting her lorgnette purely for effect; she had no need of it to see him clearly. “Well, then, monsieur l’abbé. It is up to you, n’est-ce pas, to see that her mind flourishes with the same vigor.” She lowered the lorgnette and leveled her gaze, direct and unyielding. “Do not disappoint me. The history of the world as we know it, you and I, hangs in the balance.”
