The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

by Carolly Erickson

  Joseph is twenty-six, and has been married twice, but he did not grieve for either of his wives when they died, or for the poor little dead baby his first wife gave him. Joseph is hard for me to understand.

  “How much longer will she live?” Joseph asked Dr. Van Swieten.

  “A few days perhaps.”

  “When she dies, have the body taken away quickly. Let there be no announcement. She will not be missed. One excess daughter more or less—”

  “Joseph! That will do.” My mother spoke firmly, but I could hear the panic in her voice.

  But my brother, in his bitterness, went on.

  “And I want the body burned. Along with all her clothes and effects.”

  “Enough! What you propose is unchristian. I will never allow it. You forget yourself.”

  “Such foolishness!” I heard Joseph mutter. “To believe that some day all the bodies of the dead will sit up in their graves, and come back to life. A priest’s fairy tale.”

  “We will abide by the teachings of the church,” my mother said quietly. “We are not heathens, or sectarians. Besides, Josepha is still alive. And while she lives, there is hope. I will retire now to my chapel to pray for her. And I recommend that you do the same.”

  To the doctor she said, “I want to be informed if there is any change in her condition.”

  At this I could keep still no longer.

  “Oh maman, there is such a terrible change in her. You would not believe it!” Tears ran down my face as I spoke.

  My mother looked down at me, her eyes grave. Joseph glared at me in fury. Dr. Van Swieten gasped.

  “Explain yourself, Antonia,” said mother calmly.

  “I have seen her. She is all puffed up, and black and purple, and she smells horrible. And they keep her in a dark rathole under the old riding school, where no one ever goes.” I looked up into my mother’s eyes. “She’s dying, maman. She’s dying.”

  Instead of enfolding me in her black silk skirts, as I expected her to do, my mother took several steps back from me, so that I could no longer smell her familiar smell, a combination of ink and rosewater.

  “Your imperial highnesses must withdraw,” Dr. Van Swieten said to my mother and Joseph, who were both putting more distance between themselves and me. “I will take charge of her. She will be watched for signs of the black pox.” He motioned to one of the tall footmen standing at the back of the large room, waiting for orders.

  “Send for my assistant, at once. And the dairymaids.”

  I was taken to the old guards’ quarters and kept there, watched by two village women, one old, one young, until they were certain I was not going to become sick like my sister. All my clothes were taken away and burned, and Sophie sent new clothes. When I was putting them on a note fell out. It was from my sister Carlotta.

  “Dearest Antoinette,” she wrote, “how brave you were, to visit poor Josepha. Everyone knows what you did. We all have to pretend to disapprove but we admire you. I hope you don’t get sick. Joseph is angry. I love you.”

  July 3, 1769

  I have decided not to show this book to Father Kunibert. It will be my record, my private journal, of my life. Mine alone.

  So much has happened to me in the past several weeks. I have been kept away from poor Josepha, who died on the third day after I visited her. I try not to think of her in her suffering, but I know I will never forget how she looked, there in her cot, when I found her.

  Father Kunibert says I must reflect on my disobedience, and pray to be forgiven. He says I must be grateful to be alive. But I do not feel grateful, only full of sorrow. I was not allowed to attend the brief funeral mass for Josepha, because I was still being watched by the dairymaids, who inspected my hands and arms and face every morning and evening for pox blisters and murmured to one another and shook their heads over me.

  I have thought about death, and how Josepha only had seventeen years on earth, so brief a season! Why do some die and some live? I can write no more about this, I am too full of sorrow.

  July 15, 1769

  Finally Dr. Van Swieten has let me return to the apartments I share with Carlotta. I do not have the cowpox.

  July 28, 1769

  This morning Sophie got me up early and dressed me with extra care. I asked her why but she wouldn’t tell me. I knew it had to be something important when I saw her bring out my pale blue silk ball gown with the silver lamé trim and the pink satin rosettes on the bodice.

  My hair was brushed and pinned back from my face and a silver-gray wig put over it. The wig was becoming, and made me look very old I thought, especially when Sophie threaded pearls through it.

  I have always been told that I look like my father, who was very handsome. Like him I have a wide forehead and large eyes set far apart. My eyes are light blue like my mother’s and she likes me to dress in blue to bring out their color.

  I could tell, as Sophie dressed me, that she was satisfied with the effect. She smiled to herself and hummed as she worked. Sophie has been my maid ever since I was seven years old and she was fifteen, and she knows me better than anyone, better even than my mother and Carlotta.

  When I was ready I was taken into the grand salon where my mother was. There were several men with her, and they all stared hard at me as I entered the room and walked to my mother’s side.

  “Antonia, dear, this is Prince Kaunitz and this is the Duc de Choiseul.” Both men bowed to me and I inclined my head in acknowledgment, feeling the unaccustomed weight of the wig as I did so.

  My dancing master Monsieur Noverre came forward and signaled for the court musicians to play. He led me in the polonaise and then the allemande as the gentlemen watched closely. My harp was brought forward and I played several simple tunes—I am not a very accomplished harpist—and I sang an aria by Herr Gluck who had taught me to play the clavichord when I was younger.

  Trays of coffee and pastries were brought in and I sat with my mother and the prince and the duke talking of one thing and another. I felt rather foolish in my ball gown but we passed a pleasant half-hour chatting, and I did my best to answer the questions put to me, questions about everything from my religious education to my knowledge of geography and history to my ideas about marriage.

  “Naturally you hope to marry one day,” Prince Kaunitz said amiably. “And what is your idea of the perfect wife?”

  “One who loves her husband dearly, as my mother loved my father.”

  “And presents him with sons,” the Duc de Choiseul added.

  “Yes, of course. And daughters too, if the lord wills it.”

  “To be sure. Daughters too.”

  “Do you believe, archduchess, that a wife must obey her husband in all things?”

  I thought for a moment. “I hope that when I marry, my husband and I will decide together what is best, and act as one.”

  The two men looked at one another, and I thought I saw a faint look of amusement in their faces.

  “Thank you, Archduchess Antonia, for your frankness and your courtesy.”

  My mother and the men rose and walked the length of the enormous room, deep in conversation.

  “Physically, she is perfect,” the duke said. “Her education has been inadequate, but she can be taught. There is great charm—”

  “And a good heart, a very good heart,” I heard my mother add.

  They took their time, walking and talking, Prince Kaunitz gesticulating, the duke more measured, more calculated in his movements and his tone.

  “This is the alliance we have long hoped for,” I heard my mother say. “The union of Hapsburg and Bourbon will secure our fortune, long after I am gone.”

  “Austria is not our enemy,” the duke said. “Britain is. We must fortify ourselves against Britain.”

  “And we must fortify ourselves against Prussia,” Prince Kaunitz countered. “The interests of both Austria and France will be served by this marriage. And the sooner it is made, the better.”

  August 1, 1769


  I am to marry the dauphin Louis, heir to the throne of France.

  The Duc de Choiseul brought me his picture. He is ugly, but the duke assures me that he is very pleasant and well-mannered, though a bit shy.

  August 5, 1769

  I can’t think of anything except going to France. Carlotta and I talk and talk about our futures. She is betrothed to Ferdinand of Naples—the prince Josepha was to marry—and poor Josepha’s trousseau is being altered to fit Carlotta, who is much stouter.

  We promise to write to each other often after we are married, but how often will we see each other, once I am in France and she is in Naples?

  We are both very curious about what it will be like, sleeping with our husbands. We know very little, but we know it has to do with having babies and with what Father Kunibert calls the wickedness of fornication.

  “What is fornication?” I asked Father Kunibert one day.

  “Wicked carnality. Sinful congress between people who are not married—or who are married to others.”

  “But what is it exactly?”

  “Ask your mother,” he told me curtly. “After fourteen children, she is an expert.”

  But my mother was very vague on the subject when I asked her, talking of a wife’s loving obligation to please her husband, whatever he asked of her.

  “What will he ask of me?”

  “That is between you and Louis.”

  It was no use. I tried asking Sophie, but she merely shook her head and said “You will find out.”

  Finally I decided to ask the servants. One day after I had returned from riding on Lysander, and was in the stables watching the horse receive his rubdown, I approached Eric.

  Eric is eighteen or nineteen, strongly built and with dark hair and deep blue eyes. I like him and feel safe when I am with him. Once, when Lysander had bolted, Eric had come after us and stopped the runaway horse and I have always been grateful to him for that. He also told me where to find Josepha, something I have never confided to anyone—not my mother, not Father Kunibert when I made my confession to him, not Joseph when he came to me and demanded to know how I had discovered where our poor sick sister was being kept.

  So I said to Eric, as he was brushing Lysander, I am to be married soon, and no one will tell me what to expect. Will you tell me?

  Eric stopped brushing the horse, letting the brush rest against Lysander’s powerful brown haunch. Without meeting my gaze, he said, “That is not for me to tell you, your highness.”

  “But you’ve always answered my questions before. I count on you.”

  He trembled and dropped the brush into the straw. Quickly, before I had time to realize what was happening, he reached for me and kissed me.

  I was on fire. I could not think, or breathe, or react. It was the most delicious moment of my life.

  He released me. “There,” he said, breathless, “that is what you can expect. That and more. And if you tell anyone about this”—he bent and picked up the brush and began brushing Lysander’s coat again—“I will be dismissed—or shot by the guards.”

  “I won’t say anything.” I was smiling. I wanted him to kiss me again.

  August 10, 1769

  Eric will be accompanying me to France, along with Sophie and my laundress and my new tutor, Abbé Vermond, who is teaching me to speak proper French instead of the court French we speak here in Vienna. The abbé says we all have thick German accents.

  As for who else will go with me, I will not find out for many months. Mother says I am expected to leave my old life behind when I go to France. I must become a Frenchwoman, so that my husband’s subjects will find me acceptable as their queen.

  “You must become as much like the French as possible,” maman told me, “but in your heart and blood you will always be a Hapsburg. By your marriage you will save Austria. As long as Hapsburg and Bourbon are allied by marriage, the Monster Frederick of Prussia will remain at bay. He cannot devour us while we have the loyal support of the French.”

  Abbé Vermond is doing what he can to make me understand these high matters, but I confess that what interests me far more are the French styles.

  Every week I receive dozens of dolls from Paris, dressed in the fashions to be worn next spring. From these I am expected to choose my trousseau.

  Carlotta is very jealous. Her trousseau will not fill more than ten trunks, while mine will easily fill a hundred, maman says. I have lined up the dolls underneath the windows of our bedroom and each day, after I have heard mass and had my lessons with Abbé Vermond, I walk in front of the long row of dolls and pretend that they are court ladies, bowing to me.

  September 7, 1769

  A few days ago we came here to Greifelsbrunn, one of our hunting lodges. My brother Joseph is a great hunter and my mother follows the hunt in her carriage. Every night the animals killed that day are laid out on the grass for all to see, stags and boar and aurochs, their antlers and tusks gleaming in the torchlight.

  I go for long walks with Carlotta. The air is crisp in the forest and already the leaves on the great trees are turning gold and red.

  I am growing taller. Sophie measured me. I have put on weight and the dressmakers in Paris who are creating my trousseau have been told to make the bodices of my gowns wider and longer.

  I am growing, but General Krottendorf still has not arrived. (General Krottendorf is the name we give to a woman’s menstrual period in my family.) My mother is anxious about this because I cannot be married until I am ready to have babies, and I am to leave for France in only seven months. Carlotta got her first visit from the general when she was fourteen. Josepha was fifteen.

  I hope that all the exercise I am getting here at Greifelsbrunn will have a good effect, and make me grow up faster. I go riding with my mother or Carlotta and feel quite invigorated afterwards. I linger in the stables in order to see Eric. I have told no one about his kissing me, but I think about it often. I want to be alone with him, so that he can kiss me again.

  I know Father Kunibert would disapprove, especially now that I am betrothed to Prince Louis. But I can’t help it. My feelings are strong.

  September 10, 1769

  We are still here at Greifelsbrunn and it is a warm autumn night with a light rain falling outside. I am alone, Carlotta is sick and maman sent her back to Schönbrunn this morning to consult Dr. Van Swieten.

  I went riding today with Eric. I was going to go alone, Carlotta being gone and the others off hunting, but the stable master stopped me and said that the woods could be dangerous and I needed an escort. He ordered Eric to go with me.

  My heart was pounding, but I tried not to look too pleased as Eric brought his horse up and we set off.

  I challenged him to a race and won—of course he let me win, I imagine. We rode through deep woods and then came to the shore of a tranquil green lake. I had never before ridden so far from the lodge and didn’t know that this lake existed.

  Eric dismounted and then lifted me down off Lysander’s back. The feel of his strong, warm hands made me almost dizzy with happiness.

  We walked the horses along the lake shore. It was a tranquil scene, the calm of the dark limpid water and a screen of yellow-leaved maples on the far bank. The sky was overcast, and soon raindrops began plashing into the water.

  “Here, let’s take shelter here,” Eric said, leading me into a thicket. The rain began to fall harder, and my skirt was getting muddy. Already my shoes were nearly ruined.

  An outcropping of rocks led into a dim cave, and I pulled Eric inside. There was no sound but the noise of the rain. I looked at him, willing him to kiss me, wondering if I had the courage to kiss him.

  “Your highness,” he said softly, “I long to possess you. But I must not—we must not.”

  “Only this once,” I told him. “Then never again.”

  I sat down on the soft moss and pulled him down beside me. Then he kissed me again and again, and I thought, I want to die, I can’t bear this excitement, this joy. We kiss
ed and kissed, but that was all. There was none of what Father Kunibert would have called fornication.

  Eric was very tender, and confessed that he had loved me for a long time. He told me I was beautiful, and kind, and that he was not worthy to hold my horse, much less be my lover. He confessed that he met girls from the castle, chambermaids and kitchen girls, from time to time and slept with them and that once he had slept with an older married woman who was one of my mother’s ladies-in-waiting.

  “Which one?” I asked him, but he would not say.

  “Your highness,” he said at length, getting up and helping me to my feet, “you are far too young and far too highborn to become infatuated with a servant. You must save your desire for your husband.”

  I confess I cried then, remembering the picture I had been sent of Prince Louis.

  “But he is ugly!” I burst out. “He looks like a pig!”

  Eric laughed. “Pig or not, he will be a great king.”

  “But that is nothing to me.” I knew even as I said the words that that was not quite true.

  “It is a great deal to your family.”

  I didn’t want this beautiful, spellbound afternoon to end. We rode back to the lodge slowly, and when at last we reached the stables Eric helped me dismount with unusual gentleness. He took my hand and kissed it.

  “Your highness,” he said, bowing, and led the horses toward the stalls.

  I made my way to the lodge, aware that my skirts were wet and mud-stained and my hair, which Sophie had dressed simply that morning, was in disarray.

  As soon as she saw me Sophie got a knowing look in her eye, but said nothing. She merely helped me out of my wet clothes and ordered the groom to bring hot water for my bath.

  I am still wrapped in a warm cocoon of contentment. I wonder whether Eric is thinking of me. I am sure that he is.

  When Josepha died, I thought to myself, how sad that she had to die before ever having known love. Now I realize that if I die tomorrow, I will not be like my sister. I have known love, I do know it, and nothing else matters.