Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
ANTHOLOGIES
Scottish Love Poems
Love Letters
PUBLISHED BY NAN A. TALESE
an imprint of Doubleday
a division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
DOUBLEDAY is a trademark of Doubleday
a division of Random House, Inc.
Published in 2001 in the United Kingdom by
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fraser, Antonia, 1932–
Marie Antoinette : the journey / Antonia Fraser.
p. cm.
1. Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI,
King of France, 1755–1793. 2. Queens—France—Biography.
3. France—History—Louis XVI, 1774–1793. I. Title.
DC137.1.F73 2001
944'.035'092—dc21
[B] 2001023493
eISBN 0-385-50500-0
Copyright © 2001 by Antonia Fraser
All Rights Reserved
October 2001
v1.0
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*01Now part of the offices of the Austrian President. The bedroom in which Marie Antoinette was born is today the President’s salon, with red- and gold-embroidered hangings; the room is dominated by an enormous portrait of Maria Teresa by Mytens. An adjacent room still contains a collection of pietra dura (pictures in semi-precious stones of birds and animals) which Maria Teresa loved, a taste she handed on to Marie Antoinette.
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*02The so-called Austrian (southern) Netherlands, in which modern Luxembourg was then included and centred on Brussels, would form the largest constituent part of Belgium when it was founded after 1830; the two areas were, however, not identical and the modern term Belgium is used purely for convenience.
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*03A huge set of Sèvres porcelain, white ornamented with a pattern of forest-green ribbons, which was given by Louis XV to Maria Teresa to celebrate the alliance, can still be seen in the Hofburg Museum.
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*04Maria Teresa celebrated her fortieth birthday on 13 May 1757 when Marie Antoinette was eighteen months old.
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*05These private apartments can still be seen today, with pictures by Marie Christine. The so-called Marie Antoinette Room, one of the state apartments, is named for a Gobelin tapestry woven after a painting by Madame Vigée Le Brun and donated by the Emperor Napoleon III in the nineteenth century.
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*06Laxenburg is now the seat of IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis); there is a thriving conference centre there.
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*07This delightful background to the childhood of Marie Antoinette can still be seen today. The park that she would have known was, however, remodelled in “the English fashion” in 1783.
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*08Like her elder sister, Marianne, who was an invalid, Elizabeth would live and die unmarried.
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*09Today the imperial crypt is still a site of respectful mourning (visitors are requested to take off their hats); here 143 Habsburgs and one commoner—Maria Teresa’s governess—are buried. Amid the dark shapes of the tombs and the sculpted figures of death, the skulls grinning under their diadems, can be seen bouquets of tribute, including fresh flowers, tied in ribbons of the imperial colours.
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*10Louis Auguste, unlike Marie Antoinette (who descended from Charles I’s sister Elizabeth of Bohemia), was descended from Charles I himself; the latter’s daughter Henriette Anne, Duchesse d’Orléans (Madame), was Louis XV’s great-grandmother.
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*11The essay on the Queens of France, said to be by Marie Antoinette, now in the Habsburg Archives, is in a completely different handwriting, far more advanced than hers at that period or, indeed, for long after it. It was probably written for her, rather than by her.35
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*12Mariazell, sometimes termed “the Lourdes of Austria” (although its origins are far older), is still a place of national pilgrimage; it is popular for First Communions, as well as a skiing resort.
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*13Although 200,000 crowns was—pace Louis XV—a handsome dowry to most people, it was certainly not exceptional among great ones. In 1769, for example, the heiress Mademoiselle de Penthièvre brought a dowry of 6 million livres with her when she married the son of the Duc d’Orléans. In terms of British money of the period, Marie Antoinette’s trousseau cost over £17,000: a notional three-quarters of a million pounds at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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*14In real life the Générale (or Generalin in German), as her name came to be shortened, seems to have been a lady of the court, presumably married to a General Krottendorf. Maria Teresa mentions her death in late 1779. But the precise origin of the nickname for the monthly period remains obscure; it is, however, to be compared to similar nicknames of the same time. For example, the daughters of the 2nd Duke of Richmond referred to “the French lady’s visit.”16
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*15Meaning literally “the Austrian woman”; but the coincidental combination of the two French words for ostrich (autruche) and bitch (chienne) meant that the name would present horribly rich opportunities for cartoonists.
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*16The main feature of the church today is the vast Canova monument of 1805 to the Archduchess Marie Christine, Marie Antoinette’s disliked elder sister, with references to her as “the best wife.”
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*17The Goncourt brothers, writing the life of Marie Antoinette in the nineteenth century, referred to the Comtesse de Noailles as “the bad fairy” in her entourage.6
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*18Bombelles’ Journals are an important source of information. He was a diplomat with experience of many European countries, and his connections to the court included his mother-in-law, Madame de Mackau, deputy Governess to the Children of France, and his wife Angélique, who was a favourite of Louis Auguste’s sister, Madame Elisabeth.
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*19Madame Campan’s claim that the Dauphine was totally undressed has sometimes been treated sceptically on the grounds that the writer was not personally present; but Madame Campan’s father-in-law, to whom she was very close, was part of the handover party. Other sources describe the Dauphine as changing her clothes or being dressed, which presupposed being undressed. That the ritual had not yet been abandoned is clear from the fact that it was applied to Josephine of Savoy, marrying the Comte de Provence three years later.12
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*20It was later suggested by scandalmongers that Marie Antoinette had known Prince (later Cardinal) de Rohan as a girl in Vienna and had been debauched by him. Leaving aside the improbability of such a story, given the nature of her childhood, it was also impossible since Prince Louis arrived in Vienna in 1772, two years after she left.
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*21Although Philippe, future Duc d’Orléans, was only a fourth cousin once removed of the future Louis XVI.
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*22By the standards of European royalty, Marie Antoinette and Louis Auguste were not particularly closely related. On the Habsburg side (Maria Josepha’s mother was a Habsburg) they were second cousins once removed. They shared Bourbon descent from Louis XIII and additional Orléans blood, since Louis XV’s grandmother Anne Marie had been an Orléans princess; at its closest this amounted to second cousins twice removed. Interestingly, Marie Antoinette had more actual French blood in her than her husband—two grandparents out of four—to his one in the shape o
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*23These apartments today have their view masked by large plants in boxes, which gives a good idea of the lack of privacy that they would have without them. Somewhat surprisingly, a large and showy replica of the so-called Diamond Necklace can also be seen there in a case.
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*24This first letter, and many others that are also authentic, can still be seen in the Habsburg Archives. During the nineteenth century, however, the letters of Marie Antoinette were frequently forged; inauthentic examples flooded Paris, Vienna and London. One editor printed a number of letters for which the “originals” had vanished; other forgeries of an allegedly early date were blatantly copied from the handwriting of her later years. The situation was unravelled and a definitive edition, with all forgeries eliminated, was printed in 1895 in Paris by Maxime de la Rocheterie and the Marquis de Beaucourt. Nevertheless, at this point the correspondence between mother and daughter was censored according to nineteenth-century standards; the most intimate aspects of Maria Teresa’s advice, although partly printed in 1933 by Georges Girard in Correspondance entre Marie-Thérèse et Marie-Antoinette, were not published in full until 1958, by Paul Christoph in Maria Theresia und Marie Antoinette: ihr geheimer Briefwechsel.24
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*25It is impossible to exaggerate the influence of La Nouvelle Héloïse, a story of (heterosexual) love and renunciation. First published in French in 1761, it went through seventy-two editions before 1800, as well as ten in England and others in America.2
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*26It was an additional torment for Marie Antoinette that she had from the beginning an irregular menstrual cycle. In those reports on the arrival of the Générale (period) demanded by her mother of all her daughters, Marie Antoinette was obliged to mention a gap of four months before adding that there was no reason for it.9
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*27Patrie was the word always used by Marie Antoinette to denote Austria in her correspondence with her family.
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*28Tightness of the foreskin, due to insufficient elasticity, which does not, however, make erection, or even ejaculation, impossible, although it might inhibit both.
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*29These particular acclamations, if they took place, would have been a tribute to the European reputation of the Empress since she had, of course, never visited France, let alone Paris.
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*30It should, however, be noted that Marie Antoinette also had the works of Piccinni in her library, as well as French music.
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*31In 1775, with more originality, Lady Clermont told Marie Antoinette that she was put in mind of the English beauty, eighteen months younger, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire; the French Queen professed herself “much flattered.”7
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*32This staircase would play a dramatic part in the subsequent story of Marie Antoinette.
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*33Madame Campan became something of a hate figure to the ultra-royalists after the Bourbon Restoration, because she had taught the step-daughters of Napoleon, and her testimony, first published in 1823, was criticized for that reason alone. Although she does make mistakes (like many other memorialists) and is not averse to self-glorification in order to atone for her “Napoleonic” affiliations, Madame Campan is nevertheless a vital witness. A recent French writer, Jean Chalon, has compared her status to that of Figaro in the song: “Figaro here, Figaro there.” But of course Figaro, like all domestics, saw a great deal of the game.18
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*34But a peculiarly symbolic one, given that the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class was bread, absorbing 50 per cent of their income, as opposed to 5 per cent spent on fuel; the whole topic of bread was therefore the result of obsessional national interest.32
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*35She did in fact give birth to a daughter on 5 August 1776, one year after the birth of the Duc d’Angoulême.
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*36Lauzun’s own memoirs were written many years later, probably by others using his own manuscript; they were generally regarded as untruthful by contemporaries. He has Marie Antoinette (among many other eager women) throwing herself at him in a novelettish scene in which he breathes, “You are my Queen . . .” and “her eyes seemed to be asking me to give her yet another title; I was tempted to enjoy the good fortune which appeared to be offered to me.” However, even Lauzun admits that he then drew back.8
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*37Subsequently Marquis of Huntly, this spirited Scottish nobleman was still able to dance the quadrille when he was seventy and he died in 1853 at the age of ninety-one. As a result of his prowess, he could boast of dancing with Marie Antoinette, Princess Charlotte, the daughter of George IV, and Queen Victoria.
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*38“This country” was how Marie Antoinette always referred to France in her correspondence with her family.
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*39Earrings were chosen to draw attention to the much-praised long neck, and bracelets for the beautiful hands; according to her portraits and accounts, the Queen did not care particularly for necklaces.
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*40Many of the trees whose planting was inspired by the Queen were felled in the terrible gale of December 1999 when Versailles lost 2000 trees. They are being replaced in an ambitious restorative scheme.
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*41A fact confirmed in a negative sense by the detailed record of the King’s unremitting hunting activities in his Journal. A painful operation of this sort (anaesthetics not being available) would have involved several weeks’ convalescence out of the saddle at the very least; but there is no such cessation.
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*42This was the occasion when the services of Gluck, returning to Vienna, were used to break the annoying news.9
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*43It would seem that the baby had been conceived on roughly the date when Benjamin Franklin was officially received at Versailles, as one of the accredited envoys of the United States. In contrast to the French custom, Franklin wore neither sword nor powdered wig. Perhaps the King found this first contact with the virile New World inspirational.
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*44This meant that there would in the end be a grand total of six princesses in various countries named Maria Teresa.17
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*45It has been suggested (yet again as in 1774) that there was a coup de foudre between the pair on this occasion, ignoring the fact that the Queen was going on six months pregnant.
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*46It was not actually Louis XVI who performed this Herculean act, as is sometimes suggested, although he certainly possessed the physical strength. His own Journal does not relate the incident, making it clear, as Mercy confirmed to the Empress, that he had already left the chamber of the birth, accompanying his infant daughter.29
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*47But her periods were so troublesome at the end of her short (three-weekly) cycle that this may not actually have been the case.41
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*48In the Wardrobe Book, in the Archives Nationales, Paris, the actual pin-pricks that the Queen made can still be seen; in recent years some of the long pins she used were recovered from the floor of her room at Versailles.
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*49The theatre where Marie Antoinette blithely trod the boards can still be seen, an exquisite souvenir.
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*50Nobody was particularly concerned over the sudden claims of the Comtesse de Provence that she too was pregnant; there was a general suspicion that these would fade away when the Queen gave birth, as indeed happened.
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*51But there is no truth in the legend that Sèvres cups were modelled on Marie Antoinette’s breasts, which
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*52Madame Campan is discreetly silent on the subject in her memoirs, presumably anxious to recover favour with the Bourbons after her Napoleonic connection.
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*53Nine of them are still standing.
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*54Clumsy attempts by her detractors much later to pretend that her library was full of pornography, illustrating her general depravity, ignored the fact that such books, which were romances rather than pornography, were read by the most respectable women of her time.
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*55His father Philippe Duc de Chartres (much later known as Philippe Égalité) succeeded his own father as Duc d’Orléans in November 1785. Louis Philippe then moved up to become Duc de Chartres.
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*56This is a clear identification of the Josephine in question with Marie Antoinette, although as has been noted, it was not universally the case.
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*57A large pass-key to Saint Cloud, which still exists, firmly marked “La Reine” in large letters, makes the point.
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*58Apart from the French palaces, these can also be appreciated nowadays in many collections abroad, including the Wallace Collection, London; Waddesdon, Bucks; the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
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*59Apart from her formal bridal journey through north-eastern France fourteen years ago, and the expedition to Rheims for the King’s coronation, Marie Antoinette knew nothing of France; she had never, for example, seen the sea—neither on the French coast nor for that matter during her childhood in land-locked Austria.
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*60The visitor to Fontainebleau, passing from the ornate nineteenth-century taste of King Louis Philippe to that of Queen Marie Antoinette, is likely to feel refreshed. The mother-of-pearl furniture was thought to have vanished for ever in the time of the Revolution, but was miraculously rediscovered in 1961 and replaced in its original position.25