Marie Antoinette Read online

  Yet even here, as oxen were roasted and fireworks set off “as though it was the end of the world,” there were troubles. Those who had the status of “foreign princes,” for example, chose to arrive “incognito.” This was an elaborate sham (we shall meet it again at Versailles), since everyone knew perfectly well the identity of the people concerned; but it did mean that the foreign princes were not subject to the rules of French etiquette, which were so unsympathetic where they were concerned.16 And there was one encounter that would cast a long shadow, or as the Baronne d’Oberkirch wrote: “What strange connections there are in life!”

  For it was here at Strasbourg that Marie Antoinette had her first meeting with Prince Louis de Rohan, a handsome rather dissolute man in his mid-thirties who was Coadjutor of the see where his uncle Cardinal Louis Constantin was Bishop (the third member of the family to hold the position). In due course the womanizing of Prince Louis would get an angry reaction from the strait-laced Maria Teresa, when he was sent to Vienna as ambassador: “A dreadful type . . . without morals.”17 Nor did it make things better that Prince Louis, quite apart from his own activities in that direction, also enjoyed gossiping about the sexual failings of other people. But at Strasbourg in 1770, Prince Louis de Rohan simply represented another member of a great French noble family, with whose claims—or pretensions—Marie Antoinette as Dauphine would have to learn to cope.*20

  Like the Noailles family, that of Rohan consisted of an extensive network, knitted still closer by frequent intermarriage in the clan. For example, Prince Louis’ father was a Rohan-Guéméné and his mother a Rohan-Soubise. Despite being Breton princes with origins of great antiquity, the Rohans were “perpetually occupied with their own elevation,” as the critical Baron de Besenval wrote. Their obsession about being treated as sovereign princes had annoyed their contemporaries, including Saint-Simon at the court of Louis XIV, through several generations.18

  After a night spent in the episcopal palace of the venerable Cardinal Louis Constantin de Rohan, the Dauphine continued on her way across north-eastern France. She and her cumbersome but splendid cortège still had 250 miles to go before they reached Versailles; the cost to the French of this stage of the journey would be 300,000 livres. The route took Marie Antoinette to Nancy, part of her father’s former Duchy of Lorraine, where once again the Dauphine was able to emphasize the connection by praying at the tombs of her ancestors. At each stop there were addresses, reviews, theatrical entertainments, which at Châlons-sur-Marne were performed by actors provided by the royal household. At Soissons, the Dauphine was allowed a day of rest while the French court travelled on to the château of Compiègne. The first actual encounter of two young people whose union had already been celebrated in verse and address almost to exhaustion, was about to take place.

  This fabled meeting took place at three o’clock in the afternoon on 14 May in the forest near Compiègne, where the road crossed the river at the Bridge of Berne. The French King arrived in a carriage that contained only his grandson and three of his four surviving spinster daughters. The curiosity of Louis XV concerning his granddaughter-in-law was at last to be gratified. He had already cross-questioned his ambassador to Austria about her bosom, and on being told with a blush that the ambassador had not looked at the Archduchess’s bosom, the King replied jovially: “Oh didn’t you? That’s the first thing I look at.”19

  As the Dauphine stepped out of her carriage on to the ceremonial carpet that had been laid down, it was the Duc de Choiseul who was given the privilege of the first salute. Presented with the Duc by Prince Starhemberg, Marie Antoinette exclaimed: “I shall never forget that you are responsible for my happiness!”

  “And that of France,” replied Choiseul smoothly.20

  Then the King and his family left their carriage. The Duc de Croÿ, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, duly presented “Madame la Dauphine” whereupon Marie Antoinette flung herself on her knees in front of “Monsieur mon frère et très cher grand-père,” now to be “Papa” or “Papa-Roi.”

  When she was raised up—the King was moved by the touching gesture of submission—Marie Antoinette saw before her a distinguished figure with “large, full, prominent black piercing eyes and a Roman nose,” a monarch who even at the age of sixty was generally regarded as “the handsomest man at his court.”21 Unfortunately it was a description that the Dauphin at his side was never likely to merit. Here was a youth with heavy-lidded eyes and thick dark eyebrows, looking generally awkward—or was it sulky?—and, although not sixteen until August, already quite portly. In short, Louis Auguste was not quite the idealized figure of the portraits and the miniature that Marie Antoinette had received, which had tactfully and understandably trimmed his jawline and minimized his bulk.

  As for the royal aunts, aged thirty-eight, thirty-seven and thirty-six respectively, the malicious English anecdotalist Horace Walpole had described them as “clumsy, plump old wenches.” In fact the eldest and cleverest, Madame Adélaïde, had had a certain charm in youth, even if it had now long vanished; Madame Victoire was not bad-looking but had become so fat that her father nicknamed her “sow”; whilst Madame Sophie, known as “Grub,” tilted her head sideways like a frightened hare.22 These nursery nicknames bestowed by the King (Adélaïde was “Rag”) cast a deceptively warm and cosy light on these three disappointed women left behind at Versailles, but, as Marie Antoinette would discover, cosiness was not really their main attribute, at least so far as l’Autrichienne was concerned. She would also discover that her husband the Dauphin, robbed of his own mother three years ago, was devoted to his aunts.

  Louis XV for his part saw a charming little girl who was roughly of an age with the teenage nymphets he had been wont to visit in various establishments (in effect royal brothels) in the district called the Parc des Cerfs. She was nevertheless very different from those rosy curvaceous creatures, the types of freshness and sensuality, half knowing, half innocent, portrayed by Fragonard. It was easier for the King to relate Marie Antoinette to what he had been told about his own mother, who had died when he was two and for whose memory he had a sentimental veneration. For Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was another little girl who had arrived at Versailles.

  Marie Antoinette’s complexion was her best feature, the dazzling white skin and wonderful natural colour offsetting the less fortunate “Austrian lip.” But her undeveloped figure—alas for the King’s hopes—was somewhat of a disappointment, even if it had to be admitted that it was satisfactory enough for her age. In general, the King’s verdict on the Dauphine was “spontaneous and a little childish.” What did Louis Auguste see? His hunting journal, begun four years previously, in which only major events got a look-in, reported briefly: “Meeting with Madame la Dauphine,” with no comment on his reaction to Marie Antoinette’s physical appearance.23 He now gave his “wife” a formal embrace.

  That night at the château of Compiègne, the Dauphine was introduced to the Princes and Princesses of the Blood, as the relatives of the King were known, this title being the most prized distinction at the French court. Here were the Bourbon-Contis and the Bourbon-Condés; the two branches had separated in the seventeenth century but had frequently intermarried. Foremost among the Princes of the Blood, however, was the Duc d’Orléans (whose late wife had been a Bourbon-Conti). He was present with his son Philippe, currently known as the Duc de Chartres.

  Philippe, better known to history as the Duc d’Orléans, the title that he would inherit in 1785, was an energetic if somewhat frivolous character. He was always wonderfully dressed and was rated the best dancer at court. By marrying the great heiress Mademoiselle de Penthièvre a year previously, he had ensured that his fortune was potentially the greatest in France, given that the Orléans wealth was already prodigious. At the time of the marriage Louis XV had commented that the bridegroom was a libertine. The verdict of his English mistress, Grace Elliott, was kinder: Philippe was “a man of pleasure.” Whatever his character faults, Philippe, as the eventual Orlé
ans heir, was next in line to the throne if the French male Bourbon line failed.*2124

  A charming young widow, the Princesse de Lamballe, was among the ladies whom Marie Antoinette encountered for the first time. Born Marie Thérèse de Savoie-Carignan, she was half Italian and half German, her mother having been a German princess. Her appearance was sweetly soulful, like an angel painted by Greuze; her nature was almost morbidly sensitive. She had a strain of melancholy generally held to come from her German side. It was the early death of her dissolute young husband, only son of the famously charitable Duc de Penthièvre, that had in fact created the vast fortune of Philippe’s wife. As a widow, the Princesse de Lamballe concentrated on acting the devoted daughter-in-law to the bereaved Duc, grandson of Louis XIV; his father the Comte de Toulouse, one of the royal bastards, had been legitimated by the King. She was much admired for her dedication and nicknamed “the Good Angel”; the generous Duc de Penthièvre was known as “the King of the Poor.”25 As to the question of remarriage—she was only twenty—it was an important point, by the rules of the game that the Dauphine had to learn, that the Princesse de Lamballe’s rank at court derived from her marriage into a legitimated princely house, not her birth. Remarriage to one of lower rank might involve sacrificing her own.

  There was another rule of the game that had to be learnt the following next night at the château of La Muette. The Dauphine remarked on another charming young woman present, whose large blue eyes were described by one man with some excitement as having “a frank caressing regard” and by the English ambassador as having “the most wanton look in them that I ever saw.” This was the Comtesse Du Barry, born more plainly Jeanne Bécu, and the King’s mistress. Her presence at the supper party had already caused enormous discontent behind the scenes; the pious aunts who hated her were furious while the Austrian ambassador, allowed to pay his respects at Compiègne, resented the imposition. The King shrugged it all off. “She’s pretty and she pleases me,” was the royal line.26 As for the Du Barry’s appearance at the supper, although a social outrage, it was technically allowable since the King had recently, with some official manoeuvring, secured her presentation at court by a tame noblewoman.

  Marie Antoinette fell into the trap of asking the Comtesse de Noailles the identity of this lady; the Du Barry had obviously not featured in the lessons given by the Abbé de Vermond on the personnel of the French court. When the Comtesse tactfully replied that the lady was there to give pleasure to the King, the Dauphine cheerfully said: “Oh, then I shall be her rival, because I too wish to give pleasure to the King.”27

  More in keeping with Count Mercy’s sense of propriety was the call paid to Madame Louise on the way to Versailles. Youngest of the Dauphin’s aunts, she had recently taken the veil as Sister Thérèse Augustine. One of the nuns in the Carmelite convent always remembered the apparition presented by the young Dauphine: “The most perfect princess as to her face, her figure and her appearance . . .” She had an air “at once of grandeur, modesty and sweetness.”28

  Although there had been much lightning at La Muette, the next day, Wednesday, 16 May 1770, dawned brightly, fortunately for the crowds, including many great ones, who had to get up early and make the three-hour carriage journey to Versailles. Admission was by ticket only—with many stern official orders to the effect that this must be respected—but there were probably about 6000 people present of all ranks. For the great ones, full court dress (grand habit de cour) was de rigueur: swords and silk coats for men, tightly boned bodices, hooped skirts and a long train for women, as well as elaborately dressed and powdered hair. The Duchess of Northumberland for one had to get up at 6 a.m. to have hers done.29

  Marie Antoinette, not yet officially attired in her wedding robes, arrived with her entourage at Versailles at about half past nine in the morning. Every window of the great façade was thronged with curious spectators. Marie Antoinette also benefited from the brilliant May morning for her first sight of the fabled palace where, as she assumed, she would spend the rest of her life. She was then conducted to the ground-floor apartments that had once belonged to the previous Dauphine Maria Josepha (and where incidentally Louis Auguste had been born) to prepare herself for the wedding ceremony. This was arranged to take place in the colonnaded Royal Chapel, built at the turn of the century.

  These were not to be her permanent apartments, as they lacked privacy due to their ground-floor location. They therefore had the slightly depressing air of temporary accommodation. The officials of the King’s Works (Bâtiments du Roi) had spent two years refurbishing the rooms intended for the Archduchess’s use, starting them, in fact, as soon as the marriage looked likely.*22 But not for the first time or the last in the history of such things, the projected works were not finished on time.30

  There was, however, at least one unalloyedly pleasant encounter before her: this was with the two Princesses, Clothilde and Elisabeth, her sisters-in-law, who were too young to be present at the supper the previous night. It was then that Marie Antoinette had met her two brothers-in-law. One was Louis Xavier, Comte de Provence; at fourteen and a half (almost exactly her own age) he was even more corpulent than the Dauphin, although unlike Louis Auguste, he was sharp and intelligent in conversation. Charles Comte d’Artois was two years younger, and of the three brothers was the only one who had inherited something of the celebrated good looks of his grandfather.

  Poor plump Clothilde, the Gros-Madame of unkind court nomenclature, was nine, as “round as a bell” with her circumference thought to exceed her height. She was nevertheless famously good-natured, loved by her little circle and forgiving of those who teased her. Madame Elisabeth was just six years old, and “scarcely out of her leading-strings,” having been under three when her mother died.31 Shy to outsiders but pretty enough—the family embonpoint had not yet struck—Elisabeth quickly became Marie Antoinette’s pet. Because the Princesses were still so young, etiquette could be circumvented and Marie Antoinette could receive them before she put on her court dress: a nice distinction.

  An awe-inspiring moment was provided when Marie Antoinette was presented with the magnificent jewels, diamonds and pearls, that were her due as Dauphine. They had previously belonged to Maria Josepha whose wealth of gems at her death had been valued at nearly 2 million livres. Since there was no Queen of France extant, the Dauphine also received a fabulous collar of pearls, the smallest “as large as a filbert nut,” which had been bequeathed by Anne of Austria to successive consorts. This seventeenth-century Habsburg princess who married Louis XIII was incidentally Marie Antoinette’s own ancestress as well as that of the Dauphin.*23 The bride added all this to the various jewels, among them some fine white diamonds, that she had brought with her from Vienna.32

  There were a multitude of other luxurious gifts provided by the French King, such as a fan encrusted in diamonds, and bracelets with her cipher MA on the blue enamel clasps, which were also ornamented with diamonds. The royal bounty arrived in a crimson velvet coffer, six feet long and over three feet high. Its various drawers were lined with sky-blue silk and had matching cushions; the central feature was a parure of diamonds for the Dauphine herself, but there were also presents labelled for her attendants. (She herself would present Prince Starhemberg with a magnificent set of Sèvres porcelain as a reward for his services.)33 The wedding ring itself had been fitted from among a dozen provided at Compiègne and was therefore expected to give no problem.

  The full panoply of Versailles was now loosed upon a central figure who, in the words of one observer, was so small and slender in her white brocade dress inflated with its vast hoops on either side that she looked “not above twelve.” Yet the dignity of Marie Antoinette who had “the bearing of an archduchess”—the result of that rigorous grooming of her childhood, which had been the most efficient part of her education—was universally commended. And this was a place where style and grace of self-presentation were of paramount importance. The Dauphin on the other hand was generally reported a
s being cold, sulky or listless throughout the long Mass, in contrast to his bride. And he trembled with apprehension as he placed the chosen ring on her finger.34

  In the signing of the marriage contract, however, their relative skills were reversed. The entire royal family signed in the appropriate order, first of all “Louis” for the King, then “Louis Auguste” neatly and precisely written by the Dauphin. But the third signature, “Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne,” had a large blot on the first “J”: the first of those blots—were they careless or nervous?—that would later blight Marie Antoinette’s correspondence with her mother. Furthermore her signature began to slope markedly downwards on “ette” after the half-word “Antoine” as though the Dauphine had not quite accustomed herself to her new signature. Nor is it clear whether the first “e” of “Jeanne” is actually there.35

  For all these small omens, for all the rain that fell later, disturbing the radiance of the morning, the festivities were widely felt to constitute the finest royal wedding anyone had ever seen; indeed, the King thought so himself. The outstanding nature of the celebrations was generally ascribed to the high rank of the bride: “The Dauphin does not marry the daughter of the Emperor every day.” Louis XV had married a relatively obscure princess but his grandson was marrying “the daughter of the Caesars.” The Duc de Croÿ, intoxicated by the idea of seeing the glorious scene en fête, climbed up on to the roof: “It’s from here that one should see Versailles.” The lanterns and the lights everywhere, even the canal covered in illuminated boats, left an unforgettable impression.36