January 13, 1769
No time to write. Fresh snow and we have permission to go to the Hermannskogel. Titi and I are so excited!
January 14, 1769
No more sledge riding or sledding. Mama was furious when we returned the last time. First I was late for my music lesson with Master Gluck. Mama came in to scold me for being late, as I had just begun on my scales. Mama takes our music education very seriously. She says we live in the center of the best music in the entire world. For everyone knows that Vienna is where all the greatest musicians live and study and work. She even goes as far as to say that the music gets worse as soon as one leaves the city proper and keeps getting worse the farther one is from Vienna. She hates to think of what the music will be like in France, and in England, she cannot imagine.
In any case, when she came into the room, she lifted my hands from the harp. They were red from the cold, and she said, “Daughter! These are not the hands of an Archduchess, nor shall they ever be the hands of the Queen of France at this rate. You look like a scullery maid!”
She then ordered me to sleep in chicken-skin gloves. I hate more than anything those chicken-skin gloves. Even Lulu looked pained by the suggestion. It is an awful feeling, not to mention the odor of sleeping with chicken skin. But it is true that they whiten and soften the hands. Mama was so worried about Caroline’s ruddy complexion that she had specially made for her a chicken-skin mask for sleeping that fitted over her eyes and cheeks. But Caroline took it off the moment she got in bed and the governesses weren’t looking, and then the next day she would just powder her face more heavily. I wish I had Caroline’s nerve in standing up to Mama sometimes. Except did it give Caroline what she wanted? She still had to marry that ugly old fellow from Naples.
January 19, 1769
Very boring days with no sledge driving. Monsieur Larseneur came today to work with my hair. They say that my forehead is too high and that my hairline is too far back. This is because Brandy, my old governess, used to always pull my hair back so tightly when I went to bed. It caused it to thin and break. Monsieur Larseneur is a fashionable Parisian friseur, as they call hairdressers in France. He does many of the Ladies-in-Waiting at the Court of Versailles. He is very friendly and we have nice chats. I learn how to spell many French words about hair from him. Here I’ll make a list:
cheveux = hair
peigner = to comb one’s hair
se coiffer = to do one’s hair
se friser = to curl one’s hair
épingle à cheveux = hairpin
You see, I am learning French. But I am bored. J’ai beaucoup d’ennui. That is French for “I have much boredom.” I want to be sledge driving with my dog Schnitzel or my darling Titi.
January 20, 1769
Oh, I am so bored with the hair and the lessons and the dancing. But Lulu says they must get me near perfect very soon, for a French painter is to make my portrait and then a miniature that will be sent to King Louis and the Dauphin. Mama feels if they see how pretty I really am it shall speed the official engagement. You see, although this has all been planned since I was nine years old, it is not yet official, no date has been set, and that all depends on the French King. I wonder what the Dauphin looks like. Maybe they are trying to get him ready for a portrait. He is probably terribly handsome, as his grandfather the King is said to be the handsomest reigning monarch in Europe. I have heard that King Frederick the Great of Prussia is quite handsome but one dare not even whisper that name in front of Mama. Frederick is her great enemy. It is because of Frederick that we must all marry so well. Almost twenty years ago, just after Mama became Empress, Frederick invaded Silesia, part of our hereditary lands and our richest province. Mama never got over losing Silesia and vowed she would not sacrifice another centimeter to The Monster, as she calls King Frederick. She still vows to recover Silesia and we, her daughters and sons, are part of her plan. We lay siege not through weapons of destruction but through marriages.
So I must learn to dance. My hairline must grow back. I must improve my reading and writing and card playing. Card playing and gambling are favorite pastimes of the French Court of Versailles. All this is not so easy. I suppose marching and being shot at is harder, but not so boring.
January 23, 1769
Imagine this: While I practice walking with a book on my head to balance in the most immense panniers I have ever seen, which they tell me are quite the mode at Versailles, Abbé de Vermond reads aloud to me the history of France. This of course was Mama’s idea. “She can listen while she walks. She has ears as well as feet.” Thank you, Mama. There is a special walk for the ladies of Versailles that has to be mastered. One must take very small, quick steps. This makes one’s dress float over the polished marble floors.
January 30, 1769
Lulu tells me that Mama is very worried because King Louis has not yet sent a formal letter concerning my marriage. He apparently was supposed to do so by the end of this month. I always get worried when Mama gets worried, because she makes us, whichever child is worrying her the most, go with her to Papa’s tomb at the church of the Capuchins to pray.
February 1, 1769
Guess where I was today — the Capuchins church with Mama. Oh, I just hate it. I was nine years old when Papa died, and Mama has rarely worn anything but black since then. She cut her hair and she painted her apartments black. Now her hair has grown and her apartments are painted gray. But still the coffin she ordered made for herself at the time of Papa’s death sits in the burial vault of the chapel beside Papa’s, waiting for her. So Mama goes every afternoon and sits there beside the two coffins, the one with Papa’s bones, the other empty, and prays. And today she brought me, too, to pray for my marriage, to pray for Silesia, to pray for good fortune against The Monster.
February 4, 1769
I do not think I shall ever learn to dance as well as Lulu. Today in my dance lesson, not ballet but ballroom, Master Noverre asked Lulu to dance with him to show me one of the special Court dances. Lulu is so graceful. She appears to almost float. Lulu has reddish hair and when she dances her cheeks flush and her gray eyes grow all sparkly. I could tell Noverre was completely taken with her, and the violinist, who until then had just been scratching out his tunes for my awkward feet, suddenly played with new life.
P.S. Forgot to mention that Mama received a letter from the French Court saying a dentist will be coming to examine my teeth. Mama takes this as a very good sign. It means they are still interested in me.
She also beamed today when Abbé de Vermond told her of my remarkable progress in reading and writing.
February 5, 1769
We go to the Opera tonight at the Burgtheater. Although I do love the Opera, I am nervous because one time when we went, nearly two years ago, the most embarrassing thing happened and I have never forgotten. I blush still when I think of it. Mama had not come with us, but Josepha and Caroline and Ferdinand and I were all sitting in the Imperial box when suddenly Mama rushed in, and right in the middle of the performance during the soprano’s aria, Mama cried out to the audience, “My Leopold has a son!” Our brother Leopold is the Grand Duke of Tuscany. His first son, Francis, named for our father, had been born, and Mama was so excited with this first grandson that she had to interrupt the performance. I nearly crawled under the seat. I turned as red as the velvet cushions in our box. I still cannot think of it without cringing. I doubt if there was ever a girl in the Empire so embarrassed by her mother. But at least tonight there are no babies expected.
February 6, 1769
The Opera was wonderful, although Lulu felt that the tenor might have had a cold. Lulu has a very good ear for these things. There was, however, one discomforting thing about going to the Opera this year — no, no birth announcements, but I was made to sit in the front row of the Imperial box. Usually this is reserved for the Empress and my eldest brother, Joseph, and his wife, though of course now she is dead. But thi
s time I was made to sit there and I could feel the stares of the people. I was on display and Mama had given me to wear her own diamond necklace with the star sapphire pendant, and they had corseted me to within a centimeter of my life. I could scarcely breathe through the first act until my stays loosened themselves. I know why this is now. Lulu explained. They want to show me to the people as the future Queen of France, but also there was a large French delegation there, in particular the Duc de Choiseul, the French ambassador, and our own Prince Kaunitz, our most important diplomat, was by his side. He and Choiseul were the two men who drafted the Versailles Treaty in 1756, and they are the ones who thought up the idea of my marrying the Dauphin, I think even before Mama thought of it. That, knowing Mama, seems almost impossible. Well, anyhow, they are the ones who must make the marriage contract and tend to all the details. So that was why I was on display.
February 8, 1769
If I thought I was on display at the Opera it was nothing compared to the ball tonight. I had to spend four hours with Monsieur Larseneur. He insisted on doing my hair in the latest Court style. You might wonder how all this took four hours. Well, here is what they did to my hair. They first divided much of it into skinny little bunches and then twisted them tightly and pinned them to my head so it looked as if at least a hundred snails had crawled up and settled on my skull. Then they pinned pads of horsehair atop those snails. To these pads they attached false braids. Then they caked with pomatum, a kind of spicy-smelling ointment, the rest of my own hair that was loose, sprinkled on powder, and finally they piled it up very high. So high you would not believe it. Into this structure Monsieur Larseneur twined silk roses and toy birds with real feathers. I tucked one away in my pocket to give to Titi, for I knew she would love it. All that took four hours.
The dress I wore was beautiful, made of a violet-blue satin with the French lace sleeve ruffles called engageantes that quiver with your every movement. But this was the strangest of all. Beneath all the flounces, and attached to the whalebones of the hoops, were half a dozen or more small glass vials the shape of teardrops with stoppers in them, and in the bottom of each vial was a drop of honey. Even Mama was confused when she saw them attaching these to my hoops. “What is this?” she asked.
“Ah, Madame Empress,” the French seamstress said. “This is for the fleas.”
“What?” exclaimed Mama. “My daughter is not a dog. She has not fleas.”
“Ah, non! Non, Madame Empress. ’Tis not your daughter who draws the fleas. It is the pomade in her hair and the wheat flour paste that draws them.”
“Seems impractical,” Mama sniffed and walked away.
But impractical or not, if this is what it takes to make a marriage with a man who will be the King of France, then, why, of course!
February 9, 1769
I’ll tell you what impractical is — having to sleep with one’s head on a wooden block. Yes, that is what I had to do in order to preserve this hairdo that took four hours to build. I had to preserve it because there is yet another ball tonight and I am on display again. So my hair shall be perfect but my eyes will be red.
February 10, 1769
The best thing about the ball last night was watching Lulu dance. And then for the last dance Master Noverre and Lulu did the Scottish reel. Everyone loved it. Mama insisted they do it again.
February 11, 1769
Today in my dance lesson I complimented Master Noverre on his dancing last night and said I hoped that by the time I was married to the Dauphin, I could do the Scottish reel well enough to teach my future husband. Master Noverre’s face creased with great concern. “No! No, Your Highness. The Scottish reel is not permitted at the Court of Versailles.” I was astounded and asked whyever not. He just said they had their rules, their etiquette, and it would be considered too savage for the court. I never heard of such a silly thing in all my life. The dance is fun and lively. Some of those stupid Court dances are so slow and boring, I nearly fall asleep on my feet doing them.
February 12, 1769
I think that my days of privacy are numbered. I have many odd thoughts about this marriage. It is hard to explain. It is not that I don’t want it. I want to meet, and I am sure that I shall love, the Dauphin, but there is so much more. The Court of Versailles, I think, is quite different from our Imperial Court in Vienna. Versailles is a very complicated place. They have many complicated games. That is why I must learn gambling. But that is not all. Lulu says that they have special ways of doing everything. Only certain people can pour the Royal Family’s wine at the dining table, and getting dressed is also very complicated. Here I just have Liesel or Brunhilda to help me into my petticoats, and sometimes Lulu oversees the lacing of the corset, but in France at the Court of Versailles, it is not a simple chambermaid who ever touches the Dauphine’s or the Queen’s undergarments. No, it is the Femme d’Honneur, or Lady of Honor — a highborn lady only is allowed to help with petticoats and camisoles and the “body linen.” Yes, that is what they call it there. Caroline and I call such garments “underprivates.” We made up the word ourselves. Well, Caroline did. She is so clever with things like that.
Now Lulu tells me only the Lady of Honor helps with the body linen, but it is the tirewoman, a kind of chambermaid, who carries away the soiled linens after the Queen or Dauphine has worn them. And to assist the tirewoman there is an undertirewoman who does something else, and it is a grave error to ask the wrong person to take the wrong garment at the wrong time. How shall I ever learn all this? Lulu says she will make me a chart showing who does what. But how can I commit such a chart to memory right now when I also have to learn that stupid pluperfect tense in French that I don’t even think we have in German, or if we do I have never heard of it. This is all too much!
February 14, 1769
The balls were fine and Mama was most pleased with the impression I made. And last night was the first night that I could sleep with my head on a pillow and not on a block. It took Lulu and Liesel forever to scrub the pomatum and powder from my hair. Did I mention that I wore the Ruby of India diamond necklace? They had wanted to tint the hair powder pink, for they thought it would set off the ruby better, but I disagreed. I said blue was the only color, pale blue to go with my dress, and then the red of the ruby would really stand out. Mama complimented me on this decision and also my improving French. Still, Mama’s French is so much better. Sometimes I think it would be easiest if Mama married King Louis XV, seeing that she is already an Empress and he is King. I suppose there would be a problem as to which country and palace they would live in. But Mama is so skillful with all these things. She loves speaking French and in particular she loves calling King Frederick of Prussia a monster in French. You should see how she pronounces and accents the word when she is speaking to the Duc de Choiseul or others from the French Court. “Le Monnnnnnstre!” and she drags out the word so that her face drops into a perfect oval shape and her eyes nearly pop out.
February 18, 1769
I mentioned to Lulu, in jest, or so I thought, my idea of Mama marrying King Louis XV, and Lulu gave me a very dark look. I said, “What’s wrong? He’s a widower. Mama is a widow. Why not?” And she looked even darker and crimped her mouth shut. “Tell me!” I demanded.
So she said that the King has a very close woman friend, a mistress named du Barry, Madame du Barry, and it is building to a scandal, for she might be coming to Court. So I said “Oh,” very quietly. Then Lulu added, “She is quite coarse. Very common.”
Well, that is terrible, I thought. Then Lulu muttered “from the streets.” I nearly gasped. No, not nearly. I did gasp.
Now I am really confused. How can there be a Court where a royal person has “street friends” and yet at the same time in this Court there are countless rules of etiquette about who can pour the King’s wine and who can hand a Queen her chemise? I think I shall be completely lost when I get there.
February 27, 1769
&nb
sp; I know it has been a whole week since I have written, but I have been most upset. For almost a year now, ever since Caroline went away to marry the King of Naples, I have wondered why she has sent so few letters and they seemed to be in a voice that I did not recognize as Caroline’s. Well, now I know. The answer was right under my own nose the whole time. In my closet is a trunk with my old dolls and their clothes. I had not played with them for a while, but when Titi was in my apartments today, I thought what fun to bring them out so we could dress them and perhaps even pomade and powder their hair in the latest Parisian fashions. Caroline and I used to spend hours playing with the dolls in the trunk, and she must have known that sooner or later I would look there. And what did I find tucked under the chemise of our favorite doll but a letter, not in Caroline’s hand but in Mama’s to Caroline. And here is what it says, for I will copy it into this diary. It was written on August 19, 1767, right after Mama told Caroline that she was to marry Ferdinand of Naples, right after Caroline went screaming through the halls and I went running to Mama to beg her to send Ferdinand away.
Dear Caroline:
It is time for you to grow up. I shall not tolerate fits and scenes from your little sister Antonia about this marriage. I warn you now that you will be totally separated from your sister Antonia, for I see that she is constantly discouraging you from the marriage and telling you all sorts of bad things about Ferdinand. It does not matter if a man is fat or thin, handsome or ugly. He will make you a good husband. He has territory and brings strength to our Empire against the monster Frederick. Little Antonia does a disservice to you, to me, and to the Empire by her unruly behavior. I therefore forbid any secret contact with her. You shall be watched carefully, so dare not violate my command by seeking solace or communication with your silly little sister. You must do your duty to me and the Empire and you shall do it by marrying Ferdinand, King of Naples. Remember, it is more important to become a Queen than remain a sister and a spinster.
Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles, Austria - France, 1769 Page 2