—A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Introduction: A Reputation in Shreds
She is the queen who danced while the people starved; who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects’ plight. Such is the distorted but widespread view of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre (1755-1793), wife of King Louis XVI (1754-1793). Popular films have further damaged the image of the much-maligned Austrian archduchess, sent to France at age fourteen to marry the fifteen-year-old Dauphin. Sadly, the picture many people now have of Antoinette is of her running through Versailles with a glass of champagne in her hand, eating bonbons all day long, and rolling in the bushes with a lover. In reality, she was a teetotaler who ate frugally. She was notorious for her intense modesty. Even some prominent biographers, who have insisted upon the possibility of an affair with Swedish Count Axel von Fersen, have had to admit that there is no solid evidence. Yes, she had a gambling problem when young. She loved to entertain; her parties were legendary. She liked to dance, until dawn if she could, but settled down when she became a mother. She had a lively sense of humor. Her clothes, yes, were magnificent; volumes could and have been written about Marie-Antoinette’s style. She did gradually introduce simpler fashions to France, however.
It is known that Queen Marie-Antoinette had high moral standards. She did not permit uncouth or off-color remarks in her presence. She exercised a special vigilance over anyone in her care, especially the young ladies of her household. As Madame Campan relates in her memoirs:
All who were acquainted with the Queen’s private qualities knew that she equally deserved attachment and esteem. Kind and patient to excess in her relations with her household, she indulgently considered all around her, and interested herself in their fortunes and in their pleasures. She had, among her women, young girls from the Maison de Saint Cyr, all well born; the Queen forbade them the play when the performances were not suitable; sometimes, when old plays were to be represented, if she found she could not with certainty trust to her memory, she would take the trouble to read them in the morning, to enable her to decide whether the girls should or should not go to see them, rightly considering herself bound to watch over their morals and conduct.1
In pre-revolutionary France it was for the King and the Queen to give an example of almsgiving. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette took this duty seriously and throughout their reign did what they could to help the needy. During the fireworks celebrating the marriage of the young prince and princess in May 1770, there was a stampede in which many people were killed. Louis and Marie-Antoinette gave all of their private spending money for a month to relieve the suffering of the victims and their families. They became very popular with the common people as a result, which was reflected in the adulation with which they were received when the Dauphin took his wife to Paris on her first “official” visit in June 1773. Marie-Antoinette’s reputation for sweetness and mercy became even more entrenched in 1774, when as the new Queen she asked that the people be relieved of a tax called “the Queen’s belt,” customary at the beginning of each reign. “Belts are no longer worn,” she quipped.2 It was the onslaught of revolutionary propaganda that would eventually destroy her reputation.
The King and Queen were patrons of the Maison Philanthropique, a society founded by Louis XVI which helped the aged, blind and widows. The Queen taught her daughter Madame Royale to wait upon peasant children, to sacrifice her Christmas gifts so as to buy fuel and blankets for the destitute, and to bring baskets of food to the sick. Marie-Antoinette started a home for unwed mothers at the royal palace. She adopted three poor children to be reared with her own, as well overseeing the upbringing of several needy children, whose education she paid for, while caring for their families. She brought several peasant families to live on her farm at Trianon, building cottages for them. There was food for the hungry distributed every day at Versailles, at the King’s command. During the famine of 1787-88, the royal family sold much of their flatware to buy grain for the people, eating the cheap barley bread in order to be able to give more to the hungry. The royal couple’s almsgiving stopped only with their incarceration in the Temple in August 1792, for then they had nothing left to give but their lives.
Too often in the many articles about Marie-Antoinette that have surfaced over the years, Count Axel von Fersen is referred to as the “Queen’s lover” or as her “probable lover.” It is repeatedly disregarded that there is not a scrap of reliable historical evidence that Count Fersen and Marie-Antoinette were anything but friends, and that he was as much her husband’s friend as he was hers. People are free to speak of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour as “lovers” since they openly lived together for many years. But to speak that way of Marie-Antoinette, who lost her life because she chose to stay at her husband’s side, is the height of irresponsibility.
The Swedish nobleman was in the service of his sovereign King Gustavus III and Count Fersen’s presence at the French court needs to be seen in the light of that capacity. The Swedish King was a devoted friend of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and Gustavus, even more than the Queen’s Austrian relatives, worked to aid the King and Queen of France in their time of trouble. Fersen was the go-between in the various secret plans to help Louis XVI regain control of his kingdom and escape from the clutches of his political enemies. The diplomatic intrigues that went on behind the scenes are more interesting than any imaginary romance. The Queen’s relationship with her husband is more interesting as well. However, books and movies continue to add this sensationalism to Marie-Antoinette’s life, as if anything could be more sensational than the reality. Serious modern and contemporary scholars, however, such as Frances Mossiker, Paul and Pierrette Girault de Coursac, Hilaire Belloc, Nesta Webster, Simone Bertière, Philippe Delorme, Jean Chalon, Chantal Thomas, Desmond Seward, Jean Petitfils and Simon Schama are unanimous in saying that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that Marie-Antoinette violated her marriage vows by dallying with Count Fersen.
As Jean Chalon points out in his biography Chère Marie-Antoinette, Fersen, who had many mistresses, saw the Queen as an angel, to whom he offered reverent and chaste homage. According to Chalon, Marie-Antoinette knew about sex only through conjugal love, where she found her “happiness,” her bonheur essentiel, as she wrote to her mother. 3 If there had been any cause for concern about Count Fersen’s presence at the French court as regards the Queen’s reputation, the Austrian ambassador Count Mercy-Argenteau would surely have mentioned it in one of the reams of letters to Marie-Antoinette’s mother Empress Maria Theresa, to whom he passed on every detail of the young Queen’s life. Count Mercy had spies whom he paid well to gather information, but Fersen was not worth mentioning. Neither is he mentioned in a romantic way by other people close to Marie-Antoinette in their memoirs, such as her maid Madame Campan.
The accounts of those whose personal knowledge of the Queen, or deep study of her life, reveal her virtue, as well as her fidelity and devotion to her husband, are continually ignored. Montjoie in his Histoire de Marie-Antoinette, Vol.1 (1797) quotes the words of her page, the Comte d’Hézècques:
If one wishes to discover the prime cause of the misfortunes of this princess, we must seek them in the passions of which the court was the hotbed and in the corruption of her century. If I had seen otherwise I would say so with sincerity, but I affirm that after having seen everything, heard everything, and read everything, I am convinced that the morals of Marie Antoinette were as pure as those of her virtuous husband. 4
But since so often the testimonials of French monarchists are seen as being an attempt to ingratiate themselves to the surviving Bourbons, here is what the Irish politician and author John Wilson Croker (1780-1857) wrote in his Essays on the French Revolution:
We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all
, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with―if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves―something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny—that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings. 5
It is an assessment with which I fully agree. I hope that in the future responsible scholarship about Queen Marie-Antoinette and her family comes to replace the lies which have fed the popular imagination for so long.
1 A Daughter of the Caesars
“Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, as terrible as an army set in array?” ―Canticle of Canticles 6:9
“And the virgin's name was Mary...” ―St. Luke 1:27
On September 12, the fifth day within the octave of the Nativity of the Virgin, in 1683, the army of the Turkish Sultan, 300,000 strong, was miraculously defeated at the gates of Vienna after an attempt to sweep across Europe. The King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, had come to the aid of the Habsburg Emperor Leopold, and they attributed the victory to the intercession of the Black Madonna, borne by the Poles into battle. The triumph, won against overwhelming odds, saved Europe from becoming a Moslem colony, and September 12, already Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, was henceforth celebrated with great solemnity by the House of Austria. The name of “Maria” was given to every daughter of the family but all except the eldest were called by their second name. Hence, Marie-Antoinette during her lifetime was known by her two families as “Antoine” or “Antoinette.”
I did not begin to understand Antoinette until I visited Vienna in 1995, the capital of Austria which, when Antoinette was born, the Imperial city of the Habsburg empire. I found it to be a city of order, cleanliness and beauty, with magnificent churches, palaces and gardens kept in their original splendor. The solemn alabaster Hofburg and the creamy yellow Schönbrunn, the two palaces in which the future Queen of France would spend her childhood, both project the aura of stateliness and majesty which was said to surround Antoinette herself. The Catholic statues and monuments express a joyful faith with an awareness of the soul’s last end. Yet amid the grandeur and dignity of old Vienna there is always a touch of whimsy, with plenty of art, music and gardens. There were picture post cards of Antoinette in many shops, sold with the implicit understanding that she was their princess who had been sent to France to die. In Vienna, she was not the hated l’Autrichienne but a beloved Archduchess known for her generous heart, the youngest of many daughters of a beloved Empress-Queen.
There are numerous anecdotes about Antoinette and here is one of the first. In the early autumn of 1755, Empress Maria Theresa, expecting her fifteenth child, cheerfully made a wager with the Duke von Tarouka as to whether she would have a boy or a girl. The Duke thought it would be a boy. When he lost the bet, he sent the Empress her winnings, accompanied by the verse of Mestastio, who was to be the Italian tutor of the newborn archduchess:
Ho perduto: l'augusta figlia .
A pagar m' ha, condamnato.
Ma s'e vero ch'a voi simiglia
Tutto l' mundo ha guadagnato.1
Thus from even before she was born, Antoinette was involved in gambling, a pastime from which she would glean a great deal of amusement as well as damage to her purse and her reputation. Was the little Archduchess like her mother as hoped? If one compares portraits, then yes, indeed she was in appearance. Hers was the same delicate beauty, pale flawless skin, pale blue eyes, and auburn-tinted blonde hair. Later, the Empress would write to Antoinette’s future husband saying: “She will come to love you. I know, because I know her.” 2 The Empress had insights into the heart of a daughter who in many ways was so like herself: passionate, strong-willed, motherly, and indomitable, especially when in a corner. But that was all to come later.
Antoinette celebrated her birthday on November 1, the Feast of All Saints, although the actual date of birth was the Feast of All Souls, November 2, considered a day of prayer and penance on behalf of the faithful departed, to be accompanied by meditations on death and judgment. On November 2, 1755, an earthquake of apocalyptic proportions struck Portugal, the home of Antoinette’s godparents the King and Queen of Portugal. It was one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history. King Joseph and Queen Mariana Victoria were spared simply because they had left Lisbon for the country on a sudden whim the day before. Because it was All Souls Day a great number of people in Lisbon were in churches to gain the special indulgence, which may have led to more victims. Around 40,000 people were killed by the falling buildings and the resulting tsunami. Europeans would see the event as a portent of doom. While Antoinette shunned superstition, the catastrophe which coincided with her entry into the world made an impression upon her mind, at least according to Madame Campan, who with hindsight was perturbed by the cataclysm and the connection it had with her Queen. 3 The Empress was not superstitious either. However, on at least two occasions that we know of, Maria Theresa took her youngest daughter to persons with mystical gifts to be assured that the future would not be too dark. But the truth was never fully imparted to her. If the Empress had known all that would happen to her child she would have died of sorrow on the spot.
On Novenber 3, 1755, Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna of Lorrraine-Austria was baptized in the anticamera of the Hofburg Palace. She was christened by the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal von Trautson. The Empress preferred to have her children baptized by the Papal Nuncio, however the new nuncio, Cardinal Visconti, had not yet been formally presented at Court and was therefore ineligible to perform the ceremony. The child’s brother Joseph and sister Maria Anna stood in for her godparents the King and Queen of Portugal; ironically they bore the identical names as the King and Queen. Another irony was that the Portuguese queen, Mariana Victoria, a Spanish princess, had once been betrothed to Louis XV as a child and had lived at Versailles as the Infanta-Queen. She had been sent home when it was decided that Louis XV was to marry the Polish princess Marie Leszczyńska.
The baby was christened “Maria” for the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the Habsburg lands had been dedicated by Ferdinand III in the following words, carved on a column in the heart of the capital:
To God, infinite in goodness and power, King of heaven and earth, by whom kings reign; to the Virgin Mother of God, conceived without sin, by whom princes command, whom Austria, devoutly loving, holds as her Queen and Patron; Ferdinand III, Emperor, confides, gives, consecrates himself, children, people, armies, provinces, and all that is his, and erects in accomplishment of a vow this statue, as a perpetual memorial.4
The child was called “Antonia” in honor of St. Anthony of Padua the Wonder-worker, who was not only the patron saint of Portugal, the home of her godparents, but also revered in the House of Austria. In 1620, Emperor Ferdinand II overcame the Protestant forces at the Battle of the White Mountain, making Bohemia Catholic once again. The Emperor had great devotion to St. Anthony, also known as “Hammer of Heretics,” who shared with him the baptismal name of “Ferdinand.” 5At the same battle, St. Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite mystic who had recently been canonized, allegedly appeared to the Catholic soldiers, encouraging them on to victory. The name “Teresa,” already popular in Spain, thus spread to the Habsburg lands in the east and into the Imperial Family. In thanksgiving for winning the Battle of the White Mountain, the Emperor dedicated a church in Prague to both Our Lady Victorious and St. Anthony of Padua. The church was given to the Carmelite Fathers who housed therein a miraculous statue of the Infant Jesus. Several of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen’s daughters bore the name “Antonia” for St. Anthony.
St. Joseph, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the Foster Father of the Christ Child, had gained great popularity in Italy and Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries due to the writings o
f the Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena and the Carmelite St. Teresa of Avila. As devotion to Saint Teresa spread from the Spanish Habsburgs to the Austrian Habsburgs and into France, devotion to St. Joseph accompanied it. The names “Joseph” and “Josepha” began to appear in the Imperial Family; it was Antoinette’s third name, followed by her fourth name “Joanna.” St. John the Evangelist had long been a favorite among rich and poor, peasants and nobles, as the youngest Apostle who reclined upon the Heart of the Savior, who later faithfully stood at the foot of the Cross with the Blessed Mother. He was also the saint of the visions of the Apocalypse. And we must not forget St. John the Baptist, the cousin and herald of Jesus and long a well-beloved saint in Christendom. Another maiden of Lorraine called Jeanne Darc, who had been sent to save France, had been named for St. John long ago.
In November of 1755, the Archduchess Antonia was in swaddling clothes, and placed in the care of a wet nurse, Frau Weber, whom she would always regard as her foster-mother. Maria Constantia Weber, the wife of the Viennese magistrate Georg Weber, was distinguished for her beauty and virtue but most of all for her ability in caring for infants. As wet-nurse of the new imperial baby, she moved into the Hofburg Palace with her own little boy. Frau Weber’s son Joseph Weber was three months older than the Archduchess and would later, with Monsieur de Lally-Tollendal of the Irish-French Jacobite family as a ghost writer, author one of the first biographies of Antoinette in the form of his memoirs. Here is a passage from the Memoirs of Maria-Antoinetta by Joseph Weber, whom the future Queen of France would always refer to as her “foster brother” or frère de lait:
Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars Page 2