Maria Theresa was a good mother as well as a great Queen. Her tenderness seemed as soft as her courage appeared majestic and sublime. No sooner had she entrusted her child to my mother than she adopted us all. She rewarded the long services of my father with a considerable pension, and a grant of apartments in the Hotel de la Chancellerie. A pension was settled on my mother, and one also on each of her children. As for me, whose lot it was to be nourished with the same milk that Maria-Antoinetta was, Her Imperial Majesty desired my mother, while I was a child, to take me with her whenever she went to pay her respects to the young Princess whom she had suckled.
The daughter of the Caesars then made me join in the sports of her infancy, in which the Empress herself took a part; and, as at that age no thing had yet made me sensible of the immense distance between myself and her with whom I played, the august and good Maria-Theresa, fearing to give me pain if she bestowed her caresses partially, often took me on one of her knees when she held her daughter on the other, and honoured me with embraces similar to those she lavished upon her.6
What strikes me about this charming story from Weber’s memoir is that even as an infant, Antoinette never had her mother to herself. She did not display resentment of Weber but was generous to him all of her life. Yet perhaps it explains the tenacity with which she held onto to her female friendships.
Antoinette was the fifteenth child in a family of sixteen. Her parents were the Holy Roman Emperor and Empress but they were very informal as royals go. “The Imperial family,” said Goethe, as quoted by Maxime de la Rocheterie, “is nothing more than a large German bourgeoisie.” Rocheterie, in his classic biography of Antoinette, describes the household in which the future Queen was reared:
Etiquette was unknown. The emperor and empress liked to live in the midst of their subjects kind and friendly toward all but restraining familiarity by respect. Unfortunately they were so absorbed by the care of the policy and administration of their vast empire that they had little leisure to superintend the education of their numerous children. They confided them to tutors and governesses whom they chose with care and to whom it appears they gave their instructions without, however, seeing that they were carried out. 7
It is, of course, notorious how her own family's casualness about etiquette would make living at Versailles quite a challenge for the teenaged Antoinette. In such a loving if rather haphazard environment, the little Archduchess, called “Antoine,” blossomed into a lively and attractive child. While she was not outstandingly pious or studious, she learned her prayers and was carefully catechized. She very much enjoyed her musical instructions—Gluck was her teacher— her dancing lessons, and anything to do with pets, especially dogs and horses. She was taught to draw and sketched a likeness of her deceased father in red chalk when she was ten.8 She did well at languages, including Latin and Italian, and showed an interest in history. As Vincent Cronin says: “She learned Austrian history and the Austrian version of French history, notably different from the French version, for it failed to mention that France was God’s gift to the planet Earth….”9 Theater was her passion, especially comedy. When preparing to go to France to be married, two actors helped to improve her French diction, which Louis XV thought to be inappropriate when he heard of it. The French king sent the priest Abbé Vermond to take over the future queen's studies; he became her confessor as well. There was some concern over her health, since from the age of eight she had experienced nervous spasms when upset. “Antoine has convulsions,” her mother wrote. “She loses consciousness for an hour.”10 Nevertheless, the princess learned to speak, walk and move with beauty and grace, as if on stage.
Although her portraits show her neatly coifed, in reality the small Archduchess had a wild mop of curly red-gold hair which her governess kept out of her face with a black woolen band. Over time the hairband tore the hair out at the roots. When it came time to prepare the child for her future in France, the French hairdresser who was brought to Austria had to be very creative in order to make her presentable, using a carefully managed coif à la française, which became an immediate sensation at the Imperial Court. She also had her teeth straightened with gold braces. What the portraits never show is that Antoinette had faint pock marks on one side of her mouth, the only flaw in her creamily translucent skin. The Empress insisted that her daughters dress modestly and in the traditional “Spanish” mode of the Habsburgs, which meant that while their clothes were beautiful they were never in the height of fashion. Antoine therefore was never interested in fashion or encouraged to be so until after she arrived in France.11
Antoine’s mother taught her to play cards.12 Knowing of the French court, Empress Maria Theresa probably feared that if her daughter did not learn how to win certain games of chance, she would lose all her money. Gambling was rife at all the courts of Europe; the Viennese actually played for much higher stakes than the French, which did not help Antoinette when she started having all night card parties as a twenty-year old Queen of France. However, her mother also instilled in her a great concern for the poor and a sense of duty towards all who were unfortunate; there are many accounts of the young archduchess’ charity.13
Due to her delayed and imperfect education, which did not really begin until age thirteen when Abbé Vermond took charge, Antoine had a Manichean view of the world, everything was black or white and all the people were good or bad. Anyone against the Austrian alliance was bad. Plus her mother had inculcated in her that the court of France was a cesspool of vice and that she was to be constantly vigilant for the protection of her soul. It only served to give the teenager a morally superior attitude towards those with whom she was to dwell.
The word most often used to describe the youthful Antoinette by those in charge of her was “dissipation.” Now in French, dissipation has a slightly different meaning from our English version of the word. As Nesta Webster explains in Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette Before the Revolution:
The gravest reproach brought against [Marie-Antoinette]...is her tendency to ‘dissipation,’ a word which must not...be translated by the English word dissipation signifying wild gaiety, even dissoluteness, but simply a love of distraction and a disinclination to give fixed attention to any subject.”14
I wonder if today she would have been diagnosed as genuinely having an attention deficit disorder. Sadly, the wandering mind of a young girl would cause her to be forever labeled as “dissipated” by those who misunderstood or mistranslated the original meaning.
Before sending Antoine to France, Maria Theresa took her daughter to a convent in Vienna to see a nun with visionary gifts. The mother was worried that Antoine’s budding piety would be harmed at the corrupt Court of France. The nun earnestly studied the glowing young face for a long time. Then she said: “She will have reverses, but will turn to religion at the last.” Maria Theresa burst into tears.15 It is also reported that the Empress consulted Fr. Gassner the “thaumaturgus” in regard to the girl’s future. Fr. Gassner regarded the princess with a serious expression before replying: “There are crosses for all shoulders.” 16 17
The Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), Antoinette’s mother, can be counted among the greatest of Christian monarchs. She was born an Archduchess of Austria and became Queen of Hungary and Queen of Bohemia when her Habsburg father died, but held the title of Holy Roman Empress because her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, had been elected Emperor. The marriage was a love match, although not without problems, and produced sixteen children. 18 People have accused Maria Theresa of betraying her motherhood by marrying her children all over Europe in order to forge alliances, but she was not doing anything different from other royal parents. Furthermore, she was the mother of her people as well, and allying the empire with foreign nations was a way to promote peace. 19 Especially it was important to cement an alliance with France, the traditional enemy of Austria. Antoinette was the sacrificial lamb for that project, but that is what it was to be a princess of Hungary and Bohemia, an Archduchess
of Austria.
One noblewoman described being presented to Empress Maria Theresa:
Her Majesty entered followed by the three princesses. My husband and myself each sank upon the left knee and kissed the noblest, the most beautiful hand that has ever wielded a scepter. The Empress gently bade us rise. Her face and her gracious manner banished all the timidity and embarrassment we naturally felt in the presence of so exalted and beautiful a figure as hers. Our fear was changed to love and confidence. 20
The Emperor and Empress made pilgrimages to the Marian shrine of Mariazell “Mary’s Throne” in the Styrian Alps, accompanied by their numerous offspring. They once left two gold hearts, symbolic of the hearts of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen, at the feet of the miraculous statue of the Virgin. Antoinette was a bit of a wayward child, extremely charming and affable, devoted without being outstandingly religious. Yet she, the future reine-martyre, often knelt before the ancient statue of the Virgin with her family.
Unlike many other rulers, including her own son, Empress Maria Theresa, although she was a patroness of the arts and sciences, was not enamored with the philosophies made fashionable by the Enlightenment. In her youth she had loved dancing and riding, but in widowhood she grew more reclusive and strict, always garbed in black. When Francis died in 1765, Maria Theresa was inconsolable, but she kept herself busy governing the Empire and writing letters to all of her daughters, telling them what to do. She was always especially worried about Antoine; even when she was dying she wept as she mentioned her youngest daughter’s name. Maria Theresa passed away on November 29, 1780 at the age of 63. Her nemesis, Frederick the Great of Prussia, who had given her no end of trouble, upon hearing of her death, said: “She has done honor to the throne and to her sex; I have warred with her but I have never been her enemy.” 21
Maria Theresa is buried in the Capuchin crypt in Vienna, the traditional burial place of the Habsburgs. I visited the crypt in 1995 and was able to pray at her tomb. My heart was touched in a way which is difficult to describe. It was shortly after my return from Austria that I found in the cellar the beginning of a novel about Marie-Antoinette that I had begun writing about a decade earlier. I decided to finish the book and called it Trianon.
Through his mother, an Orléans princess, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Antoinette’s father, was a descendent of Henri IV and the Bourbons, as well as Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuarts. Through his father, he was the grandson of Charles of Lorraine and Eleanor of Austria. Duke Charles of Lorraine helped his brother-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, withstand the Turks at the siege of Vienna in 1683. Francis Stephen was later sent from Lorraine to Vienna to be brought up at the court of Leopold’s son, Emperor Charles VI, where he developed a deep affection for his cousin, Charles VI’s eldest daughter and heir, Maria Theresa, and his feelings were passionately reciprocated. It was arranged that the two should marry and they did so in 1736. According to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, females could inherit the Habsburg lands. Nevertheless, the war of the Austrian Succession was fought before Maria Theresa’s inheritance was recognized by all of Europe in 1748. France objected to the husband of Maria Theresa being Duke of Lorraine, since it gave Austria a foothold in France. So Francis Stephen renounced his inheritance of the Duchy of Lorraine and became Grand Duke of Tuscany instead. In 1745, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor, after much diplomatic wrangling by his wife. Although Maria Theresa handled the politics and matters of state, Francis handled the money, investing wisely so that the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty and the Empire went from near financial collapse to great prosperity. In the meantime, Francis Stephen sired a family of sixteen children with Maria Theresa. Although he adored his wife and children, he philandered with other women, inspiring Maria Theresa to start a Chastity Commission to hunt out unfaithful husbands and their mistresses. Francis Stephen became a Freemason in 1731, which also displeased his wife.
Francis Stephen was especially fond of his youngest daughter Antoine. On his way to Innsbruck for the marriage of his son Leopold to the Spanish Infanta in August of 1765, he suddenly ordered the coach to be stopped. Although he had already kissed his children good-bye, he sent back to Schönbrunn for the Archduchess Antonia, saying “I must see her again.” The nine year old was brought at once; the father embraced her, gazing at his child’s face with a look of such great love that she was never to forget it. 22 Sadly, Francis became ill during the course of the wedding festivities and died at Innsbruck. He left the following words for his children:
Never be indifferent before what appears to you to be evil, nor attempt to find it innocent… We are not put into this world merely to amuse ourselves… What kind of people we should frequent is also a delicate matter, for they may often lead us into many things against our will… Friendship is one of the pleasures of life, but one should be careful to whom one entrusts this friendship and not be too prodigal of it… This is why I advise you, my dear children, never to be in a hurry to place your friendship and trust in someone of whom you are not quite sure. 23
As has been noted, Antoinette was the fifteenth child in a family of sixteen, and the youngest daughter of eleven girls. Several children died in infancy or toddlerhood, long before Antoine was born. Here we will describe only those whom she knew so the reader may gather more of a sense of her childhood, which ended at age fourteen when she married. The eldest surviving sister was Archduchess Maria Anna (1738-1789), or “La Marianne” as Empress Maria Theresa referred to her in her letters to Antoinette. 24 Maria Anna had numerous physical handicaps, including a crooked back and weak lungs. It was early on decided that she was unmarriageable and so she was encouraged to become a nun. She eventually became the Abbess at Klagenfurt monastery in the Austrian Alps; it may be through her influence that Antoinette acquired some of her liturgical books, such as The Little Office of The Blessed Virgin Mary: According to the Usage of the Cistercian Order. The Abbess, who eschewed society as much as it eschewed her, was a patroness of the arts and sciences like her father the Emperor, and was perhaps one of the most intellectual of the sisters. She died at the age of 51.
When traveling in Austria in 1995 I visited a former Carthusian monastery at Gaming. Like many monastic communities in what was once the Holy Roman Empire, the monastery in Gaming was closed down in the late 1700’s by the orders of Emperor Joseph II, who did not tolerate any contemplative orders, those who were not doing “practical” work. Joseph (1741-1790) was Antoinette’s bossy oldest brother, as different from her as night from day, although he claimed to be fond of his little sister. Joseph was an “enlightened despot.” He had two disastrous marriages to wives who both died young, leaving him a widower with a little girl, who also died. Joseph’s first marriage was to Isabella of Parma (1741-1763), daughter of Élisabeth of France and granddaughter of Louis XV. The princess appears to have been a happy little girl but she fell into depression when her mother died in 1759. In spite of Joseph’s being passionately in love with the exquisite Isabella, she did not return his feelings, and although she gave him a daughter, she became more listless and unhappy. Isabella latched onto Joseph’s sister Maria Christina (Mimi), and the two were inseparable friends. Isabella’s letters to Mimi are often gushing and tender; people often misinterpret them as being the proof of a lesbian liaison, not realizing that it was the very innocence of such a friendship that made the loving words possible between such carefully brought up, devout Catholic ladies. Nevertheless, Isabella’s letters also showed a tendency to obsession, particularly with death. Weakened by miscarriages, Isabella died of a stillbirth complicated by smallpox.
Two years after Isabella’s death, Joseph became Emperor and married Maria Josepha of Bavaria (1739-1767), to whom he was not in the least attracted and whom he treated with coldness. Being still in love with Isabella, he did not want to marry again but did so for political reasons and to beget an heir. Maria Josepha, friendless and alone, wasted away at the Habsburg court and died of smallpox after two heartbreaking years of m
arriage. She was buried in the Capuchin crypt and was later blamed for passing on smallpox to Joseph’s sister from her tomb.
Joseph was a liberal, and like many liberals he could be quite tyrannical when it came to imposing his ideas of freedom upon everyone else. He tried to secularize his country by making the Church subservient to the state, influenced as he was by new ideas of the Enlightenment. Strange that he had the same goal as many of the revolutionaries in France, although he was intent upon keeping the imperial power. His sister Antoinette did not approve of his so-called reforms,25 which involved the closing of monasteries, which was being done by the revolutionaries in France as well. Some people speculate that if Joseph had lived longer he may have done more to help his sister the Queen of France in her hour of need than either his brother Leopold or his nephew Francis did as emperors. But that is speculation. No matter how much he loved his sister, he was an emperor first, and would have done what he thought was best for Austria. However, because he died young, we will never really know.
Archduchess Maria Christina (1742-1798), known in the family as “Mimi,” was said to be the Empress’ favorite daughter, although her siblings regarded her as a manipulative tattle-tale. Mimi, who was not only clever and talented but a beauty, was the only daughter allowed to marry for love. In 1766 she took advantage of her mother’s new widowhood to talk her into letting her marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen. The couple ruled in Hungary before settling into being Governors of the Austrian Netherlands. Mimi later had a great deal of trouble implementing Joseph’s so-called reforms which were hated in the Netherlands, and disapproved of by Mimi herself. She visited Antoinette at Versailles in 1786, and the sisters often exchanged loving letters. As biographer Melanie Clegg writes in Marie-Antoinette: An Intimate Biography:
Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars Page 3