Becoming Marie Antoinette (16 page)

Later, when the time came to stand before Maman and offer her a report of my progress, he did not toss me to the wolves. There was much he could have said, and perhaps he did so when I was not in the room. Or perhaps he recognized that my mother was taskmaster enough for two.

That progress report I recall above all others. Maman was taking coffee in her breakfast room. She questioned my tutor as if I wasn’t there; it was often her way when she conversed with another adult in my presence.

“Your Imperial Majesty, it pleases me to say that Madame
Antonia is more intelligent than has been generally supposed,” the abbé responded.

Maman raised an eyebrow.

“Your daughter deserves praise where it is due,” Vermond conceded. “She has many fine qualities, traits that cannot be taught, but which are innate and genuine. Madame Antonia will make an exceptional dauphine in due time.” He pressed on. “Physically, she is becoming quite a beauty. Even a man of my bent,” he said, indicating his clerical soutane, “can see that she has a most graceful figure; holds herself well; and if (as may be hoped) she grows a little taller, she will have all the good qualities one could wish for in a great princess. Her character, her heart, are excellent.”

I felt my cheeks grow warm. His words made me stand a little straighter, raise my chin a bit higher. If I could have become taller in that moment, I would have done so, knowing that it would please the abbé. As of that moment, I ceased to regard him as merely my tutor; the gentle cleric had become my friend.

Maman peered at Vermond, lifting her lorgnette purely for effect; she had no need of it to see him clearly. “Well, then, monsieur l’abbé. It is up to you,
n’est-ce pas
, to see that her mind flourishes with the same vigor.” She lowered the lorgnette and leveled her gaze, direct and unyielding. “Do not disappoint me. The history of the world as we know it, you and I, hangs in the balance.”

S
PRING
1769

“You have so much enthusiasm, so much
charme
, when we converse about pastoral things—
les papillons, les fontaines, les belles fleurs
,” Vermond observed one day. By then it was spring. The year 1768 was little more than memory and the crocuses and forsythia of 1769 were beginning to bloom. In another week or two, red and yellow tulips would dot the parterres and perimeters of Vienna’s public parks.

“It’s because I
like
butterflies, fountains, and beautiful flowers. Perhaps I am not made for correspondence and for books,” I argued.

“That does not excuse you from perfecting both your writing and your reading,” Vermond replied. “It is my duty to see that you excel in everything.”

I lowered my lashes and smiled at him, noting the soft pink that suffused his cheeks. “But when I go to Versailles, you will read to me!” I added gaily.

Vermond chuckled in spite of himself. “Madame Antonia, the office of ‘reader,’ or lecturer, means that I would serve as your spiritual counselor, not as a nanny; bedtime stories and lurid novels on the order of
La Princesse de Clèves
would not be the topics of our discourse—rather the word of God, as it is written—”

I interrupted him with a wave of my hand. “
Tant pis
,” I sighed with an air of mock resignation. “Too bad.”

The abbé’s hand flew to his chest. “You know, I almost believed you! Call it blasphemy to say so, but were you not born to wed the future king of France, you could have been an actress.”

I stifled a giggle. “If my mother heard you, she would send you packing back to Paris on a mule with no provisions but moldy bread and contaminated water.” I recalled the debacle over messieurs Aufresne and Sainville. “And don’t think for a moment that she would hesitate to relieve you of your duties if you do not transform me from an Austrian caterpillar into a French butterfly.”

Vermond scrubbed a hand through his russet hair. “I hope Your Royal Highness does not believe I would wish you anything other than what you are,” he said with a bit of a glint in his light brown eyes. “With the exception of becoming a proficient and productive student. Therefore”—he cleared his throat—“touching on the subject of the future king of France, kindly recite the history of its queens.”

Ahh! This I knew. It was right and natural that I should feel an affinity with these women, some of them no older than I when they departed their native lands to be yoked in matrimony to a stranger. If they were ever homesick I was sure they kept the secret locked within their bosoms, knowing it was not only their duty, but an honor, to bear the next king of France.

I began with Eléanore d’Aquitaine, who introduced tablecloths to the French court and who scandalized her mother-in-law with her extravagant wardrobe, her cosmetics, and her
opulent jewelry. “And she bravely rode at the head of the French army on the crusade to the Holy Land. Bare-breasted and in red boots, too!” I had spent weeks trying to imagine the scene. I also tried to picture how she survived day to day, enduring a loveless marriage to her cousin, Louis VII, who had few interests beyond prayer and repentance, when she herself, who so adored music and dancing, was the very image of liveliness and sociability.

“Well,” sighed my tutor, scarcely concealing his amusement, “you are correct; although you would do well to heed the lessons Queen Eleanor either flouted or forgot. Her own husband imprisoned her for more than fifteen years for daring to meddle in politics.”

“Ah, but that was her English husband!” I countered. “I am to marry a
French
king.”

And so my examination continued as I scampered down the branches of the royal family trees, from the Capets to the Valois and finally to the current reigning dynasty, the Bourbons. “Maria Theresa”—a name I could not possibly forget, as it was also my mother’s—“was the wife of Louis XIV, the Sun King. She was the Spanish infanta and the three-times-great-grandmother of the dauphin, Louis Auguste, my future husband.”

“And?” Vermond gently nudged.

I racked my brain. “Oh,
ja
—I mean
oui
—a silly phrase. The French peasants were starving for want of bread and she dismissed their hunger, saying,
‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.’
But what’s a brioche and why should they eat that, if they have no bread?”

Vermond laughed. “A brioche is a delicious breakfast bun baked with flour, butter, and eggs. And just a pinch of sugar, so it’s a little bit sweet—like a cake.”

I frowned, furrowing my brow. “Well it’s a silly thing to say, then. ‘Let them eat cake.’ She should have gone out among the people and fed them. It’s what I would have done.”

There was great pomp and ceremony on the exceptionally sunny day in May when Monsieur Ducreux’s formal portrait of me was dispatched to Louis XV of France. By then we had decamped to Schönbrunn for the summer months, although Maman often left us to attend to affairs of state at the Hofburg.

The painter had in fact executed two portraits, but Maman detested the first—in which I look flat as a board, laced into a teal blue gown embellished with ecru ruffles. My hair, lightly powdered, is styled off my forehead in the mode that Sieur Larsenneur had fashioned for me; but my neck, accentuated by a ruched choker, looks unnaturally long when compared with the expanse of bosom revealed by the gown. Perhaps if I had had something delectable and alluring to show for all that skin, the image would have been more attractive. In my view, the artist had represented my face rather accurately, but the balance of the composition conveyed the image of a physically immature child—hardly the message Maman wished to send to France.

Appalled by Ducreux’s maiden effort and livid at him for wasting precious time, my mother refused to accept the portrait. I was to sit for the painter again. And this time he was cautioned in no uncertain terms to create the image of a nubile bride.

On May 13, the commission was unveiled, its protective white drape removed for all to ogle. Well! I was surprised to see that I looked quite the young lady. This time, the pose reflected an angular
jawline.
Did I ever look like that?
I wondered. Pearls were entwined in my powdered coiffure. Even my dress, silver watered silk with accents of royal blue and pewter gray, was a markedly more mature choice than the barely embellished deep blue gown I had worn in Monsieur Ducreux’s previous effort. Standing beside Maman and the diplomats involved in arranging my marriage—the marquis de Durfort, the duc de Choiseul, and our ambassador, comte de Mercy—I regarded the second portrait. This time around, my doppelgänger’s gaze was direct and confident. I stifled a giggle with my fingertips. I
would marry me
, I thought!