The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette (29 page)

‘Hush.’ I smiled and squeezed her arm with my gloved hand. ‘Let’s just enjoy ourselves.’ I took a deep, satisfied breath as we walked along the avenue, smiling and bowing to the courtiers as we went by. ‘Well, he has certainly pulled out all the stops hasn’t he?’ Everywhere I looked there were candles and gold dolphins in reference to the Dauphin and enormous blue, white and yellow bouquets and blue and gold liveried servants running here and there carrying silver trays laden with wine, champagne, small glasses of liqueurs and cakes.

‘I heard that there is a servant for every guest,’ Clementina whispered, linking her arm with mine. ‘He has certainly spared no expense and here was I thinking that he hated you.’

I grinned. ‘Oh, he may well dislike me but Durfort would never willingly miss an opportunity to outdo Austria and make us look inferior to France.’ I could hear my sisters Elizabeth and Christina laughing behind us, enjoying some light flirtation with male friends as they sauntered along the path, their matching ruffled yellow silk skirts sweeping the dust while further back my mother walked with Joseph, leaning heavily on his black velvet clad arm. Marianna had vanished straight away and was probably enjoying the palace’s famous library
 
while my other brothers were no doubt running amock, fuelled with hot chocolate and cakes.

‘I will miss all of this,’ I said with a sigh.

Clementina looked at me sadly. ‘In any other circumstance I would ask if you were having second thoughts but…’ Her eyes dropped, hiding her pity from me.

‘But I never had any choice in the matter,’ I finished for her. ‘And I couldn’t back out even if I wanted to.’ I shivered a little, feeling suddenly cold and exposed. ‘I wonder what would happen if I refused to go through with it?’

Clementina laughed. ‘Well your mother would almost certainly drag you kicking and screaming up the aisle to the altar.’ She arranged the shimmering pink silk stole that matched my beautiful, diamond strewn dress around my shoulders. ‘I am sure it has had to be done before.’

I smiled then. ‘I am sure that you are right. I am fortunate really to be marrying someone not ill looking and who is close to my own age.’ I shrugged lightly, trying not to think of the Dauphin’s podgy cheeks and weak chin. ‘It could be much worse.’

‘Oh yes, things could always be much worse! For a start, he could be old and ugly!’ she agreed with a laugh. ‘Or spotty.’

‘With nasty teeth!’ I whispered, giggling, ‘Bad breath! Long fingernails!’ I was laughing properly now, gasping for air. ‘He could look like Durfort!’

‘Only much, much worse! Clementina was bent double with laughter now. ‘Like a big fat, French toad!’

‘There is nothing worse! Oh, oh, this is too funny!’ I cried, wiping away tears of laughter, my amusement heightened by the awareness that Christina and Elizabeth had halted in the middle of the path and were both staring at me, their plucked eyebrows raised, their rouged lips pursed with disapproval.

‘Wait,’ Clementina had stopped laughing and was looking down across the gardens. ‘He is here.’

‘Where?’ There was no need to ask who ‘he’ was. Clementina and I had no secrets from each other. ‘Has he seen me? How do I look?’ I did a little twirl, the diamond stars on my pink silk skirts glimmering in the torchlight.

‘You look beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I will walk with you but my ears as well as my lips are sealed.’

‘Oh, Clementina, what would I do without you?’ We linked arms again and sauntered across the crowded terrace towards Karl. I blushed and ducked my head away beneath the weight of his admiring stare, reminding myself that he had once been Amalia’s lover and probably still was, at least as far as Amalia was concerned.

‘Your Highness.’ He was in front of me now, grinning widely as he bowed and lifted my hand up to his warm lips, his hazel eyes smiling down into mine. ‘You look enchanting.’

‘Thank you.’ I gazed up at him, thinking how handsome he looked in his russet velvet suit and wondering what it would be like to press my lips, just once to his. This last thought made me blush again and pull my hand away, overcome with embarrassment and terrified lest he could discern my thoughts in some way.

‘Shall we walk?’ He offered me his arm and I hesitated for a moment before placing my hand upon it. ‘A few minutes won’t do any harm.’ He looked over my shoulder and his smile melted away while a wariness crept into his eyes. ‘Ah.’

‘Antoinette?’ I turned and there was Joseph, looming over us, his clear blue eyes concerned as they met my own. ‘Will you walk with me for a while?’

I forced a smile and transferred my hand from Karl’s arm to that of my brother, hardly daring to look back at him in case my face betrayed my disappointment. ‘Of course.’

‘I was just about to take Her Highness to you,’ Karl lied smoothly, moving aside.

Joseph bowed, clearly disbelieving. ‘Of course.’ He swept me away, leaving Clementina with Karl and I dared not look back to see what they were doing, although I felt a sudden pang of jealousy that my lady in waiting would get to enjoy his company whereas I…

‘I do not want you to be alone with that young man again.’ Joseph’s voice was clipped and cold. ‘Amalia broke her heart over him and I am not keen to see another of my sisters fall into his clutches.’

‘I have always thought him to be very amiable,’ I remarked, trying to keep my tone light and unconcerned. ‘We are friends merely.’

Joseph gave a short laugh. ‘I am not a fool, Antoinette!’ he said, looking almost angry. ‘I saw the way that he was looking at you, the way that you almost fell over your skirts in your haste to get to him.’ He looked disdainful. ‘I think that you will agree that it is not often that I find occasion to speak to you like this, but kindly remember who you are!’ He looked at me then and his face softened. ‘It is hard, I know, to be given away in marriage and to feel like you have no control over your own destiny but you will learn how to bear it, truly you will.’

Will I learn to bear it? Really?

Oh, my head hurts and I should go to bed. It is now the early hours of my wedding day and already I can see a little bit of dawn peeping out from behind the rooftops while overhead the birds are beginning to sing, hailing the new day in their usual cheerful way.

My wedding day. I can hardly believe that it is here at last and that next time I write in this book I will be Madame la Dauphine de France and someone else entirely. First I was Maria Antonia, then I was Marie Antoinette and next I shall be Madame la Dauphine. I wonder what the Dauphin is thinking right now? If he is even awake, which of course he won’t be.

Oh, I am rambling now. I should go to bed. Not to dream of Karl. No. Poor Karl. Poor me. Poor all of us.

19
th
April, afternoon.

I have not had enough sleep and desperately wish that I could return to bed and pull the covers over my head and sink back into my interrupted dreams of Paris. I am running out of time, however and even as I write this I can hear my maids bustling in the next room, running my lily and rose scented bath, gossiping with the fashionable Viennese hairdresser who has come to do my coiffure and fluffing out the skirts of my elaborate cloth of silver wedding dress.

The tiny green and white porcelain clock on my desk is counting down the hours – only two left now before I make my way to the church of the Augustine Friars, there to kneel beside my brother Ferdinand and make my vows. I feel faint and sick just thinking about it, thinking about the attendant fuss and all those eyes staring at my back as I say the words that will separate me from home forever and ever.

I am wondering also about the boy who is to become my husband, all those miles away in France. I wonder what he is thinking right now? Does he think of me at all?

19
th
April, evening.

It is done. I am married, I am Madame la Dauphine and I don't feel any different.

After my bath, my maids and ladies in waiting dressed me in my gorgeous cloth of silver and lace wedding dress and slipped beautiful diamond heeled shoes on to my feet before the hairdresser stepped forward to attach thick hair pieces and tease and powder and pomade my fair hair into a formal style which was then decorated with diamond hearts and orange blossom.

'A little rouge?' Clementina skipped forward with a tiny porcelain pot of rouge, sent all the way from Paris by Madame la Duchesse de Choiseul as a wedding present. It smelt faintly of roses and violets.

I stared at myself in the mirror on my dressing table, unable to ignore how tired and pale my face looked despite the rouge and how frightened my eyes were as I took in my magnificent dress and looked shyly down to touch the ornate necklace of pearls and diamonds that had been lent by my mother for the occasion. 'This necklace has been worn by every Imperial bride for generations,' she had whispered as she opened their blue velvet box and fastened them around my neck. 'I think that it brings us luck. I was wearing it when I married your father.' She gazed away into the distance and I knew that she was thinking about Papa and how much she had loved him, loved him still in fact and how much she missed him. He should be here with us now.

'Oh, Mama,' I whispered, tears rising in my eyes. 'I wish that Papa was here to see this.' I took her hand in mine, something that I had never before been brave enough to do and to my surprise she curled her plump fingers around mine and squeezed. Perhaps, sometimes, Mama is as frightened as everyone else? Perhaps. It seems impossible, I know.

'He would have been so proud,' she said, nodding and smiling through the tears that streamed down her cheeks. 'France was always so special to him. He always considered himself to be a Prince of Lorraine first and Emperor second.'

'I know, I know,' I soothed, resting my head lightly against her black taffeta shoulder, breathing in her familiar scent of lavender and rosemary, the scent that had once been Papa's and which she had enveloped herself with ever since his passing. I tried to imagine myself loving the Dauphin so much that I mourned him as intensely as Mama had mourned my father but I could not. I do not think that I will ever love any man so much. 'He is watching us from Heaven.'

As I looked at myself in the pearls and diamonds of an Imperial bride I found it hard to believe that this was finally and absolutely it, that we had come at last to the moment of truth. At any point up to now the intricate negotiations between France and Austria could have fallen apart but now, finally, it was too late for that and whatever happened from this moment on was down to me alone.

'You look beautiful,' my ladies in waiting all chorused, smiling encouragingly at me, their eyes anxiously searching mine for signs of panic or dread. I knew that they had had their orders, just as I had had mine. Their objective was to get me to the altar at any cost, while mine was simply to make one foot step in front of the other and smile as though I was going willingly to my own true love.
 

There was a knock on the door and Mama entered, flanked with liveried footmen and looking supremely magnificent in her black silk gown, the diamonds and jet on her stomacher glimmering in the light from the candles that stood on my dressing table. Even today she was wearing mourning, her only concession to the happy occasion being a little rouge on her lips, a pair of red silk shoes concealed beneath her voluminous skirts and a scattering of diamond pins in her pale hair. 'Come, Antonia,' she said holding out her hand and smiling as she deliberately used my Austrian name for the final time. 'Come. It is time.'

We went on foot from the Hofburg to the austere, white fronted Augustinerkirche, the church of Saint Augustine where Imperial weddings have been held for centuries. My sisters and brothers were married there as were our parents and grandparents before them. I myself had been baptized there but of course have no recognition at all of this important occasion.
 

A huge crowd of courtiers and ordinary Viennese people lined the purple carpeted route between the palace and the church, which had been covered with a long canopy of white silk embroidered with the Imperial insignia. I felt faint and rather sick as my mother took my hand and led me out into the waning sunlight and cool breezes of Spring while behind me the Countess Trautmannsdorf heroically carried my heavy silver and lace train. I bit my lip and concentrated on placing one foot before the other, hardly noticing the stares and applause of the crowd that watched us pass or the whispers and giggles of my sisters behind us.

'What a lovely day,' Mama whispered, trying to put me at my ease. 'The perfect day for a wedding.'

'Yes.' I nodded and, reminded of my duty, tried to smile and nod at the gathered people, very much aware that reports of my behaviour and appearance would be winging their way across Europe as soon as I had set foot within the church and there was nothing more to see outside.

'Courage, courage, my darling girl,' Mama murmured, squeezing my fingers. 'Not long now.'

I smiled and nodded to either side of me, relieved to note that we were almost at the church door and that this particular ordeal was nearly at an end. And it was at this point that I saw him standing at the back of the crowd but tall enough to tower over them.

Karl. His gaze were fixed upon me and I blushed as our eyes met for a moment before I looked quickly away. He looked so handsome that for a brief impure moment I wished that it was he who would be kneeling beside me as I took my vows.