The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette (31 page)

'The things that we do for you!' Clara said with a mock sigh. 'And just think! You get to go on to France and glory and we just have to turn around and come straight back again!' Her tone was light but her words still cast a damper on the boyuant mood. My appeal to Durfort had fallen on deaf ears and I would be going to France utterly alone with my Abbé as the only friendly and familiar face. I couldn't bear to think of it and so I did my best to push it all from my mind.

We had just enough time for me to change into a blue silk dress trimmed with black lace and pearls before it was time for supper and my brother himself knocked on my door to take me down. 'I hope that you are not too tired,' he whispered as we walked, my hand on his arm down to the wonderful marble hall where there was to be a banquet (oh la la, another banquet!) in my honour before an opera performance.

'I will do my best to stay awake,' I assured him with my sunniest smile as we stepped into the hall and even I, raised at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn gasped as I looked up at the amazing painted ceiling, which was such a stark contrast to the black robed monks who sat with the splendidly dressed local dignitaries.

After dinner, Joseph and I went for a walk on one of the stone terraces that looked out across the Danube towards the distant hills. The view was ravishing and I leaned on the cold parapet and filled my lungs with the fresh air, relishing the soft and comforting sound of the river as it flowed past. 'I have never been very far away from the Danube,' I murmured with a little sigh. 'It is my very own river.' I imagined myself as a baby lying in the gold and damask Imperial crib, lulled to sleep by the rush and hiss of the Danube as it flowed through Vienna.

Joseph laughed. 'I know just what you mean.' He leaned on his elbows against the wall and breathed in deeply. 'I love this country. There is none so beautiful in all of the world. None so fresh and green and lovely.'

'Not even France?' I asked with a smile, trying out my new loyalty for size and finding it distinctly wanting.
 

'Definitely not.' He looked down at me. 'I hate to see you go,' he said suddenly, his face inscrutable in the moonlight. 'I wish that it had been possible to...'

I swiftly covered his hand with my own, not wanting to hear his apologies, his explanations. 'I know.' And a silence fell as I thought of our lost ones, of Amalia, Carolina and Josepha and gazed back towards Vienna.

22
nd
April, morning, carriage, bump bump bump.

I have just said goodbye to my brother Joseph, perhaps for the last time ever. It was so sad and I am still crying now as I write this and remember the way his arms felt around me and the kind way that he stroked my hair and kissed my forehead.

'I will miss you so much,
liebchen
,' he murmured, smiling down into my eyes. 'I will come and visit you as soon as I can, just try to stop me.'

'You promise?' I gazed up at him. Perhaps I would not be abandoned after all? Perhaps it would all be alright. 'I will count the days, Joseph.'

We hugged again and I cried on his shoulder until finally he disengaged himself and lifted me up into my carriage before slamming the door shut on my protests and shouting: 'Onwards to France! Good luck, my darling girl!'

I watched out of the window as his figure receded from view, watched until he turned and went inside and there was nothing more to see.
 

My heart is breaking with all of the farewells.
 

24th April, in the carriage, I am so tired and bored.

When the time came to say goodbye, Mama leaned in and whispered: 'Farewell, dearest child. A great distance will separate us but be just, be humane and imbued with a sense of the duties of your rank and I shall be proud of the regrets which I shall always feel. You have the gift of pleasing others; use it for the happiness of your husband. Do so much good to the French people that they can say that I have sent them an angel.'

I keep thinking about her words. Will they learn to love me? I have not thought about the French people, only the King and the Dauphin but it now it seems that they must care for me also. What if I fail?
 

Wednesday, 25
th
April, another castle, another town.

I hab a colb. My nose is blocked and I can't stop coughing despite all the hot honey drinks that Clara and Anna keep on plying me with. The long, endless days in the carriage are taking their toll and we are all bored and discontented with nothing to talk about and nothing to do.
 

The people are very welcoming and glad to see us but I do not delight in their cheers and smiles as much as I ought to. I wave and grin and nod as prettily as I can but something is missing. My Abbé sighs sadly when he sees me after each stage and tells me that I am pale and ought to rest more but I am sick of resting and doing nothing and instead spend my nights pacing my chamber with Mops at my heels, restless and unable to sleep.

How long until we get to France? How long?

Thursday, 26
th
April, late, Amalienburg Pavilion at the Nymphenburg Palace, Munich.

We arrived in Munich this afternoon. I pinned on a happy smile and waved without cease as the carriage bounced over the cobbled streets past thousands of cheering, ecstatic people. We have been on the road for five days now. Five long days. It seems like I left Vienna only yesterday and yet at the same time it already feels so far away. In between stops I lean my head against the padded blue velvet carriage seat and stare listlessly out across the verdant, beautiful landscape as we meander past, seeing nothing and caring even less.
 

My ladies whisper together and look at me with concern. They ask me how I feel, pat my hands ineffectually, coo and sigh and flutter about me and pour endless, unwanted drinks which are destined to sit between us untouched and cooling rapidly in the sharp, chill Spring air. I don't have the words to tell them how I really feel right now and they wouldn't understand anyway. I am
the
princess after all. I am above pain, above sorrow, above regret. I am only fulfilling my destiny and in comparison to other girls, in comparison to
them
, I am fortunate indeed.
 

After all, who wouldn't want to marry a prince and live out their days in a legendary palace? Who wouldn't want all the beautiful dresses, the jewels, the servants? Who wouldn't want the
power
?

We are in a palace now, the beautiful white stone Nymphenburg, Summer home of the Elector of Bavaria who is a cousin of my mother (no surprise there as all the crowned heads in Europe are related to each other – even the Dauphin is a cousin of mine) and, disconcertingly, the older brother of poor unlamented Josephina while his wife is the Dauphin's aunt.
 
The Elector and Josephina look so similar that I would have known them for siblings instantly as Elector Max has his sister's melancholy direct gaze and straight nose. I was worried that he might greet me coldly as all the world knows that my brother was not exactly the fondest husband ever but my fears were entirely allayed when I stepped into the lovely, lofty entrance hall and Elector Max, magnificently dressed in crimson brocade, black silk and an abundance of gold strode forward,
 
took me into his arms and hugged me tightly, surrounding me with a clean male scent of lemons and rosemary while his pretty little blonde haired Saxon wife, Maria Anna smiled benevolently upon us both and nodded her head approvingly.

'You are most welcome,' Elector Max said with a grin, leading me forward to meet his wife, who sank into a low curtsey at my feet, her pale blue silk skirts billowing around her. 'I hope that you will be comfortable here with us.'

I smiled up at him, reassured and instantly at my ease for who could not be in the face of such warmth? 'I am sure that I will be.'

The Electress, who is a wonderful little chatterbox and a mine of information about her nephew, my bridegroom, took me to her own rooms to prepare for dinner and discreetly removed herself as I sank down upon the pink velvet coverlet on her bed and wearily closed my eyes while the maids busied themselves around me, pouring out hot water and lavender oil into a porcelain basin, arranging fine linen towels and shaking out the yellow silk dress that I was to wear to dinner that evening.

'It is so lovely here,' Clementina said with a sigh from her post beside the window. 'I had no idea that Munich was so beautiful! I expected rain and gloom and ugliness but instead there is light and beauty in abundance.' She breathed on the window and traced a rudimentary face with her fingertip.

I went to stand beside her and gasped at the view across the immense formal garden with its long canal bordered on each side with intricately shaped flower beds crammed full of brightly hued seasonal blooms. Splendidly dressed courtiers wandered about in groups on the wide parterres and as I watched a group of girls laughed and shrieked with delight after getting too close to the huge golden fountain at the very centre of the garden. Josephina had seemed so provincial and dowdy with her plain, dark dresses and un-powdered hair that it seemed ridiculous that she had grown up in the midst of so much splendour.

'Did the Empress Josephina really come from here?' Anna asked in a disbelieving whisper, almost as though she had read my shamefully irreverent thoughts. 'She was so very austere wasn't she? Do you remember?'

'Of course I remember!' I snapped. 'It was not so very long ago.' I looked across the gardens that she must once have known so well and now would never see again and understood for the very first time just how miserable and out of place and alienated she must have felt in Vienna. 'Poor Josephina.' I felt a sharp stab of guilt, remembering how carelessly cruel we had all been to her and how meekly she had borne it.

Before dinner we all donned our hats and shawls and went out for a stroll in the park, with Elector Max himself firmly placing my gloved hand on his crimson sleeve with an avuncular wink and insisting that I allow him to accompany me. I had taken a great liking to him and so was pleased to let him lead me across the parterre and down to the great canal, the gravel crunching loudly beneath our feet as we walked. A stray stone became caught in my pink silk shoes but I was too polite to pause and remove it and so hobbled on, smiling all the while to mask my discomfort. 'I wanted you to see my view before sunset,' he said, gazing proudly at the vista that unfolded before us and inhaling deeply. 'I always think that it looks its best at this time of the day.'

'It is very lovely,' I remarked softly. 'You must be so proud.' There were miniature barges and gondolas on the canal, piloted by grinning sailors who waved and shouted at us in Italian as we watched them row. I dread to think what they were calling. 'How delightful!'

The Elector smiled down at me, evidently pleased with my reaction. 'I know that it could be considered big headed to say so but I truly believe that there is no finer spot in all the World. Versailles itself is nothing to this.' I stiffened a little, already feeling a little defensive of my future home but then relaxed my shoulders as he winked and raised my hand to his lips. 'I mean no harm,' he murmured. 'Let me have my moment.'

We turned away and made our way back up to the palace. 'I hope that you do not mind but I have arranged for you to spend the next two nights at the Amalienburg lodge in the park rather than the palace itself. It was built for my mother and is quite enchanting so I am sure that you will be very happy there.' He smiled and kissed my hand again. 'I will escort you there after dinner.'

'You are too kind,' I replied, thinking how unusual this arrangement was and wondering if there was to be a revenge for our treatment of Josephina after all? Perhaps the Amalienburg was damp or full of spiders and beetles? Perhaps it had no roof?

My fears turned out to be nonsensical of course. After a very delicious dinner with the court and most important grandees of Munich, a small party made up of myself, the Elector and Electress and our closest attendants climbed into small carriages and we were swiftly carried through the darkness to a corner of the park. I couldn't see very much in the gloom as a waiting footman helped me down from the vehicle but there was just enough light to make out a most beautiful pale pink and white single storey pavilion shimmering amongst the trees with tall, shuttered windows, all of which were ablaze with light from dozens of candles.

'I hope that you will be comfortable,' the Electress whispered with a reassuring squeeze of my hand as we walked inside. 'We could think of nowhere more suitable for a lovely young bride to sleep on her way to her wedding. You are my niece now after all!'

I nodded, unable to speak as I gazed around in wonderment at the polished marble and wooden floors, the tall gilt mirrors, the beautiful paintings that covered the walls and ceilings and the mass of gold, silver and mother of pearl decoration that covered every possible surface. It was like stepping inside a fairy tale.
 

'My father built this for my mother as a present,' the Elector said as he led us all from room to room. 'I think that she would have lived here permanently if she had been allowed.' He paused for a moment in front of a painting in one of the salons. 'Ah, Josephina.' I looked up unwillingly and met her quizzical dark painted eyes. The Elector sighed. 'My poor little sister.'