Each morning she must go to Mass, must visit the aunts in the company of her husband; she must keep up a regular correspondence with her mother. She was embroidering a waistcoat for the King, which she feared would take her years to complete as she hated sitting still very long with her needle; she would have liked to run and romp in the gardens with her dogs, but Madame Etiquette was always at her elbow admonishing her. ‘Madame la Dauphine, but it is not for a lady of your position to do this, to do that … ’
She must not play with the bedchamber woman’s children. Antoinette was sorry for that; she loved children and had in fact engaged the woman on account of her children, and it had been such a pleasure to encourage high spirits. She could not bring all her dogs into the apartment, for some were not too clean in their habits. ‘Madame la Dauphine, it is not possible for a lady in your position … What a weary round it could be! Curtsying as she walked soberly in the gardens – a bright smile for a Duchess because she had royal blood in her veins, a haughty nod for a humbler personage; and of course she must learn to look at some people as though they did not exist.
‘You must do this; you must do that.’ There were injunctions from every side. She enjoyed riding; but Mercy wrote to her mother regarding the dangers of riding for one so young. It was said that riding spoiled the complexion and added to the weight. The impulsive young Dauphine had appealed to her husband for permission to ride. He had hesitated. It was not, he explained in his laborious way, that he wished to curtail her pleasure; it was merely that he hesitated to go against the wishes of her mother. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘if others agreed to let me ride, would you?’ He admitted that he would; and she construed that as his consent.
When she was next with the King she asked him to give his consent to her riding, and as Louis hated to refuse pretty young girls anything, and never did so when what they asked could be given at no cost to himself, he agreed that she might ride when she wished.
But still Maria Theresa protested. She had heard that beauty was of great importance at the Court of France and, through Mercy, she forbade her daughter to ride anything but the quietest donkey.
Such had been the power of Maria Theresa over her daughter’s youth that Antoinette could not escape from it after two years’ absence.
She rode her donkey and on one occasion, when she fell from it and all those who were with her rushed to her aid, she sat on the grass and declared: ‘You must not touch me. You must leave me here on the ground while we wait for Madame de Noailles who will show you the right way in which to pick up a Dauphine who has tumbled off a donkey.’
It was quite clear from the very beginning that the young Dauphine was one who would not take kindly to the enforcement of authority and conventions.
She rebelled against squeezing her slender young body into the corps de baleine – so necessary, it was said, to preserve a graceful figure; and it was only after much remonstrance in her mother’s letters that she submitted to this mild torture.
News went to Maria Theresa, through Mercy, that her daughter had slighted certain noblemen of German nationality who were visiting the Court. ‘I pray you,’ wrote Maria Theresa, ‘do not be ashamed of being German. You show this shame by your gaucherie towards Germans. German blood is in your veins, and you must accept and be proud of it.’
She was a source of great anxiety to her mother and of some amusement to the Court. She was an impulsive wayward girl who acted often in a most unexpected manner. Her goodness of heart was always ready to lead her into trouble. When she had been hunting with the royal party, and a peasant had been wounded by a stag, she had hurried to his rescue and, to the shocked amusement of all, insisted on driving him to his cottage in her coach. One day one of her postilions was hurt, and it was she who sent for the physician and stayed beside the postilion, soothing him until help arrived.
The people heard these stories, and they said: ‘She is charming, this little Dauphine. It will be a happy day when she is Queen of France.’
But there arose some matters which were of a more serious nature, and into which she plunged in her impulsive way.
When she arrived at Versailles there were two opposing parties at Court. One was headed by the Duc de Choiseul, who was the King’s minister-in-chief, the other by the Duc d’Aiguillon who aspired to that office. Choiseul, although by no means handsome, was a man of great charm, and because he had arranged the Dauphin’s marriage he set himself out to be particularly charming to the Dauphin’s wife. Choiseul had refused to submit to the dominion of Madame du Barry, and she had long ago decided to end his career. The King was lazy; Choiseul’s enemies grew in number. The Abbé Terray, an unscrupulous man, allied himself to the Duc d’Aiguillon, and both these men aided by du Barry set out to bring about the overthrow of Choiseul.
Antoinette, who was without advisers at Court (for the Dauphin never allowed himself to become part of political quarrels), was in the hands of the three malevolent aunts, who, for strange reasons which had grown in the unbalanced mind of Tante Adelaide, were determined to be the enemies of the Dauphine. The three aunts, who hated Madame du Barry, found great pleasure in setting the young wife of the Dauphin against the woman who enjoyed most of the privileges which should have been accorded a Queen.
The aunts dominated Antoinette at this time of her life, for she was forced to spend much time in their company. They were determined – since the King despised them, and Madame du Barry was indifferent to them – to mould the future of the girl who must one day be Queen.
They would talk to her as they sat together playing cards or sewing. They asked question about herself and the Dauphin and made allusions to Madame du Barry concerning the life she led with the King.
Thus they set her on the side of Choiseul, although she knew nothing of the politics of France; and when, under pressure from his mistress, the King at length dismissed Choiseul, she was angry not with the King but with the woman who, so the aunts told her, through her wickedness ruled all France.
So here she was, after such a short time in France, and still an unworldly child, dabbling lightheartedly in the politics of her adopted country.
The other matter which was becoming increasingly clear to her, and which was now beginning to cause her acute embarrassment, was the impotence of the Dauphin.
When she had come to the Court of France she had been both ignorant and innocent. That Court which was ruled over by her mother had been free of scandal, for Maria Theresa had set the tone, and none dared change it.
It was very disturbing for a woman of Maria Theresa’s principles to contemplate her daughter at Versailles where the King not only lived openly with his mistress, who was treated as Queen of France, but amused himself with the young girls provided for him by that mistress. There were times, Maria Theresa was constantly reminding herself, when a woman must remember that she was first a great ruler, and only after that a mother.
She knew her daughter well. Marie Antoinette was light of heart and had from early childhood turned away impatiently from anything that threatened to disturb her pleasure; she rarely read a book from beginning to end, for she tired so quickly of any serious thought, and this must necessarily mean that her knowledge of men and women was superficial. She would improve of course, insisted the apprehensive mother, but she must be carefully watched.
It was brought to the ears of Maria Theresa that her frivolous little daughter was not only riding out on her donkey and when she was some distance from the Palace changing her mount to that of a horse which those wicked old aunts had provided for her, but that she was openly slighting Madame du Barry.