But she was careless indeed, and she had never been able to differentiate between what was important and what was trivial; nor could she realise how easy it was to step from the trivial to the significant. Thus she began to make enemies among those who might have been her friends.
Her brother, the Archduke Maximilian, paid a visit to the Court of France during the month of February. She was delighted to see her brother again and planned many fêtes and balls that she might entertain him worthily.
The younger branches of the royal family were very jealous of their honour. It was so difficult for any member of a lower branch to forgive those higher up the tree; the King they must accept as the eldest son of an eldest son of the royal house. But this frivolous wife of his, who insisted every day on flouting the recognised etiquette of their noble house, angered them all; and Antoinette’s worst enemies became the men and women who were closest to her.
On the visit of Maximilian the three heads of the lower branches of the royal family – the Duc d’Orléans, the Prince de Condé and the Prince de Conti – waited for the Archduke to call on them; but Antoinette laughed with her brother over the formality of her new relations.
‘There is nothing I like so much as to say to them: “So! You have always behaved thus – well, now we will behave thus no longer!” Max! It infuriates them.’
Maximilian lacked his sister’s frivolity and had in its place a little of their brother Joseph’s pomposity.
‘Why should I put myself out to visit them?’ he demanded. ‘I am the guest. Let them come to me.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Antoinette. ‘Let them. Now let us talk about home.’
Her eyes sparkled as she talked of home, but she knew in her heart that she would not wish to go back to Schönbrunn Palace even if she could. She would not want to go back to her mother’s watching eyes and continual scoldings. Why, that would be almost as bad as the disapproval she met at her own Court.
But the matter of her husband’s relatives did not end there. Orléans, Condé and Conti considered they had been insulted. Did they think this young woman – l’Autrichienne, as they called her – could treat them with the lack of respect with which she treated old dowagers in her salon?
She would find it was a very different matter to insult members of the royal house.
Moreover Maximilian complained that he had not been visited by her husband’s relatives and that he thought this was a scurvy way to treat their Queen’s brother.
‘It is indeed!’ cried Antoinette, and forthwith sat down to write impulsively to Orléans.
There was no reply to this letter and it was left to the King to command the return of his offended relatives to Court. The most angry of all was Conti, who craved the King’s indulgence, but declared that he was suffering from an attack of gout which would keep him away from Court for some time.
Mercy of course reported all this to Maria Theresa, and the Empress, feeling old and often very weary, prayed for her daughter and wondered whither her recklessness would lead her. She wrote reproachfully to Mercy and de Vermond, and beneath her reproaches was a plea: Take care of my little daughter.
There were more letters from her mother.
‘There are times,’ Antoinette confided in her dear friend the Princesse de Lamballe, ‘when I put off opening my mother’s letters. They are almost certain to contain some warning against my doing something I want to do, some reproach for something I have done. My mother is the best woman in the world. She loves me as only a mother can, but I fear I give her as many uneasy moments as she gives me; and now it seems that even something which should be as full of pleasure as Max’s visit is turned into depressing failure because of those old uncles, who are determined to make trouble.’
And although she could eventually forget her mother’s criticisms of her hair-styles and her defiance of conventions, there was one continual complaint coming from Vienna which she could not ignore.
It was very important, wrote the Empress, that there should be a Dauphin. Maria Theresa could only be contented when her daughter announced that happy event.
In the streets they were singing:‘Chacun se demande tout bas:
Le Roi peut-il? Ne peut-il pas?’
It was disconcerting to have one’s intimate life discussed and watched.
She knew that the servants of the bedchambers examined the sheets each morning with the utmost care, and she guessed that while they did so they hummed together that song which the people were singing in the streets.
It was more than disconcerting. It was heartbreaking.
She was relieved though when Conti at length returned to Court and treated her with the deference due to her.
‘That little trouble is over,’ she told the Princesse de Lamballe.
But she had much to learn yet.
Antoinette had tried to forget her longing for a child in the pleasure she derived from possessing her own little house. There she felt she could live like a simple lady who did not have to worry because she was childless. In the small house she would stay with a few of her friends and tell herself that there was a great deal to be enjoyed in a rustic existence. She would spend whole days there, arriving early in the morning and returning to Versailles in the late afternoon. The gardens were beginning to look very beautiful indeed. She was completing the English garden begun by Louis Quinze and Madame du Barry, with the help of Prince de Ligne who had created his own lovely garden at Bel Oeil.
Often he was with her and her ladies; endlessly they discussed the planting of flowers and what shape the flowerbeds should be.
On Sunday – that day when the people from Paris came to the Trianon to look at the Queen’s gardens – Antoinette, with some of her friends about her, including the Prince de Ligne, sat under the trees talking idly.
The people wandered by, and it was not at the flowers they looked but at the beautiful Queen who seemed more exquisite in her rustic garden than ever before. She was like a dainty shepherdess with her easy manners, her pleasant smile and that dazzlingly fair complexion.
The Queen’s eyes followed the children always. She would not have them disturbed even when they romped in the flowerbeds. ‘For they are happy,’ she said. ‘And it does me good to see happy children in my Petit Trianon.’
Now she was saying to the Prince de Ligne that she would like to build a little village about the Trianons – a model village with a few houses wherein would live families whom she would select; poor people who needed looking after because they could not make a living in the town, people who loved the country and sought the peaceful life. She would like to have her little village – un petit hameau – where everyone lived the perfect rustic existence.
‘Ah,’ said the Prince, ‘I know what has put this in your mind. You have heard of the plan which once so delighted Madame de Pompadour. She thought of it, talked of it, but never put it into practice.’
‘Yes, I have heard of that,’ admitted Antoinette. ‘She planned to dress as a milkmaid and keep cows in her little farm at Trianon. There must be some magic in this air which suggests such a plan. For, you see, it comes to me too that one could lead an ideal existence thus.’
‘The idea grew from a romance which was written by my friend de Boufflers,’ the Prince told her. ‘I remember it well. It was called Aline Reine de Golconde, and Aline was the queen of her village, and charming she was in her white petticoat and corselet. She so impressed Madame de Pompadour that that lady, seeking new experiences, decided she would like to exchange Versailles for a village, and be queen of that.’