I’ll tell you one thing, Louis, there is one guest who will not be invited there. It is Etiquette. That may remain behind in Versailles.”
I summoned the Princesse de Lamballe and with some of my youngest ladies went to look at Le Petit Trianon without delay. It looked different from when I had glanced casually at it en passant. I suppose because it was entirely mine. I loved it because it was small a refuge, situated just far enough from the palace to be a retreat and not far enough for one to have to make a journey to reach it.
It was delightful a villa. This was how humbler people lived; and how often during the life of a Queen, with so many tiresome ceremonies to be performed, did one long to be humble. Little ClaremontTonnerre cried that it had been the mais on de plaisir of Louis XV the little love-nest where he and Madame du Barry had taken refuge from Versailles.
“That is all over,” I said firmly.
“Now it will be known as the refuge of Marie Antoinette. We will change it. We will make it entirely my house so that nothing remains of that woman.”
“Poor creature. Doubtless she would like to change Font aux Dames for the Trianon now.”
I frowned. I did not want to gloat over my enemies’ mis fortunes. I never did. I merely wanted to forget them.
There were eight rooms only, and we were all very amused by the odd contraption which was a kind of table and which could be made to rise from the basement to the dining-room. This had been constructed for the use of Louis XV, so that when he brought a mistress to the Petit Trianon who did not wish to be seen by servants, a meal could be prepared in the basement and sent up to the dining room without any servants appearing. We shrieked with laughter as the old thing creaked up and down.
The house was tastefully furnished. My grandfather would doubtless have seen to that. I did not think the furniture with its delicately-embroidered upholstery was the choice of du Barry.
“Oh, it is perfect perfect!” I cried running from room to room.
“What fun I shall have here!”
I ran to the windows and looked out on beautiful lawns and gardens. I could do so much here. I could refurnish it if I wished, although I liked the present furniture. There must be nothing overpoweringly splendid to remind me of Versailles. Here I would entertain my dearest friends and we should cease to be Queen and subjects.
I could not see Versailles from the windows, which was an added charm.
Here I could come when I wanted to forget the chateau and Court life.
I was delighted that my husband had given me this little house. How much more charming than Le Grand Trianon which Louis XIV had built for Madame de Maintenon. I could never have felt so pleased with that.
I could scarcely wait to get back to Versailles to tell my husband how enchanted I was with his gift
In February my brother Maximilian visited me. My mother had sent him on a tour of Europe in order to complete his education, so naturally be came to see me. He was eighteen, and as soon as I saw him I realised how my years in France had changed me. This was young Max who had sat with Caroline and me in the gardens of Schonbrunn and watched our elder brothers and sisters perform. He had always been chubby, but now he had grown fat; and he seemed awkward and decidedly inelegant.
I was rather ashamed of him, particularly now that, knowing the French so well, I could imagine what they were saying about him, although they received him so graciously. But graciousness was lost on Max; he didn’t recognise it; he didn’t see what mistakes he made, because he thought everyone who didn’t agree with him must be wrong. He was just like Joseph but without my eldest brother’s good sense.
Louis asked him to sup with us privately and behaved as though he were a brother, and I was pleased to ask questions about home and my mother. Yet the more I listened, the more I realised how far from the old life I had grown. It was five years since I had shivered naked in the Salon de
Remise on that sandbank in die Rhine. I felt I had become French, and when I looked at Max heavy, awkward, humourless I was not sorry.
It was inevitable that there should be gossip about my brother; all his little gaucheries were recorded and exaggerated. Through the Court they spoke of him as the Arch-Fool instead of the Archduke, and stories about him were circulated through the streets of Paris by my enemies.
Max was not only ignorant of French etiquette but deter mined not to bow to it; and because of this, a contretemps arose. As a visiting royalty it was his duty to call on the Princes of the Blood Royal and they awaited a call from him; but Max stubbornly said that as he was a visitor to Paris it was their duty to call on him first. Both were adamant, and a difficult situation was created, for none of them would give way, and consequently Max did not meet the Princes. Orleans, Conde and Conti declared this was a deliberate insult to the Royal House of France.
When my brother-in-law Provence gave a banquet and a ball in honour of my brother, the three Princes of the Blood Royal made their excuses and left the city. It was a clear insult to my brother.
That in itself was bad enough, but when the Princes returned, very ostentatiously, to Paris, the people crowded into the streets to cheer them and murmur against Austrians.
When Orleans came to Court I reproached him.
“The King invited my brother to supper,” I said, ‘which you never did.”
“Madame,” replied Orleans haughtily, ‘until the Archduke called on me I could not invite him. “
“This eternal etiquette! It wearies me.”
How impulsively I spoke! That would be interpreted as: “She pokes fun at French customs; she would substitute those of Austria.” I must guard my tongue. I must think before I spoke.
“My brother is only in Paris for a short time,” I explained. There is so much for him to do. “
Orleans coldly inclined his head; and my husband, seeing him, expressed his annoyance by banishing Orleans, with Conde and Conti, from the Court for a week.
That was small consolation, for the Princes were constantly appearing in public and being cheered by the people as though they had done something very brave and commendable in refusing to be kind to my brother.
I was not sorry to see Max go. My sister Maria Amalia was causing a certain amount of scandal through her behaviour in Parma. This was discussed in Paris, and it was considered that I had somewhat disreputable relations.
But what can you expect of Austrians? ” people were asking each other.
After Max’s visit I don’t think the people of France were ever quite so fond of me as they had been before.
While I was occupied with the Trianon—and in fact I gave little serious thought to anything else at this time—a very grave situation had arisen in France.
I did not clearly understand it, but I knew that the King was very worried. He did not wish to speak to me of these anxieties, for my attempts to get him to reinstate Choiseui had strengthened him in his desire to keep me out of politics. He liked to see me happy with the Trianon, and that kept me busy.
As I saw it, what happened was this.
In August Louis had appointed Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as Comptroller-General of Finances. He was a very handsome man, about forty-seven, with abundant brown hair which hung to his shoulders; he had well-cut features and dear brown eyes. My husband was fond of him because there was a-similarity between them. They were both awkward in company. I once heard that when he was a child Turgot used to hide himself behind a screen when there were visitors at his home and only emerge after they had gone. He was always awkward and blushed easily; and this gaucherie rather naturally endeared him to my husband.
Louis was very pleased on the appointment and talked to me a little about Turgot, but I was too much immersed in my own affairs to listen for long; but I did gather that the finances of the country were, in my husband’s opinion, such as to cause grave concern, and that Turgot had what he called a three-point programme, which was: