“Yes, Mamma.” I was determined to try to do all she said.
“Do not read any book or pamphlet without the consent of your confessor. Don’t listen to gossip, and don’t favour anyone.”
One had one’s friends, of course. I could not help liking some people better than others and when I liked them I wanted to give them things.
It went on endlessly. You must do this. You must not do that. And I shivered as I listened, for although the weather f was improving as we came nearer to April it was still cold in the bedroom.
“You must learn how to refuse favours—that is very important. Always answer gracefully if you have to refuse something. But most of all never be ashamed to ask for advice.”
“No, Mamma.”
Then I would escape perhaps to the Abbe Vermond for my lesson, which was not so bad, or to the hairdresser, who pulled my hair, or to my dancing lesson, which was sheer joy. There was an understanding between Monsieur Noverre and me that we would forget the time; we would be surprised when a servant came to tell us that Monsieur l”Abbe was waiting for me, or the hairdresser, or that I must be ready for my interview with Prince von Kaunitz in ten minutes’ time.
“We were absorbed in the lesson,” he would say, as though by referring to that delightful exercise as a lesson he excused us.
You are fond of dancing, my child,” my mother said in the cold bedroom.
“Yes, Mamma.”
And Monsieur Noverre tells me you make excellent progress. Ah, if only you were as well advanced in all your studies. ” I would show her a new step and she would smile and say I did it prettily.
“Dancing is after all a necessary accomplishment. But do not forget that we are not here for our own pleasure. Pleasures are given by God as a relief.”
A relief? A relief from what? Here was another suggestion that life was a tragedy. I started thinking about poor Caroline but my mother brought me out of my reverie with:
“Do nothing contrary to the customs of France, and never quote what is done here.”
“No, Mamma.”
“And never imply that we do something better in Vienna than they do in France. Never suggest that anything we do here should be imitated there. Nothing can exasperate more. You must learn to admire everything French.”
I knew I should never remember all the things I was to do and not to do. I should trust to my luck, to my ability to smile my way out of my mistakes.
During those two months I was sleeping in my mother’s bedroom she was in a state of tension because she feared there might be no marriage at all. She and Kaunitz were constantly closeted together and the Marquis de Durfort was always coming to see them.
This was a respite for me because I was spared those lectures which had become a part of my life in the draughty state bedroom. It was all a matter of who should take precedence over whom—whether my mother’s and brother’s names or that of the King of France should be first on the documents. Kaunitz was calm but anxious.
“The whole question of a marriage could be dropped,” he told my mother.
“It’s ridiculous that so much should hang on such insignificant details.” They were arguing about the formal ceremony of handing me over. Should it take place on French or Austrian soil? One or the other had to be chosen. The French said it must be on French;
The Austrians said it must be Austrian. My mother sometimes told me snatches of these matters.
“Because it is good for you to know.”
So much prestige was involved. It was a matter of the greatest importance how many servants I took with me and how many of these should accompany me into France. There came a time when I was certain there would be no marriage and I was not sure whether I was pleased or sorry. I should be disappointed if all the attention stopped, but on the other hand I thought it would be comforting to stay at home until I was twenty-three as Maria Amalia had. ? I have often, during the last months, thought of those i wrangles and wondered how different my life would have been if the statesmen had failed to come to an agreement.
But fate decided differently and at last agreement was reached.
The Marquis de Durfort returned to France to receive instructions from his master; there were hasty reconstructions to enlarge the French Embassy because there must be fifteen hundred guests and it would be a breach of etiquette to leave one out. Etiquette! That was a word I heard repeatedly.
News reached us that since there was to be rebuilding in Vienna, King Louis had decided that an opera house be erected at Versailles so that the wedding could be celebrated there.
My mother was determined that I should be provided with clothes as grand as anything the French could produce. I J could not help showing my delight with all this fuss surrounding me and sometimes I saw my mother watching me quizzically. I wonder now whether she was glad of my frivolity, J which prevented my being too concerned at the prospect of leaving home. After the suicidal attitude of Caroline must have been a relief.
When the Marquis de Durfort returned to Vienna really did seem like a wonderful game in which I ha been selected to play the biggest and most exciting role for this was the beginning of the official ceremonies. April had come and the weather was benign. On the seventeenth of that month the Ceremony of Renunciation took place, when I was called upon to renounce the hereditary Austrian Succession. It all seemed rather meaningless to me as I stood in the hall of the Burgplatz and signed the Act, which was in Latin, and took the Oath before the Bishop of Laylac I found the ceremony tedious but I enjoyed the banquet at ball which followed.
The huge ballroom was brilliantly lighted with threg thousand five hundred candles and I was told that eight hundred firemen had to work continuously with damp sponge because of the sparks which fell from the candles. When I danced I was oblivious of everything but the joy of dancing. I even forgot that this would be one of the last balls I should attend in my own country.
The very next day the Marquis de Durfort entertained the Austrian Court on behalf of the King of France, and of course this occasion must be as grand if not grander than that of the previous evening, so he hired the Lichteii. stein Palace in which to hold it. That was a wonderful evening too. I remember driving there it was in the suborj, of Rosseau and all along the road the trees had been illuminated, and between the trees dolphins had been set up each dolphin carrying a lantern. It was enchanting and e were exclaiming with wonder as we rode along.
In the ballroom the Marquis de Durfort had ordered th beautiful pictures be hung, symbolic of the occasion, and softline particularly remember one of myself on the road to France Spread out before me was a carpet of flowers which weight being thrown by a nymph representing love.
There were fireworks and music; and the splendour on that evening did in fact exceed ours, in spite of those three thousand five hundred candles. On the nineteenth I was married by proxy. This was all part of a game to me, for Ferdinand played the part of bride groom, and because my brother was standing proxy for the Dauphin of France it seemed exactly like one of those plays I used to watch my brothers and sisters perform, only now I was old enough to join in. Ferdinand and I knelt together at the altar and I kept saying to myself “Volo et ita promitto’ so that I should get it right when the moment came to say it aloud.
After the ceremony guns were fired at the Spitalplatz, and then . the banquet.
I was to leave my home two days later, and suddenly I began to realise what this was going to mean. It struck me that I might never see my mother again. She called me to her room and again gave me many instructions. I listened fearfully; I was beginning to feel apprehensive.