CHAPTER ELEVEN
YOU SHALL BE MINE . . .
“You shall be mine; you shall have my undivided care; you will share all my happinesses and you will alleviate my sufferings . . .”
MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUOTED BY MADAME DE CAMPAN, 19 DECEMBER 1778
The death of the fifty-year-old Elector Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria on 30 December 1777 produced a crisis in Europe. At the same season, encouraged by the American victory over the English at Saratoga, Louis XVI assured the deputies from the new “United States” of America of his “affection and interest” in their case. France concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the United States in the following February.1 This ensured another crisis—between France and England. Cries of joy from the French courtiers greeted the news of the American alliance when it was broken to them by the Comte de Provence, fresh from the King’s Council, at a pre-Lenten bal à la Reine. The merry days of Anglo-French junketing at the court level were for the time being in abeyance, in favour of the hereditary rivalry last expressed during the Seven Years’ War.
It was, however, the Bavarian crisis that confronted Marie Antoinette with her first real political test. At the time of the Polish Partition in 1772, she had merely been the Dauphine, and the potential conflict had in any case been settled by the compliance of Louis XV with Austria. Now the Habsburg “sleeper” was to be animated more vigorously in the interests of that alliance made so long ago, of which she was the visible pledge. All this occurred at the same time as the Queen’s newly fulfilled married life proceeded, with hopes of pregnancy, even if these were dashed on a regular monthly basis. For example, on 15 January 1778 Marie Antoinette felt it necessary to explain to her mother how “ashamed and upset” she felt at the recurrence of her “indisposition.”2 Yet the royal couple were undoubtedly drawing closer together. Even the birth of a second son to the Comtesse d’Artois on 24 January, created Duc de Berry, was no longer the humiliation it might once have been.
The trouble was that, politically at least, the question of the Bavarian succession, far from uniting King and Queen further, pushed them apart. Since the Bavarian Elector was childless, this crisis had in a sense been brewing for some time, although his apparently vigorous health meant that the actual event took everyone by surprise. His heir was a comparatively remote cousin, the Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatine, and Joseph II had already begun to negotiate with this Elector in order to secure Bavarian territory, possibly in exchange for Austrian territory in Belgium. The Emperor also brought into play the claim to certain lands of his late wife the Empress Josepha, who had been a Bavarian princess; he argued that this claim had passed to him.3
This acquisitive tendency of Joseph II had been deplored by Vergennes for several years past. Both by temperament and through instruction, his master Louis XVI fully agreed with him. The alliance that linked France so closely to Austria did not oblige her “to share the ambitious and unjust element” in the Austrian Emperor’s plans. What, for example, would be the reaction of Frederick II of Prussia and the Elector of Saxony to any bad-neighbourly aggression on their own frontiers? For it was obviously the Emperor’s intention to build up his own power bloc at the expense of these two countries. The reputation of France in Germany, as opposed to Austria, could not be simply ignored.4
The matter was certainly delicate, not only at Versailles but in Vienna. On the one hand Vergennes was concerned about the prospect of Austria turning to England if totally rebuffed by her ally; France could then be threatened by both land and sea. On the other hand the Empress Maria Teresa herself was extremely worried about her son’s militaristic intentions. The Bavarian claim, she felt with justice, was weak, and she protested that “a universal conflagration” was a heavy price to pay for “a particular convenience.” The Empress also had her own agenda, thanks to the “great ascendant” that her daughter, the forceful Archduchess Marie Christine, had over her. As the wife of a Saxon prince who was loyal in the service of Austria, Marie Christine thoroughly disliked the idea of her husband having to fight against his own native country of origin—and his own blood relations. The Empress’s beloved “Mimi” did not let up on her entreaties to her mother, using tears in public while she worked actively behind the scenes. As a result, relations between Marie Christine and her brother Joseph, never good, deteriorated further.5
On 15 January 1778 the Emperor took action. He ordered 15,000 Austrian troops into Lower Bavaria. At roughly the same moment, the Queen of France was writing to her brother, boasting of her reformed way of life, which she thought was sure to delight him. For example, she was dancing so much less at Versailles that there was a rumour that she had lost her enthusiasm for the pastime altogether. Under the circumstances, she felt able to point out that it would be “a great piece of good fortune,” above all for her, if the “Bavarian affair” was settled peacefully.6
Unfortunately this was not to be the case. Predictably Frederick II threatened his own invasion—of Bohemia—if Joseph II did not immediately quit Bavaria. The conflagration dreaded by the Empress was building and would shortly break out. But was it necessarily to be a universal one? Would France actually send troops in support of Austria? Coached by Count Mercy, Marie Antoinette pleaded with her husband to carry out his obligations under the treaty.
The mission was not a success. The Queen was reported to have spoken “heatedly” to the King. Equally, she let her tears flow, but to no avail. Louis XVI’s line was to refer to “the ambition of your relations,” which he said was upsetting the whole of Europe; first Poland, now Bavaria. This “dismemberment” of Bavaria was certainly being done against the will of the French King. As to the alliance, France took the line that there was no obligation in the terms of the treaty to come to the aid of territories only recently annexed to Austria.7
When the French ambassador delivered this message to Prince Kaunitz in Vienna, the Austrian statesman exploded with rage. On 3 March Marie Antoinette was similarly reported to have been extremely badtempered on the whole subject, asking—in vain—for the removal of Vergennes.8 Her ill-humour was comprehensible. First, the real limits of her influence had been exposed. To be seen as manipulative in politics was not a good thing, but to be seen as unsuccessfully manipulative was even worse. Second, she had allowed herself to be branded publicly as proAustrian and anti-French.
It was at this moment that Providence, so long neglectful of her interests, came at last to the rescue of Marie Antoinette. Part of the Queen’s bad temper on 3 March may have been privately attributable to the arrival of her period, yet another “indisposition” that had to be explained away in apologetic terms to her mother.*42 It was three days early, while that of February had been six days in advance. The beginning of April, however, came and went without the appearance of the dreaded Générale. By 11 April the Queen suspected—unimaginable joy—that she might actually be pregnant. Eight days later she dared to write to the Empress with the caveat that nothing was yet certain, and would not be so until the beginning of the next month. Nevertheless she hastened to assure her mother of her excellent health: she was eating well, sleeping well, all better than before—and of course absolutely no journeys by carriage; her expeditions were now limited to little promenades on foot.10
The rest of the letter consisted of an account of her interview with the errant ministers, Maurepas and Vergennes, whom she had summoned to her presence, apparently at the insistence of Mercy. “I spoke to them rather strongly,” the Queen wrote proudly, “and I think I made an impression on them, especially Vergennes.” She was proposing to hold forth again on this subject in the presence of Louis XVI. For all these boasts, the ministers had not actually given way on the subject of French troops in support of Austria and neither did the King. He remained as lukewarm as possible without actually breaking the alliance. Nevertheless the possibility of an heir at long last shored up the Queen’s position. Naturally a boy was expected, at least if Maria Teresa was anyone to go by, who promised that on the Feast of St. Antony (her daughter’s name-day) the saint would be “tormented” with her prayers on the subject.11
The method chosen to break the news to the public was characteristic of Marie Antoinette. In mid-May, the Queen asked the King for 12,000 francs to send to the relief of those in the debtors’ jail of Paris—but these were not to be random debtors; they were to be those languishing in jail for failing to pay their children’s wet-nurses, as well as the poor of Versailles. “Thus I gave to charity and at the same time notified the people of my condition,” wrote Marie Antoinette.12 Unfortunately this neat display of compassion did her no good with the satirical pamphleteers. Having made merry at the expense of the King’s impotence, they were not likely to give up their scatological trade now that the condition was seemingly cured. Various fathers were suggested for the coming baby, most prominently the Duc de Coigny and, most unpleasantly, the Comte d’Artois. It is very likely that the Comte de Provence and other courtiers had at least some clandestine connection to these effusions, or at any rate read them and disseminated them. In contrast to that, the pregnancy itself went forward healthily, and the Queen was able, in the flush of her happiness, to maintain her studied indifference to these manifestations.
On 16 May 1778 Dr. Lassonne made an examination of the Queen and pronounced himself satisfied.*43 At the same time the Queen interviewed the future accoucheur, the brother of the Abbé de Vermond. She rejected, perhaps understandably, Sieur Levret who had been accoucheur to the Comtesse d’Artois; nevertheless the choice of Vermond was criticized at the time since he was felt to be more interested in his fees than his patient. For all these practical preparations, including the choice of wet-nurse, swaddling clothes and an apartment for the new baby on the ground floor of Versailles to benefit from the air, Marie Antoinette herself admitted touchingly that there were “moments when I think it all a dream.” She had, after all, “lived for so long without hoping to be so happy as to bear a child.” However, she wrote, “the dream continues . . .”13
By the end of May Marie Antoinette declared that she was getting “amazingly fat” and the following month boasted that she had put on over four inches, mainly on her hips. By mid-August she was pronounced much bigger than was usual at five months. That summer was intensely hot and Madame Campan described how the Queen found relief walking in the cool of the night air, for she kept up her daily promenades as she had promised Maria Teresa she would. Rose Bertin and other couturiers responded to the new situation with gauzy flowing silk garments known as Lévites in the light cool colours the Queen loved: pale blue, turquoise and soft yellow. (The name was taken from the costumes worn by the actresses playing Jewish priests in Racine’s Athalie.) It was a sign of the growing intimacy between Marie Antoinette and Rose Bertin that the latter was paid to make a special expedition to her native Abbeville; there she prayed at the local shrine of the Virgin on her mistress’s behalf.14
The hairdresser Léonard had to cope with the changing situation too. The wonderful thick hair that Marie Antoinette had once enjoyed was turning into problem hair. In the autumn of 1776—a time of depression over her relationship with the King—her hair had reportedly fallen out, or at least thinned dramatically, according to an English lady at the French court.15 Daily coiffeuring, pomading, and powdering, and now pregnancy, did not help. Yet in general the Queen’s health remained good throughout the long autumn.
She was bled once or twice, according to custom, although her delicate veins meant that it was not a great success. The Queen was also given iron. The waiting period was naturally punctuated by communications from Maria Teresa, who had already been appointed godmother well in advance, with King Charles III of Spain as the godfather. This meant that the Empress would have the privilege of naming the child, also well in advance, since royal baptisms were held immediately after the birth. A Bourbon baby prince would obviously have some variation on the theme of Louis. An unwelcome girl would certainly be called the French version of her famous grandmother’s name, since the Empress required all her first-born granddaughters to be named in her honour.*4416
Social life and entertaining according to the prescribed pattern did not cease although there were some restrictions. One sufferer from this was the musical prodigy whom Marie Antoinette had last encountered as a child in Vienna. Now aged twenty-two, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had arrived in Paris in late March 1778 accompanied by his mother, who, given the Habsburg connection, hoped for “a letter of introduction from someone in Vienna to the Queen.” But the coincidence of Marie Antoinette’s first pregnancy meant that Mozart was unable to secure her patronage as he might otherwise have done. A separate offer of employment as organist at Versailles was rejected as unworthy despite Leopold Mozart’s emphatic advice that an appointment of this kind would be the surest way to win “the protection of the Queen.”18
Mozart departed from France in late September having got no nearer Marie Antoinette herself than the household of her favourite, the Duc de Guines, where he gave lessons to the untalented daughter. As the French argued over the respective merits of the rival composers Gluck and Piccinni in a frenetic cultural battle, Mozart denounced their musicality in patriotic terms, which echoed the sentiments of Gluck five years earlier. Where music was concerned, the French “are and always will be asses,” he wrote on 9 July, “and as they can do nothing for themselves, they are obliged to have recourse to foreigners.”19
The senior foreigner, Gluck, the Queen’s former teacher, old friend and protégé all in one, fared better. His operas continued to be supported unfalteringly by Marie Antoinette. Even her enthusiasm could not make Alceste and Armide of 1776 and 1777 respectively such rapid popular successes as their predecessors Iphigénie en Aulide and Orphée. But she took a detailed interest in Gluck’s creations and whenever he was in France, it was remarked how the Queen instantly admitted him to her company, chattering away “in the most lively fashion.” Since Gluck (back in Vienna) projected a new opera, Iphigénie en Tauride, it was thought that his return to Paris would solace the Queen in her last months of pregnancy. Here the awkward diplomatic situation between France and Austria ruled out a direct request from the French Queen in the interests of her own amusement.
Fortunately the Empress now thought of her daughter’s amusement as a legitimate concern “especially if a Dauphin came into the world.” Gluck received permission to return on 1 November 1778. He was once more in the orbit of France “of which Your Majesty [Marie Antoinette] is both ornament and joy . . . a sensitive and enlightened Princess, who loves and protects all the arts . . . applauds them all and carefully distinguishes them.” These were the words of his formal dedication of Iphigénie en Tauride to the French Queen the following year.20
Two episodes that occurred at court as the Queen became increasingly weighed down by her pregnancy presaged the extremes of loyalty and disloyalty to which Marie Antoinette would one day be subject. On 25 August, the Queen saw a handsome face that she recognized among the crowd being presented to her. Count Fersen, last seen four and a half years ago at the end of the reign of the old King, had recently returned to France from Sweden. He had failed to persuade his English heiress to marry him; she did not care to leave her family for a foreign country. Fortunately love had not been involved, merely the suitability of the match in worldly terms. Fersen was now determined to pursue a military career instead. As he told his father, “I am young and I still have a great deal to learn.” Fersen did not bother to record this royal meeting in his Journal intime, but he did mention it in a letter home. The day he was at Versailles to be presented, “The Queen, who is charming, exclaimed when she saw me: ’Ah, it’s an old acquaintance!’ The rest of the royal family did not speak a word to me.” In his letter, Fersen underlined the Queen’s spontaneous and gratifying reaction.21
On 8 September he returned to the subject of the Queen in a further letter to his father. Marie Antoinette was declared to be “the prettiest and most delightful princess that I know” and she was taking a real interest in him. She enquired, for example, why he did not turn up at her regular Sunday salons for cards and entertainment. On hearing that Fersen had done so, but had found no salon that particular Sunday, the Queen expressed her apologies. The evidence of Marie Antoinette’s immediate predilection for Fersen in 1778 is clear—another gallant and good-looking foreigner to add to her circle. Fersen’s admiration for her, openly related to his father, is similarly unabashed. But his concluding sentence on the subject points eloquently to the Queen’s real preoccupation at this time: “Her pregnancy advances and her condition is extremely visible.”*4522
The return of Philippe d’Orléans, Duc de Chartres, from the naval campaign against the English off the coast of France was a less happy affair. The Battle of Ouessant, in which he had had an official position, was hailed as a French victory. The Duc de Chartres rode to Versailles, arriving at 2 a.m. on 2 August, and had to wait for the King’s lever the next morning to break the news. He then travelled on to Paris where the Palais-Royal, the family’s official Parisian residence, was filled with rejoicing multitudes, before appearing at the opera to a hero’s welcome.
After that, things got worse. It turned out that the Duc de Chartres was not exactly the hero of the occasion that he purported to be. There were accusations of cowardice, alternatively incompetence. His culpability is open to question. Was he in fact a coward? Over-promoted, thanks to his royal rank, did he mistake the naval signals during the battle through ignorance? Philippe’s frivolous insistence on leaving the scene of the battle for the rapturous Parisian welcome of his dreams was less easy to defend. The satirists went quickly to work:
What! You have seen the smoke!
What a prodigious achievement . . .
It is absolutely right
That you should be an august sight
At the opera.23
A few months later the Duc de Chartres was ogling various beauties at a ball, when he designated the looks of one particular noble lady as “faded.” The lady in question overheard him. “Like your reputation, Monseigneur,” was her curt retort. As if this was not enough, the heir to the Orléans dukedom allowed himself with characteristic lack of judgement to be involved in a squalid intrigue to do with ministers and corruption. Humiliated, the old Duc d’Orléans pleaded for his son. But Louis XVI, who—unlike his wife—had never enjoyed the company of this light-hearted, dashing cousin, banished Philippe from court for a month. The Queen, feeling that her personal position was too vulnerable in view of the Austrian démarche, detached herself from his cause.24 The estrangement of the main Bourbon line and that of Orléans began to take root.
The Queen’s douleurs, the expressive French phrase for labour pains, began very early in the morning of 19 December 1778. Marie Antoinette had gone to bed at eleven o’clock without any sign that the baby was starting. Shortly after midnight she felt the first pains and rang her bell at 1:30 a.m. As Superintendent of the Household, the Princesse de Lamballe had the right to be told immediately, as did those who enjoyed the “honours,” in other words the privilege of being present. At three o’clock the Prince de Chimay came to fetch the King.
Never was the etiquette of Versailles held to be so vital. It was the duty of the Princesse de Lamballe personally to tell members of the royal family and the Princes and Princesses of the Blood who were at Versailles. She then sent pages to inform the Duc d’Orléans who was at his nearby palace of Saint Cloud with the Duchesse de Bourbon and the Princesse de Conti. The Duc de Chartres (still sulking), the Duc de Bourbon and the Prince de Conti were all in Paris.
At the same time as these measured steps were being taken, there was another totally disorganized rush in the direction of the Queen’s apartments from the moment the cry of the royal accoucheur was heard: “The Queen has gone into labour.” These avid sightseers—for that is what they were—were mainly confined to outer rooms such as the gallery, but in the general pandemonium, several got through to the inner rooms, including a couple of Savoyards, who were discovered perched aloft in order to get a really good view.25
The Queen was still able to walk about until about eight o’clock in the morning when she finally took to the small white delivery bed in her room. Around her, besides the King, were the royal family, the Princes and Princesses of the Blood, and those with the “honours” including Yolande de Polignac. In the Grand Cabinet were members of her household, the King’s household and those who had the Rights of Entry. Throughout the labour, Louis XVI remained helpfully practical. It was he, for example, who insisted on the immense tapestry screens that surrounded the bed being fastened with ropes; otherwise they might well have fallen down on the hapless Queen.
The baby was born just before 11:30 a.m. It was a tiny Maria Teresa, in other words a daughter.
The position of the Comte d’Artois, proud father of two sons, the Ducs d’Angoulême and de Berry, was still unchallenged in a country where females could not succeed. From the point of view of the Comte de Provence, still the heir presumptive to his brother’s throne, things had also turned out well. His continuing status was acknowledged by the fact that the grand title of “Madame,” borne by his wife, was not removed from her in favour of the newborn princess, even though the latter was the daughter of the reigning monarch.26 The baby, given the names Marie Thérèse Charlotte (for both her godparents), was to be Madame Fille du Roi, or by the time she was five years old, Madame Royale.
Was the King disappointed? Much later the girl-child born that day happened to ask her father the age of the new King of Sweden. Louis XVI replied that he knew exactly the date of his birth because it was when they had all been awaiting her mother’s accouchement. Louis XVI had proceeded to warn Marie Antoinette to prepare herself for a girl, “because two Kings would not have two sons in the same month.” Marie Thérèse could not resist asking with great respect whether her father regretted her birth. Naturally the King assured her he did not, and embraced her while the watching courtiers wept with emotion and Marie Thérèse herself also burst into tears. Thirteen years later, this was surely true, the trauma having long faded as with most parents whose first child is not the desired sex. At the time his Journal recorded no disappointment—only his attendance at the ceremony of the swaddling up of his infant daughter in the Grand Cabinet next door—but then his personal feelings were almost entirely absent from his diary.27 After that Madame Fille du Roi was handed to the Princesse de Guéméné, who had the right to the post of Governess to the Children of France.
As for the Queen, she had had a convulsive fit and fainted. The press of people, the heat and the lack of fresh air in the rooms, whose windows had been sealed up for months against the winter cold, was too much for her after her twelve-hour labour. She may also have been physically damaged by the birth and have haemorrhaged as a result, her accoucheur having been chosen more for his connections than his skill. The Marquis de Bombelles, via his courtier mother-in-law and wife, heard that the Queen had been “wounded” in the course of her labour, and Maria Teresa, learning of some “terrible accident,” even believed in her paranoid way that it had been done on purpose to stop her daughter having more children.28
For a while nobody seems to have noticed her swoon, in a scene so crowded and noisy that in the words of Madame Campan, “anyone might have fancied himself in a place of public entertainment.” When the Queen’s inanimate condition was eventually registered, some strong men tore down the nailed-up shutters and winter air streamed into the room, saving her.*46
Thanks to this mishap, the Queen was not informed of the sex of her child for at least an hour and a quarter after Marie Thérèse’s birth. When she heard, she wept—or so the relatives of the Duc de Croÿ told him. These tears were, however, likely to have been a reaction to her labour and the general intensity of emotion at having produced a living child, especially when silence had originally caused her to think the baby was born dead. Her first reported words on the subject were touching in their unconscious reflection on the fate of a princess in a patriarchal society: “Poor little girl, you are not what was desired, but you are no less dear to me on that account. A son would have been the property of the state. You shall be mine; you shall have my undivided care; you will share all my happinesses and you will alleviate my sufferings . . .”30
As to the real implications of the child’s gender—the need to try again as soon as possible—they were summed up for the Queen and many others in a popular little rhyme:
A Dauphin we asked of our Queen,
A Princess announces him near;
Since one of the Graces is seen
Young Cupid will quickly appear.
Certainly for Marie Antoinette, with her lifelong passion for children in practice as well as in theory, the birth of a daughter who was exceptionally robust and healthy was not the straightforward “domestic misfortune” it was rated in Vienna. It was the Prince de Lambesc, son of the Comtesse de Brionne, who was despatched to Austria to make the official announcement on behalf of the King of France. By etiquette, Count Mercy’s own messenger was supposed to follow forty-eight hours later (although Mercy managed to cut that delay in half). Marie Antoinette had wanted to scribble a few lines in pencil to her mother but was stopped on the grounds that the Empress would be worried by the thought of her daughter’s unnecessary effort at such a critical moment.31
The Queen was not present at her child’s instant baptism. Thus Marie Antoinette was spared the incident when the malicious Comte de Provence protested to the officiating Archbishop that “the name and quality” of the parents had not been formally given, according to the usual rite of a christening. Under the mask of concern about correct procedure, the Comte was making an impertinent allusion to the allegations about the baby’s paternity made in the libelles. The allusion was certainly not lost on the courtiers present. In Paris, the Duc de Chartres mounted a different sort of protest by decorating the Palais-Royal with an extremely modest set of illuminations; this meanness was attributed by the crowds to his continued state of dudgeon with the King and Queen. Marie Antoinette, more easily able to overlook such insults because she did not hear or see them herself, concentrated on celebrating her daughter’s birth with donations to appropriate charities. She asked the King for 5000 livres to be used as dowries for one hundred “poor and virtuous” girls who were marrying “honest” workmen.32
The Queen stayed in bed for eighteen days, her ladies watching over her night and day in large armchairs with backs that let down as beds. Léonard visited her to cut her hair short and give it a chance to repair the ravages of the past few months. During this period, Marie Antoinette bravely attempted to breastfeed her baby, in accordance with the theories of Rousseau about natural healthy motherhood. This was the advantage of having produced a daughter—“you are mine”—since a Dauphin would have been borne away immediately to the best wet-nurse in the land. But the belief that maternal nursing acted as a contraceptive meant that Maria Teresa greeted the news with open disapproval. It was up to the King of France and the doctor to decide, wrote the Empress, although she would not have permitted it herself; the idea that the Queen of France, still in the happy dream of having given birth, might have some kind of will of her own on the subject was ruled out. Although a wet-nurse for the baby Princess was obviously employed as well, Marie Antoinette seems to have managed to nurse her daughter for a certain period; four months later she told her mother she still had traces of milk.33
In April 1779, as the Empress called forcefully for “a companion” for Marie Thérèse, she received the unwelcome news that Marie Antoinette had been struck down with an “exceptionally severe” case of measles. Since the King had never had the illness, the Queen decided to keep her three-week quarantine at the Petit Trianon. This was the first occasion on which she actually spent the night in her beloved little paradise, instead of returning to Versailles to sleep. The size of the Petit Trianon meant that the Queen’s household had to be lodged at the nearby Grand Trianon. The days were spent in such therapeutic activities as drinking asses’ milk and boating on the Grand Canal. Certain aristocratic ladies came down from Paris to provide company. So far, so good; there was nothing here that Count Mercy could not explain away to the Empress.34
More difficult to gloss over was the ostentatiously chivalrous behaviour of four male members of the Queen’s circle who went to watch over their liege lady like so many mediaeval squires. In other words, the Duc de Coigny, the Duc de Guines, Count Esterhazy and the Baron de Besenval (rated as too entertaining to be omitted) were there to amuse the Queen during her convalescence. With the Princesse de Lamballe and the Comtesse de Provence as fellow members of the merry crew, the whole escapade was an innocent frolic rather than anything more sinister. There had been a similar incident in March when the Queen and her ladies were stranded in a broken-down coach on their way to Paris for late-night revelry and had to hire a hackney carriage. “The very next day” this innocent adventure was “blared all over the town.” Such episodes were open to misinterpretation.35
A question went the rounds: if the King got measles, would he be tended by four ladies? In fact the King did not get the measles and he did miss the Queen; their relationship became noticeably deeper following the birth of their child. Finding three weeks too long to be apart, Louis XVI made his own romantic gesture. He stood for a quarter of an hour in a private courtyard of the Petit Trianon while the Queen leant out of a window. No one else was allowed to be present at this touching encounter but it was learnt afterwards that tender words had been exchanged on both sides.
In a further step forward, that bone of contention between the King and Queen, the matter of the Bavarian succession, was removed when the military action came to an end. The Peace of Teschen, of 13 May 1779, gave none of the warring powers exactly what they wanted, although everyone received something. Charles Theodore, the Elector Palatine, was acknowledged as the legitimate heir to certain lands, while Austria’s Joseph II got a small piece of Bavarian territory—he called it “a morsel”—known as the Innviertel.36 Frederick II of Prussia had, however, blocked the Emperor’s major plan of aggrandizement. The “co-guarantors” of the Peace were to be the Russia of Catherine II—who had brilliantly succeeded in imposing herself on European councils as a result of the war—and, of course, France.
Subsequently Vergennes was exultant on the subject in a memorandum to his sovereign: “Your Majesty has prevented the house of Austria getting dominions, and has established the influence of France in Germany; also harmony between herself and Prussia.” Marie Antoinette’s attitude was somewhat different. For her it was naturally a “much desired peace” and her happiness was overflowing at its arrival, as she told her mother. Nevertheless, she ascribed the pacification largely to Maria Teresa’s efforts, praising the Empress’s goodness, sweetness, and, if she dared say so, her patience towards “this country” (France).37
The American war with England, on which Vergennes was concentrating France’s efforts, was certainly a more remote prospect for her personally. When the Comte d’Estaing returned from capturing Grenada in July, he was crowned with flowers by Marie Antoinette and her ladies who wore white satin “Grenada” hats. Léonard created a special coiffure aux insurgents in honour of the rebels. A new ballet, devised by Gardel and performed in the autumn of 1779, had an American island as a setting and the American hero [John] Paul Jones as a leading character. There were dances by “American officers and their ladies,” and a display of military drill in the third act, which in the early stages of the ballet was prudently performed by professional infantrymen.38 So far, the distant military struggle had no more substance than the passing fashion; no more reality than the ballet.
Naval warfare was different. The autumn visit to Fontainebleau had to be cancelled because of its expense. An outbreak of dysentery among the fleets in Brittany and Normandy was inconvenient, particularly as it had spread to the Spanish fleet. The Spaniards, who had finally allied themselves with France the previous April, remained reluctant partners, given that their colonies made them more vulnerable in the New World than France. They demanded that there should be a joint operation against England in Europe—possibly using Ireland as a back door—in exchange for supporting France in America. Marie Antoinette hoped that this unfortunate outbreak of disease in the fleet would not encourage the English to be obdurate in refusing to make peace.39
Yet as the year drew to a close with the first birthday of Marie Thérèse, Madame Fille du Roi, the main preoccupations of Marie Antoinette were not political. Her chief joy was in the precocious development of her daughter. Marie Thérèse had the big blue eyes and healthy complexion that in babies make for admiration. She was also tall and strong, walking in her basketwork stroller by the time she was eight months old and shouting out, “Papa, Papa.” These preferential cries did not offend her mother; on the contrary she was delighted that father and daughter were in this way linked more strongly. As for Marie Antoinette, she could hardly love her more than she did—the child who was “mine.” Marie Thérèse had four teeth by the time she was eleven months old, and at fifteen months, by which time she was walking easily, could have been taken for a child of two. In her letters to her mother, Marie Antoinette apologized disingenuously for babbling on about her daughter . . .40
Her chief worry was her own health, if a “young Cupid” (that is, a Dauphin) was to follow quickly. Marie Antoinette believed herself to have had a miscarriage in the summer of 1779, as a result of reaching up to close a carriage window.*47 The relentless questioning of the Empress on this intimate subject continued. A typical comment was evoked by the death of the Austrian court lady, Générale Krottendorf, who had—for some obscure reason—been the origin of the nickname given by the Empress and her family to their periods. In her New Year letter of 1780, Maria Teresa hoped that her death was an omen that meant the annoying monthly Générale would not visit her daughter again.42
This was a period when marital relations with Louis XVI had fallen into an amicable pattern. They did not share beds—that was not the French way, as Marie Antoinette tried in vain to persuade her mother—but they did live together as man and wife, and the “two thirds husband” was a thing of the past. However, Marie Antoinette endured persistent gastric troubles. This was an icy winter, which laid low everyone except Louis XVI and the Comte de Provence, so that the Queen’s illnesses may have been due to the general epidemic. On the other hand, they may have been a portent of something more serious as a result of that badly handled labour.
At least the Queen was able to send a novel New Year present to her mother: a souvenir containing a lock of the King’s hair, her own hair—and that of “my daughter.” Now the seemingly interminable letters of official congratulation that the Queen of France had to write to the King of England on the frequent deliveries of his wife could at last strike a genuine note. The birth of Princess Sophia in December 1777 was greeted with “sincere interest” but that of Prince Octavius, shortly after that of Marie Thérèse, met with “real satisfaction.”43 Where royalties were concerned, Marie Antoinette was no longer the odd—infertile—one out.