The Journal of Marie-Antoinette The secret thoughts, hopes and dreams of a princess.

I hab a colb. My nose is blocked and I can’t stop coughing despite all the hot honey drinks that Clara and Anna keep on plying me with. The long, endless days in the carriage are taking their toll and we are all bored and discontented with nothing to talk about and nothing to do.

The people are very welcoming and glad to see us but I do not delight in their cheers and smiles as much as I ought to. I wave and grin and nod as prettily as I can but something is missing. My Abbé sighs sadly when he sees me after each stage and tells me that I am pale and ought to rest more but I am sick of resting and doing nothing and instead spend my nights pacing my chamber with Mops at my heels, restless and unable to sleep.

How long until we get to France? How long?

When the time came to say goodbye, Mama leaned in and whispered: ‘Farewell, dearest child. A great distance will separate us but be just, be humane and imbued with a sense of the duties of your rank and I shall be proud of the regrets which I shall always feel. You have the gift of pleasing others; use it for the happiness of your husband.. Do so much good to the French people that they can say that I have sent them an angel.’

I keep thinking about her words. Will they learn to love me? I have not thought about the French people, only the King and the Dauphin but it now it seems that they must care for me also. What if I fail?

I have just said goodbye to my brother Joseph, perhaps for the last time ever. It was so sad and I am still crying now as I write this and remember the way his arms felt around me and the kind way that he stroked my hair and kissed my forehead.

‘I will miss you so much, liebchen,’ he murmured, smiling down into my eyes. ‘I will come and visit you as soon as I can, just try to stop me.’

‘You promise?’ I gazed up at him. Perhaps I would not be abandoned after all? Perhaps it would all be alright. ‘I will count the days, Joseph.’

We hugged again and I cried on his shoulder until finally he disengaged himself and lifted me up into my carriage before slamming the door shut on my protests and shouting: ‘Onwards to France! Good luck, my darling girl!’

I watched out of the window as his figure receeded from view, watched until he turned and went inside and there was nothing more to see.

My heart is breaking with all of the farewells.

I am so tired. I could sleep for days and it still wouldn’t be enough and now I have to pin on a smile, go to Mass and prepare myself for another long day.

We travelled for hours yesterday through leafy countryside and busy towns and villages, their roads lined with grinning, cheering people who threw flowers at my carriage and held their babies up to see me until finally at sunset and just as I was beginning to feel utterly sick of being crammed into a carriage despite the best efforts of Anton and Clara who tried in vain to entertain me with  silly guessing games, we arrived at Melk, a beautiful old city built alongside the Danube and overlooked by an enormous yet elegant white and yellow stone abbey built atop a hill. The beautiful old stones glowed in the mellow light of the setting sun and we all stared out of the carriage windows in wonderment as my enormous courtege (fifty seven carriages just for me!) passed underneath the windows then drove up to the entrance where my brother Joseph was waiting for me flanked by footmen, guards and the solemn, black garbed Benedictine monks who lived at the abbey.

‘Joseph!’ I squealed as he stepped forward and pulled my door open himself. ‘Oh, I am so glad to see you!’ I jumped into his arms and, suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed by everything that had happened burst into tears.

‘Oh, Antonia, Antonia.’ He kissed my wet cheeks, pinched my chin and led me through an arched doorway into the building. ‘Come inside and rest and then tell me all about it.’

Joseph himself took me to my rooms, escorting me down long vaulted, light filled corridors where the silent monks paced quietly and stood aside to let us pass, their eyes downcast, their hands folded in perpetual prayer. ‘I hope that you will be comfortable, little one,’ my brother said as he held open the door to let myself and my ladies enter a lovely white and gold bedroom hung with beautiful tapestries. ‘I will see you again at dinner.’

I sank thankfully down on to the bed and sat in an exhausted daze as my ladies in waiting fussed around me, pulling off my shoes, wiping my face and hands with rose water, taking off my pink feathered hat and carefully placing it on the dark wood dressing table. ‘I thought that we would be in that carriage forever,’ I sighed at last, wiggling my toes in their silk stockings and smiling up at Clara as she rubbed at my forehead with gentle fingers, erasing a headache that had threatened for hours to erupt.

‘Only two more weeks to go!’ Clementina said with a laugh and a raised eyebrow. ‘Two loooong weeks.’

‘Oh don’t!’ I laughed. ‘Don’t remind me!’ The schedule planned for me by Mama and King Louis was punishing with the journey taking over two weeks with each separate leg taking eight hours, which is a lot of time to spend crammed in a carriage, even with such delightful companions.

‘The things that we do for you!’ Clara said with a mock sigh. ‘And just think! You get to go on to France and glory and we just have to turn around and come straight back again!’ Her tone was light but her words still cast a damper on the bouyant mood. My appeal to Durfort had fallen on deaf ears and I would be going to France utterly alone with my Abbé as the only friendly and familiar face. I couldn’t bear to think of it and so I did my best to push it all from my mind.

We had just enough time for me to change into a blue silk dress trimmed with black lace and pearls before it was time for supper and my brother himself knocked on my door to take me down. ‘I hope that you are not too tired,’ he whispered as we walked, my hand on his arm down to the wonderful marble hall where there was to be a banquet (oh la la, another banquet!) in my honour before an opera performance.

‘I will do my best to stay awake,’ I assured him with my sunniest smile as we stepped into the hall and even I, raised at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn gasped as I looked up at the amazing painted ceiling, which was such a stark contrast to the black robed monks who sat with the splendidly dressed local dignitaries.

After dinner, Joseph and I went for a walk on one of the stone terraces that looked out across the Danube towards the distant hills. The view was ravishing and I leaned on the cold parapet and filled my lungs with the fresh air, relishing the soft and comforting sound of the river as it flowed past. ‘I have never been very far away from the Danube,’ I murmured with a little sigh. ‘It is my very own river.’ I imagined myself as a baby lying in the gold and damask Imperial crib, lulled to sleep by the rush and hiss of the Danube as it flowed through Vienna.

Joseph laughed. ‘I know just what you mean.’ He leaned on his elbows against the wall and breathed in deeply. ‘I love this country. There is none so beautiful in all of the world. None so fresh and green and lovely.’

‘Not even France?’ I asked with a smile, trying out my new loyalty for size and finding it distinctly wanting.

‘Definitely not.’ He looked down at me. ‘I hate to see you go,’ he said suddenly, his face inscrutable in the moonlight. ‘I wish that it had been possible to…’

I swiftly covered his hand with my own, not wanting to hear his apologies, his explanations. ‘I know.’ And a silence fell as I thought of our lost ones, of Amalia, Carolina and Josepha and gazed back towards Vienna.

We have just gone past Schönbrunn. Oh, darling, darling Schönbrunn. Will I ever see you again?

My goodness, the road is lined with crowds, all staring at me and cheering and shouting my name. I smile and wave, smile and wave as I pass, hoping that no one can see the tears that are still drying on my cheeks, the falseness of my smile.

Mama cried when the time came to say goodbye. I clung to her and wept as she gently prised my fingers apart and then walked me to my waiting carriage. I do not think that I will ever see her again. Not in this life time. I do not think that I have ever before cried so much. As my carriage pulled away from the Hofburg, I sobbed without restraint as I stared helplessly at my mother and family for what could be the very last time.

More later. I must compose myself. We have two long weeks on the road ahead of us and I will need all of my strength.

This is worse than I could ever have imagined.

I leave at nine.

I have had my final breakfast with my family (Mama dignified, Christina and Elizabeth sullen and mocking by turns, Ferdinand and Max pulling silly faces and spilling coffee all over the tablecloth), said farewell to and given presents to all of my maids, pageboys and footmen and am now sitting here in Mama’s bedroom in my new travelling dress of pale pink velvet with Mops at my feet, waiting for Ferdinand to come and escort me downstairs, where the fabulous carriage provided for me by King Louis awaits. Clementina, Anton, Clara and Anna are to travel with me and they are all wild with excitement about the beauties of our vehicle, with its blue velvet upholstery, shiny mirrored doors painted with symbols of the four elements and the profusion of gold flowers that twisted around its sides reaching up to a fragile crown of thornless roses on the roof.

Everything is packed and has been sent on ahead, piled high in carriages and on carts. My sumptuous trousseau was packed with especial care, with silk sachets of lavender and rose petals strewn in between the hundreds of gowns, silk stockings and fine linen chemises. There is literally nothing left of me here other than myself, my darling Mops and you, the repository of my most secret thoughts, who will be entrusted to the pale blue silk reticule that I will carry with me in my carriage. There you will reside with a lace edged handkerchief and a small porcelain box of violet comfits.

Everything has gone and all my loose ends have been tied up. There is nothing left for me to do but wait.

I have just returned from a state banquet at the Hofburg. All of the usual people were there, including Durfort who stood to attention behind Joseph’s chair all night, glowering at us furiously from beneath his eyebrows and looking sour whenever any unwary person attempted to engage him in conversation. I wish that Amalia had been there as she was always the best of all of us at handling Durfort and his many and various whimsies.

I should be in bed but am loath to go as tonight is my last night here in Vienna and the act of getting into bed makes it all seem so final, so definite. I am struggling to stay awake and yet I know that I must, just for a few minutes more as I savour every moment of these last few hours at home.

‘May I say, Your Highness, that we are all so sorry to see you go,’ a young footman whispered to me as he carried a torch before me through the dark and gloomy corridors that lead from the reception rooms to my mother’s bedchamber. ‘I hope you will forgive my saying so.’
I smiled at him. ‘I do not mind at all,’ I whispered back, blinking away my tears. ‘I will miss you all so much.’

The candle is burning low and the clock on the mantle piece is about to chime away another hour or herald the next, depending on how you look at it. My sisters have always said that I am a glass half full sort of person but today, today I really feel like my glass is empty.

I am not ready to go. I am only fourteen years old and have never been away from home, from Austria. What is to become of me?

I am supposed to be writing my letter to King Louis but oh my, how tedious it is! Well, I say ‘writing’ when actually all I have to do is sit here with Abbé Vermond and copy the letter that Mama has already written for me and then sign it. I have had strict instructions not to make any changes to the letter and to start again should I make the slightest mistake. My overwhelming feeling is relief that I have been told what to write but a small part of me wishes that I had been trusted to find my own words. Surely King Louis will recognize my mother’s hand in this plaintive, simpering missive?

‘All the same, I feel my age and inexperience may often need his indulgence…’ I rolled my eyes as I wrote this, thinking how childish I sounded or rather how childish Mama wanted me to sound.

‘He will never respect me,’ I muttered darkly to my Abbé as he smiled at me in his usual mild mannered way. ‘I want him to find me…’ I searched for the right word, ‘impressive.’

‘Impressive?’ The Abbé laughed as I reddened a little with embarrassment. ‘Oh, I can assure you that
the King will find you extremely impressive.’ His words were just what I wanted to hear but there was something else in his tone of voice, something that I could not put my finger on and that troubled me a little.

I awoke on this, my first morning as a married woman, to the sound of my mother snoring in her crimson brocade hung state bed. With a sigh I lay back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling, thinking how strange it is that at once everything and nothing can change. Again my thoughts wandered to the Dauphin and I wondered if he was lying in bed too, thinking of me?

I rolled over on to my side and pulled his miniature out from underneath my pillow, where I had hidden it. ‘My husband,’ I whispered, tracing his face with my finger. ‘Louis. My husband, Louis.’ His face is so familiar to me now and yet he is a stranger still. I wonder if he ever looks at the portrait of me that lives at Versailles? Does he feel like he knows me or does he feel as confused as I do? I tried to imagine him saying my name and smiled to myself as I decided that I would be his ‘Antoinette’ when he loved me and ‘Marie Antoinette’ when he was cross. I looked at his face again, this time doubtfully, as I really can’t imagine him ever being cross with anyone. Perhaps I am wrong though.

This morning has gone past quickly. Mama was up and dressed shortly after me and retreated into her private sitting room to write letters to my new grandfather in law, King Louis and other heads of state. It is my turn to write letters after lunch. ‘Do not worry, Antoinette! I will tell you exactly what to write!’ Mama patted my cheek. ‘King Louis will be quite enchanted with you.’

‘And the Dauphin?’ I asked her shyly.

Mama sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, I do not think that we need trouble ourselves about that at present.’