The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette (15 page)

And with good reason. We have learned that the Duke is only seventeen years old, the same age as Carolina's bridegroom in Naples and in fact the two princes were born within weeks of each other. He is also said to be immature and to have childish tastes, but then he is not much older than myself and I still like to play with dolls if no one is about to see it.

What else? He is an orphan, the grandson of King Louis of France and the younger brother of the still much missed Isabella, who was married to my brother Joseph. I remember her as quiet, artistic and melancholy and wonder if the Duke is the same. She was very pretty as well with a heart shaped face and wide blue eyes, so maybe Ferdinand of Parma will not be ill looking. That is something at least.

'Parma was entirely governed by the late Duchess before her death,' I overheard Joseph telling Amalia. 'She introduced French manners and customs to the duchy and I believe that you will be very happy there.' He took her hand. 'Isabella...' He paused and I knew that he was thinking of his dead wife, the mother of his only child. 'Isabella always spoke very fondly of her brother and I believe that he will make you a good husband.'

'Do you really think so, Joseph, or are you just trying to appease your conscience?' Amalia said, pulling her hand away.

Sunday, 21
st
August.

I have been spending a lot of time with the Princesses Friederike and Charlotte of Hesse-Darmstadt, a pair of pretty and utterly charming German princesses that I have known for virtually my entire life. We have always been friendly but now that Carolina is no longer here, I have found myself becoming increasingly close to them both, not that they could ever be substitutes for my sister.

Friederike is romantic and loves to read books and day dream about romantic heroes sweeping her off her feet. I have seen her watching Karl of Zweibrücken from beneath her eyelashes and blushing whenever he happens to glance in her direction. I do not entirely blame her for this, despite my loyalty to Amalia, for he is exceedingly dashing.

Charlotte, however, is my special friend as she is just three days younger than myself and shares all of the same interests and dislikes. We are in agreement that there is nothing in the World that is worse than Italian lessons and that really we should be left alone to do as we please.

'You are all very silly,' Amalia said with a laugh and a fond look as we all ran indoors earlier on after an exhausting afternoon spent chasing Mama's spaniels about the park. Charlotte was quite red from the exertion and Friederike's long flaxen hair had fallen down in a tumble about her shoulders while I had grass stains down my flounced pink cotton skirt. 'Hoydens!' Amalia reproved with a chuckle. 'Friederike, please remember to pin your hair back up before you are seen and Antonia please change your dress.'

'You are not really cross are you, Amalia?' I coaxed with what was supposed to be my most winsome smile.
 

My sister tried to look solemn but had to give up when she couldn't help but laugh. 'No dearest, not cross at all,' she said, kissing my forehead and smoothing my hair back, 'just sincerely pleased to see you looking so happy again.'

Wednesday, 24
th
August, afternoon.

My lovely, amusing French tutors have been sent away. I went as usual to my classroom only to find that only the Countess was waiting for me.
 

'Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul has sent word that it is considered entirely unsuitable for an Archduchess of Austria and future Princess of France to be taught by what are fundamentally a pair of strolling players,' she said with cold look. I always knew that she hated poor Aufresne and Sainville and I suspect her of having engineered their dismissal in some way.

'They were real actors!' I protested, stung by her description of them as 'strolling players'. 'Why must you always be so unkind, Countess?'

Countess Lerchenfeld raised one finely plucked eyebrow. 'I beg your pardon, your Highness?' She sounded shocked.

I raised my chin. 'I liked them and I do not wish to hear them spoken of in such a way.' I sat down at my desk and picked up my rough book and pen. 'Now, if you please, Countess.' I tried to appear entirely composed but I had to lay my pen down on the wooden desk as my fingers were shaking so much.
 

The Countess clicked her tongue against her teeth angrily. 'Such behaviour will avail you nothing, your Highness,' she remarked. 'Your mother ordered me to inform you that another teacher has already been chosen from you and is even now on their way from the French court.'
 

I did not reply but my mind was working quickly. Another teacher was being sent directly from the French court? Mama must be beside herself with joy as French interference in the matter of my education must surely be a confirmation that the French King also wishes for a match between myself and the Dauphin Louis. I must ask Amalia.

Friday, 26
th
August, late, I cannot sleep.

Amalia agrees that it must be so. If the French did not want their Dauphin to marry me then they would not care who taught me French.
 

I do not know what I think about all of this. On one hand, of course I wish to be married but on the other, well, France is so far away and so strange.

'Papa considered himself to be French,' Amalia reminded me with a smile. 'He was born there and his Mama was a French princess and niece of their Sun King, Louis.'
 

I sighed. 'So in a way I am a part French too?
 
I always forget that.' A portrait of our Grandmama, the Princesse Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans hangs in what used to be Papa's room in the Hofburg and I have often admired her pretty, heart shaped face and large brown eyes which she had inherited from her wicked papa, Philippe d'Orléans.
 

Monday, 5
th
September, late.

I was walking in the gardens earlier when I came upon Amalia and Karl sitting on a bench and kissing passionately. I backed immediately away and hid behind a hedge so I do not think that they saw me. How fortunate though that no one else was with me as I had asked my maids and footmen to fall behind so that I could be alone.
 

My heart troubles me and there is nothing that I can do to help my sister.

Oh, Amalia.

Tuesday, 6
th
September.

Amalia and I were sitting together in her sitting room, both quietly stitching baby shirts for yet another one of Leopold's babies, while outside the rain lashed against the windows. He and his ugly Spanish wife have two children now and yet another one on the way which Mama is in transports about. 'It must be very boring in Florence,' Joseph remarked with a grimace when he was told the happy news.

'I know that you saw us,' Amalia whispered so quietly that at first I wasn't sure that I had not imagined things. 'Yesterday in the gardens.'

I stopped sewing and looked at her, completely startled. 'I did not mean to... I won't tell anyone!' I could not help blushing, as though I had been caught out in some terrible misdemeanor. 'I was not spying on you, Amalia!'

She laughed. 'Oh, I know, silly girl! Spying was always Carolina's special talent wasn't it?' She put in a final stitch and then laid the little white linen baby shirt aside. 'I did not know if it was wise to talk to you about such a matter but it occurred to me that you might have been troubled in some way by what you saw.'

'N-no,' I stammered, thinking immediately of this book and wondering if she had discovered it and read my entry from yesterday. 'I am worried about you but there is really no need for us to discuss what happened.' I felt quite panicky at the prospect of being taken into Amalia's confidence as it all felt so grown up and beyond my comprehension.

Amalia looked at me then for a moment and then nodded, as though she had read my thoughts. 'You are quite welcome to ask me anything that you like,' she said. 'I do not want to keep any secrets from you, Antonia.'

I looked away, feeling quite uncomfortable and unable to meet her eye. 'I am sorry for your situation,' I murmured, not knowing what else to say. 'I would not wish to pry.' I stole a look at my sister and saw that she was not watching me at all but instead gazing calmly out of the rain splattered window and across the park. 'I wish that you were at liberty to marry the man of your choice.'
 

'I know.' She looked at me then and I saw that her blue eyes were wet with unshed tears. 'I wish that too. It is so hard to see him and know that we will never be permitted to be together and that now it is too late to do anything about it.' She smiled ruefully and raised one white hand to her eyes. I remembered that Amalia had never liked to be seen crying.

'Was there ever a time when something might have been done about it?' I asked, curious despite myself.
 

She smiled again, this time sadly. 'Perhaps.' She sighed then and shook her head. 'No, no I am deceiving myself. There was never any chance for Karl and I and we must resign ourselves to being separated forever, however much it hurts to accept this. I have loved him ever since I first set eyes on him and I could not stop myself, even though I knew all along that we would never be permitted to marry.' She leaned forward and took my hand in an urgent grip, which forced me to raise my eyes to her face. I had not really noticed before how pale she looked. 'Antonia, promise me that you will not fall in love before you are married.'

I stared at her. 'What do you mean?' I think that some of the young men at court are very handsome but it has never once occurred to me that I could fall in love with one of them as my elder sisters have done.
 

Amalia gripped my hand. 'Promise me, Antonia. I never ever want you to feel the torment of being wrenched away from the man you love as I have been.'

'I promise.' What else could I do?

Wednesday, 21
st
September, after dinner, Laxenburg.

Today I met my new tutor and it was not nearly so bad as I had feared. Mama herself brought him to the schoolroom and I looked up from my German exercise to see a small, neatly dressed little priest standing before me, smiling rather awkwardly as Mama prodded him forward and said her piece.

'Child, this is the Abbé Vermond, who has been sent from Versailles in order to overlook your education.' Mama could hardly conceal the note of intense satisfaction in her voice. 'Be sure to pay attention to him at all times.'
 

'Your Highness.' The little man gave an elegant bow. These French! Even their priests are perfect courtiers. Not that our priests here in Vienna are peasants, but not one has half the elegance of little Abbé Vermond with his flashing dark eyes, his faint tang of Lavender water and his habit of clicking his polished heels together whenever he bows.

Mama and the Countess left us alone together and for a moment we looked warily at each other before the Abbé gave a sigh, cracked his knuckles in a businesslike manner and then pulled forward one of the chairs that stood against the wall. I had watched the knuckle cracking with some misgiving but was thrown by the chair.

'Do you not wish to sit behind the desk, Monsieur?' I asked in French. 'That is where Madame la Comtesse likes to sit.'
 

The Abbé smiled and shook his head. 'No, no, Your Highness, I will be quite comfortable here, I thank you.' He placed the chair on the other side of my desk and settled himself in it. 'I find desks so very off putting, don't you?'

'Yes, but you are here to be my teacher,' I pointed out, rather primly. 'And teachers sit behind desks.'

'Not always.' The Abbé looked at me for a moment, with his head to one side and then picked up my shamefully blotched piece of work as I instinctively stiffened, waiting for the inevitable criticisms. 'You are not fond of writing at length, I see,' was all that he had to say however.
 

I shook my head and brought out my ink stained hands for his inspection, as I had previously been doing my best to hide them under the desk. 'I start off well but then my arm begins to ache and then I get so very bored.'
 

'You prefer to talk then?' he enquired, after a solemn inspection of my poor stained fingers.
 

I nodded. 'Oh yes, infinitely.' I lowered my voice, well aware that some of the maids like to listen through keyholes. 'The Countess does not like to talk to me and I find it very dull to always be reading and copying things out. I do not feel like I ever actually
learn
anything.'

'But of course,' said the Abbé, while nodding as though he really understood.

'And then of course I feel so stupid,' I rushed on, instinctively knowing that I should and could trust this man. 'The Countess is so very strict and Mama expects excellence at all times and I am afraid that I am a disappointment to her.'

He smiled. 'I doubt that very much, Your Highness. I would even go so far as to say that I believe your Mama is as proud and doting as any Mother could be.' He stood up then and took a wander about the room, picking up books and looking out of windows. 'May I be frank with you, Your Highness?'