The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette (7 page)

Poor Amalia. Her rooms are next to mine and I can hear her weeping. Perhaps I should go to her.

Chapter Three

1767

Thursday, 1
st
January, 1767, early in the morning, there is snow falling against the window.

I hope that this year will be better than the last.

Monday, 16
th
February, more snow.

There was a huge row between Joseph and Amalia after dinner tonight as we all sat together, sewing in the blue and white drawing room as Marianna read aloud to us. It exploded out of nowhere and she called him despotic and threatened to run away with Karl, to which he merely laughed as though her threats were just so much hot air and of no importance at all. I hate it when Joseph does that. It makes one feel so very stupid.

It did not help matters that Christina was present and very obviously with child. She already looks enormous, even though the baby is not due until May. Mama fussed over her a great deal, which was annoying. It is as if no one on earth has ever had a baby before. Honestly. One would think that Mama of all people would know better.

Carolina and I sang together after all of this, while Marianna accompanied us on the harpsichord and we were much applauded. They can say what they like about my grammar and spelling (and believe me they do) but Herr Gluck has taught me well and my singing is faultless. Perhaps I should run away as well and become an opera singer.

Saturday, 21
st
February.

Herr Gluck looked rather alarmed when I asked him if he thought I could become a professional opera singer.

Monday, 16
th
March, Schönbrunn, this is much better than reading some boring book.

The King of Spain's ambassador has made a formal offer for the hand of Josepha! She is to marry the King's son Ferdinand, who is the King of Naples. Mama is beside herself with happiness at this great coup and can hardly stop smiling and rubbing her plump, white hands together with glee.

Josepha is less happy and has been crying ever since being informed of her 'great good fortune' as Mama calls it. 'Naples is far away and I do not think I will ever see home again,' she said sadly as we sat together in the grass by Papa's menagerie, she was hugging her knees with her arms and hiding her wet face in the folds of her pink velvet skirt, while her little dog sat beside her with his head to one side, not understanding why his mistress was so sad. 'I do not want to marry someone that I have never even seen.'
 

'But you will be a Queen,' I pointed out, not really knowing what to say for the best. 'And you will be able to do whatever you like! Just think of that!' I could not help but be a little envious.
 

'There is no such thing as a free meal,' Josepha said miserably, wiping her cheeks with a lace edged kerchief. 'The King of Naples is said to be ugly and stupid and I am going to have to let him touch me and do whatever he likes in exchange for my freedom.'

'That doesn't sound very much like freedom to me.' I awkwardly hugged her and we fell silent, listening to the cawing of the huge, brightly coloured parrots as they flew around the trees in their enclosure. They too have the illusion but not the reality of liberty.

Monday, 23
rd
March.

While we were at our prayers just now, Carolina told me that Mama had originally offered Amalia to the King of Spain for his son but that the offer had been rejected because he considered Amalia to be too old. Ferdinand of Naples is six years her junior.

'Amalia will be furious if she finds out,' Carolina whispered as she crossed herself and then gracefully stood up, sighing as she rubbed the chill of the cold chapel stones from her knees. 'She is still talking about running away if they don't let her marry Karl.'

Wednesday, 15
th
April, pretending to work on my Italian again.

Mama called us all into the darkly gloomy black and crimson lacquer cabinet next to her bedchamber, which is always a terrible ordeal as she claims not to feel the slightest bit of cold and so likes to have all of her windows wide open with the red and gold silk curtains blowing wildly inwards, no matter what the season or weather. Amalia, Carolina and I all feel the cold terribly and so we always snatch up our fur lined cloaks and wrap ourselves up warmly when we are called into Mama's presence. We stood in a shivering huddle and listened in silence as Mama
 
proudly announced that Josepha will be departing for Naples on the fifteenth of October. So soon. We can hardly believe that we have only a few months left before she leaves us, possibly forever. Princess brides never seem to go home again.
 

Josepha almost fainted and Joseph had to carry her to the drawing room next door, sit her down next to the huge white stove in the corner and fan her until she revived again.

Carolina and I looked in one of Joseph's huge leather bound map books to see where Naples is. It must be hundreds of thousands of miles away. Josepha will have to travel south through Austria and most of Italy to get there. She will be able to visit Leopold in Florence; he has taken up residence there with his ugly wife now that he has inherited Papa's title of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

'Poor Josepha,' Carolina whispered with a stricken look.

Thursday, 23
rd
April, after dinner.

Herr Van Meytens has started painting a new portrait of me, which is very tiresome indeed as it means having to sit still and look solemn, neither of which are activities that I much enjoy. Mama likes to fill her palaces with portraits of her children although Joseph says that there is hardly any point as we all look much the same, a remark that never fails to make Elizabeth slap him with her painted fan as of course she believes she is a cut above the rest of us. I privately agree with Joseph though – we all have the same big blue eyes, pink cheeks, pouting lips and high foreheads and really there isn't much difference between us.
 

Mama requested that I wear my very best dress for the painting and so I duly sit for hours at a time bedecked in heavy blue brocade and lace, with a pearl and lace choker around my throat and some rather pretty diamonds in my stiffly powdered and pomaded hair. There is an ermine cape as well, which I lean one stiff and aching arm on while relishing the luxurious softness of the fur.

When my sitting has finished, I slip from my pink velvet upholstered chair and go to have a look at the painting, which smells heavily and revoltingly of oil paints. Oddly, I look simultaneously awkward and coquettish, with a half smile on impossibly red lips and rather too much rouge. Only my hands show my age and are pink and chubby with extreme youth.

'You look charming, Antonia,' Carolina said with a squeeze of my arm. Meytens has just finished his portrait of her and she looks exactly the same as I do – pale and pouting in heavy blue brocade and lace. Carolina adores her portrait because, unlike me, she actually wants to look older than she really is.

'I do not look like myself at all,' I replied, frowning. 'I do not look like a child any more.' You would not guess from this portrait that I still like to play with dolls. I imagine that Mama will absolutely love it.

Sunday, 17
th
May, late.

A messenger arrived with the news that Christina's pains have begun! Mama was beside herself and immediately ordered that a carriage be prepared so that she can rush off to Pressburg to be at our sister's side.

Elizabeth is to go with her, which is she not happy about as she is not fond of sick beds and babies. I would happily have accompanied her, as I love babies, but I was not asked. I am too young probably.
 

Saturday, 23
rd
May.

Mama and Elizabeth have returned, both dressed in black and looking exhausted and so very sad. Christina's baby girl died after just one day and then Christina herself became very feverish and they thought that she would die as well. Mama sat at her bedside with Prince Albert for two whole days before finally Christina recognised them both and showed signs of recovery.

'It was truly terrible.' Elizabeth was still in shock, and barely touched the cup of reviving hot chocolate that Joseph brought to her with his own hands. 'I have never seen anyone look so very ill. We really thought that we were going to lose her.'

I reach out and take her hand, which is icy cold. 'I am sorry about the little baby,' I say. How horrible it must have been for Christina to lose her little girl so soon after birth. I cannot stop crying when I think of it.

Mama has gone to her freezing cold rooms and shut herself in again with the curtains drawn, just as she did after father's death. Everyone tiptoes around the palace with frightened expressions on their faces. It is as though they fear to wake an ogre.

Monday, 25
th
May.

Josephina complained of a terrible headache and then fainted while she was walking in the gardens.
 
She had to be carried in to her rooms by one of the Swiss guards. Everyone hopes that it is just a migraine and nothing serious like measles or, worse, smallpox.
 

'Women sometimes have headaches and faint when they are in an interesting situation,' Carolina whispered to me during evening prayers. 'Perhaps Joseph is going to have another baby.'

I closed my eyes and prayed very hard that it could be so.

Tuesday, 26
th
May.

Smallpox! We are all to leave for Laxenburg immediately!

Later, 26
th
May, Laxenburg.

Josephina is apparently terribly ill and the court physicians do not expect her to survive. Mama packed us all off to Laxenburg straight away and only she, Joseph and Elizabeth remain in Vienna to watch over Josephina's sick bed. Elizabeth is resigned to this, although she must have had enough of sick beds by now.

Josepha is very much affected by all of this as she is terrified of smallpox. She keeps saying that it is just like the week when Johanna died, but of course I do not remember.
 

Friday, 29
th
May.

Josephina died last night on Ascension day. No one but me seems very sad about this. I have been to the cold, empty chapel to pray for her soul and to ask forgiveness for not having been more kind to her while she was alive.

Poor Joseph is a widower for the second time and once again we are having to get out our mourning clothes. It is not so long ago that we put them aside after Papa's death. They smell of the spicy rosemary and lavender sachets that the maids put between the folds of cloth to deter moths. The scent of mourning.

Monday, 1
st
June.

Joseph has sent word that Elizabeth has fallen ill as well. We have all been to the chapel to pray for her. I knelt on the cool marble floor and remembered how pale and tired she had looked in her black silk dress upon her return from Christina's childbed. Is she well enough to pull through this?

Carolina says that she heard two of the maids talking about Elizabeth's illness and how she screamed: 'Not my face! Please not my face! Anything but that!' and had to be restrained and given opium when the physicians told her that she had caught smallpox.

I don't think that I believe her. It can't be true. Can it?

Wednesday, 3
rd
June.

Mama too.

Josepha is distraught with fear. I must go to her.

Sunday, 14
th
June.

It is all over. Both Mama and Elizabeth have come through the worst and are almost recovered. The whole country is celebrating the news and I can hear the constant, joyous ringing of church bells in the distance as I write this.

Mama became so ill that at one point she was despaired of and they administered the Last Sacrament to prepare her for death. It hardly seems possible. We have always regarded Mama as entirely invincible, immortal even and yet she was brought so low that we almost lost her.

Elizabeth was also believed to be on the brink of certain death but soon rallied and recovered. Joseph has written to tell us that she is terribly scarred though and that her face is quite destroyed by the smallpox. Lovely Elizabeth, the most beautiful of us all. It is so unfair.

Yesterday was my name day but no one remembered except Carolina.

Thursday, 25
th
June, Schönbrunn.