Joseph left me the next day and I was not sorry. He was a good brother who loved me but his conversation made me so tired and I always found it difficult to concentrate at the best of times.
What a long journey! The Princess of Paar shared my carriage and tried to comfort me by talking of the wonders of Versailles and what a brilliant future lay before me. To Enns, to Lambach, on to Nymphenburg. At Giinsburg we rested for two days with my father’s sister. Princess Charlotte I had vague memories of her at Schonbrunn for she had at one time been a member of our household. My father had been very fond of her and they used to take long walks together, but my mother resented her presence. Perhaps she resented anyone of whom my father was fond; and eventually Charlotte retired to Remiremont, where she became the Abbess. She talked lovingly of my father and I went with her to distribute food to the poor, which was a change from all the banquets and balls.
We crossed the Black Forest and came to the Abbey of Schiittern, where I was visited by the Comte de Noailles who was to be my guardian. He was old and very proud of the duty which had been entrusted to him by his friend the Due de Choiseul. I thought he was a vain old fellow and I was not sure whether I liked him. He did not stay long with me for there arose a difficulty about the ceremony which lay before me. It was again a matter of whose names should come first on a document.
Prince Starhemburg, who was going to hand me formally over to the French, was in a great passion about this; and so was the Comte de Noailles.
I felt very sad that night because I knew it was going to be my last on German soil. I suddenly found myself crying bitterly in the arms of the Princess of Paar and saying over and over again: “I shall never see my mother again.”
That day a letter had reached me from her. She must have sat down and written it as soon as I left; and I knew that she had written it in tears. Snatches of it come back to me now:
My dear child, you are now where Providence has placed you. Even if one were to think no more of the greatness of your position, you are the happiest of your brothers and sisters. You will find a tender father who will be at the same time your friend. Have every confidence in him. Love him and be submissive to him. I do not speak of the Dauphin. You know my delicacy on that subject. A wife is subject to her husband in all things and you should have no other aim than to please him and do his will. The only real happiness in this world comes through a happy marriage. I can say this from experience. And all depends on the woman, who should be willing, gentle and able to amuse. “
I read and re-read that letter. That night it was my greatest comfort.
The next day I would pass into my new country;
I would say goodbye to so many of the people who had accompanied me so far. There was so much I had to learn, so much which would be expected of me—and all I could do was cry for my mother.
“I shall never see her again,” I murmured into my pillow.
The Bewildered Bride
The Golden Age will be born from such a union, and under the happy rule of Mane Antoinette and Louis-Auguste our nephews will see the continuation of the happiness we enjoy under Louis the Well-Beloved.
On the no-man’s land of a sandbank in the middle of the Rhine a building had been erected, and in this was to take place the ceremony of the Remise. The Princess of Paar had impressed on me that this was the most important ceremony so far, for during it I should cease to be Austrian. I was to walk into that building on one side as an Austrian Archduchess and emerge on the other as a French Dauphine.
It was not a very impressive building, for it had been hastily constructed; it would be used for this purpose only and that would be an end of it. Once on the island I was led into a kind of antechamber where my women stripped me of all my clothes, and I felt so wretched standing there naked before them all that I had to think of my mother at her most stern to prevent myself breaking into sobs. I put my hand up to the chain necklace which I had worn for so many years, as though I were trying to hide it. But I could not save it. The poor thing was Austrian and therefore had to come off.
I was shivering as they dressed me in my French clothes, but I could not help noticing that they were finer than anything I had had in Austria and this lifted my spirits. Clothes meant a great deal to me and I never lost my excitement for a new material, a new fashion or a diamond. When I was dressed I was taken to the Prince Starhemburg who was waiting for me; he held my hand firmly and led me into the hall
which formed the centre of this building. It seemed large after the little antechamber, and in the centre was a table which was covered with a crimson velvet cloth. Prince Starhemburg referred to this room as the Salon de Remise, and he pointed out that the table symbolised the frontier between my old country and my new.
The walls of the room were hung with tapestries, which were beautiful, though the scenes depicted on them were horrible, for they represented the story of Jason and Medea. I found my eyes straying to them during the short ceremony, and when I should have been listening to what was being said I was thinking of Jason’s murdered children and the Furies’ flaming chariot. Years later I heard that before the ceremony the poet Goethe, then a young law student at Strasbourg University, had come to look at the hall and had expressed his horror it the tapestries, adding that he could not believe anyone would have put them where a young bride was to enter her us band country. They were pictures, he said, of ‘the most horrible marriage that could be imagined. ” People would see it as an omen, too.
The ceremony was fortunately short. I was led to the other de of the table, a few words were spoken, and I had become ench.
I was then relinquished by Prince Starhemburg and given into the hands of the Comte de Noailles, who led me into the antechamber on the French side of the building, where he presented me to his wife, who with him was to share the guardianship. I felt bewildered and scarcely glanced at her. All I knew was that I felt lonely and frightened, and that this woman was to look after me, and without thinking I threw myself into her arms, subconsciously feeling sure that this childish and impulsive gesture would charm her.
When I felt her stiffen, I looked up into her face. She seemed old . very old; her face was wrinkled and set into lines of severity. For a second or so my behaviour had startled her; and then gently, but firmly, she withdrew herself and said:
“I beg leave of Madame la Dauphine to present to her her Mistress of the Robes, the Duchesse de Villars.”
I was too surprised to show that I was hurt. In any case dignity had been stressed in my upbringing and my mother’s instructions to such an extent that it was almost intuitive, so, accepting the fact that I could hope for small comfort from Madame de Noailles, I turned to the Duchesse de Villars, to find that she too was old, cold and remote.
“And Madame la Dauphine’s maids of honour.” There they stood: the Duchesse de Picquigny, the Marquise de Duras, the Comtesse de Saulx-Tavannes and the Comtesse de Mailly —and all old. A band of severe old ladies!
I found myself coolly acknowledging their greeting.
From no-man’s island the brilliant cavalcade made its way to Strasbourg, the Alsace possession which had gone to France at the conclusion of the Peace of Ryswick nearly a hundred years before. The people of Strasbourg were delighted with the wedding, because they were so dangerously near the frontier and they were anxious to show their pleasure. The greeting I received in that town took away the flavour of the chilly reception in the Salon de Remise and my introduction to the ladies who had been chosen for me. This was the sort of occasion in which I revelled. In the streets of the city, children dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses brought flowers to me, and I loved the pretty little creatures and wished that all the solemn men and women would leave me with the children. The people of Strasbourg had had the happy idea of lining the route with small boys dressed as Swiss Guards; they looked adorable; and when I arrived at the Bishop’s Palace, where I was to stay that night, I asked if these little boys might be my guard for the night. When the little boys heard this they jumped about and laughed with pleasure; and next morning I peeped out of my window and saw them there. They saw me and cheered me. That was my most pleasant memory of Strasbourg.