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Authors: Carolly Erickson
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cloaks as a cold spring rain began to fall. The crowds thinned out, Vienna receded into the far distance. Antoinette was on her way into a new life.
ITH tortoise-like slowness the dauphine's entourage crawled westward, traveling from eight to ten hours in a typical day, stopping for the night at convenient castles or monasteries or in towns whose inns could barely accommodate the hundreds of retainers and their horses. At the end of a week the traveling had become tedious; after two and a half weeks, when the party arrived at the Abbey of Schuttem, the last resting place before the Austro-French border, everyone, from the ladies-in-waiting to the secretaries to the lackeys and cooks, was exhausted. The dauphine herself bore up well under the strains of travel, her cheeks as usual pink with health and her spirits cheerful.
At Schuttem she was visited by the stiff, self-important Comte de Noailles, Louis XV's ambassador, who paid far less attention to her than he did to what he considered an insult in the wording of the documents under whose terms Antoinette was to be officially handed over to him. The document named Maria Theresa and her son Joseph, now reigning monarch of Austria, before naming the august King Louis. Such a slight could not be tolerated. The Count's Austrian counterpart, Starhemberg, pointed out politely but firmly that to put the French King's name first would be to insult their Austrian majesties. The two diplomats faced off, at an impasse, and not for the first time. Finally, to avoid conflict, the document was prepared in two versions, one for each court: in the Austrian version the Austrian monarchs were named first, and in the French version Louis XV received precedence.
$2 CAROLLY ERICKSON
The contretemps did not bode well for the next day's ceremony of remise^ when Antoinette was to lay aside her Austrian identity and become French. On neutral ground—an island in the middle of the Rhine—she entered a building newly constructed for the ceremony. Putting on a gown designated for this day (but keeping her Austrian jewels and ornaments), she entered the salk de remise and took her place in front of a table that symbolized the boundary line between the two realms. On one side of the table stood her Austrian escort, on the other the punctilious Noailles, with two of his assistants. Noailles made a speech, then the act was read under whose terms Antoinette became French.
As the room filled with official verbiage, Antoinette's attention must have strayed to the large and brilliant tapestries that covered the walls. They were of the finest workmanship, having come from the palace of the Archbishop of Strasbourg who loaned them specifically for this occasion, but their subject matter was, to say the least, disturbing. They represented the horrific scene in which Medea, goaded to fury by her husband Jason's desertion, murders their children and then kills herself. A more suggestible girl than Antoinette might have shuddered at the sight of them and taken them as an ill omen. But most likely Antoinette, ever curious, was more intrigued by them than alarmed—and it may have occurred to her that whoever chose the tapestries was passing a sour judgment on the alliance between Bourbon and Hapsburg.^
The solemnities concluded, Antoinette's Austrian ladies filed in to kiss her hand and take leave of her. She was delivered into the keeping of Noailles, and of his flinty, officious sister-in-law whose immediate response to Antoinette's childlike kiss of welcome was to draw back in indignation at the latter's impropriety. The Comtesse de Noailles invariably stood on ceremony, and she expected her new mistress to keep her effusions of sentiment to herself. Her previous mistress, Louis XV's late wife Queen Marie Leczinska, had been dull and retiring, and therefore easy to serve. The Countess presented Antoinette with her ladies of honor, a staid and matronly group, and then escorted her across the threshold
ITH tortoise-like slowness the dauphine's entourage crawled westward, traveling from eight to ten hours in a typical day, stopping for the night at convenient castles or monasteries or in towns whose inns could barely accommodate the hundreds of retainers and their horses. At the end of a week the traveling had become tedious; after two and a half weeks, when the party arrived at the Abbey of Schuttem, the last resting place before the Austro-French border, everyone, from the ladies-in-waiting to the secretaries to the lackeys and cooks, was exhausted. The dauphine herself bore up well under the strains of travel, her cheeks as usual pink with health and her spirits cheerful.
At Schuttem she was visited by the stiff, self-important Comte de Noailles, Louis XV's ambassador, who paid far less attention to her than he did to what he considered an insult in the wording of the documents under whose terms Antoinette was to be officially handed over to him. The document named Maria Theresa and her son Joseph, now reigning monarch of Austria, before naming the august King Louis. Such a slight could not be tolerated. The Count's Austrian counterpart, Starhemberg, pointed out politely but firmly that to put the French King's name first would be to insult their Austrian majesties. The two diplomats faced off, at an impasse, and not for the first time. Finally, to avoid conflict, the document was prepared in two versions, one for each court: in the Austrian version the Austrian monarchs were named first, and in the French version Louis XV received precedence.
$2 CAROLLY ERICKSON
The contretemps did not bode well for the next day's ceremony of remise^ when Antoinette was to lay aside her Austrian identity and become French. On neutral ground—an island in the middle of the Rhine—she entered a building newly constructed for the ceremony. Putting on a gown designated for this day (but keeping her Austrian jewels and ornaments), she entered the salk de remise and took her place in front of a table that symbolized the boundary line between the two realms. On one side of the table stood her Austrian escort, on the other the punctilious Noailles, with two of his assistants. Noailles made a speech, then the act was read under whose terms Antoinette became French.
As the room filled with official verbiage, Antoinette's attention must have strayed to the large and brilliant tapestries that covered the walls. They were of the finest workmanship, having come from the palace of the Archbishop of Strasbourg who loaned them specifically for this occasion, but their subject matter was, to say the least, disturbing. They represented the horrific scene in which Medea, goaded to fury by her husband Jason's desertion, murders their children and then kills herself. A more suggestible girl than Antoinette might have shuddered at the sight of them and taken them as an ill omen. But most likely Antoinette, ever curious, was more intrigued by them than alarmed—and it may have occurred to her that whoever chose the tapestries was passing a sour judgment on the alliance between Bourbon and Hapsburg.^
The solemnities concluded, Antoinette's Austrian ladies filed in to kiss her hand and take leave of her. She was delivered into the keeping of Noailles, and of his flinty, officious sister-in-law whose immediate response to Antoinette's childlike kiss of welcome was to draw back in indignation at the latter's impropriety. The Comtesse de Noailles invariably stood on ceremony, and she expected her new mistress to keep her effusions of sentiment to herself. Her previous mistress, Louis XV's late wife Queen Marie Leczinska, had been dull and retiring, and therefore easy to serve. The Countess presented Antoinette with her ladies of honor, a staid and matronly group, and then escorted her across the threshold
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