Life-of-Antoinette

The Austrian archduchess Maria Antonia was beautiful, graceful, slender and lively. She was born on the 2nd November 1755 as the youngest daughter of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa and the Emperor Francis I. Her early childhood was surrounded by happiness. Spoiled by everybody and "What I want I have" could have been her motto - which was the worst possible grounding for her future life.

After the death of Emperor Francis I, Austria grew increasingly apprehensive of the strength of the Prussians, of the other Prostestant German states, and of England across the North sea. So, in 1776 Maria Theresa made an outright proposal to Louis XV of France that Marie Antoinette (MA in its French version) should marry Louis-Auguste, his eldest grandson and future King of France. Maria Theresa had to wait until 1769 to receive the longed-for letter from Louis XV, in which he formally asked for Marie Antoinette's hand in marriage to his grandson, the dauphin, proposing Easter 1770 as the date of the marriage.

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

M. de la Rocheterie

The Life of Marie Antoinette- A brief story

To say farewell to her daughter had been hard for Maria Theresa. She knew the girl's spirit, good nature and cordiality, cheerful sagacity, uncorrupted humaness; but she knew no less Toinette's defects, her immaturity, frivolousness, fligtiness. Maria Theresa had had Marie Antoinette to sleep in her own bedroom during the last two months before the departure, hoping during the last hours to make a queen out of this temperamental hoyden. Yet the mother reamained uneasy. Before Marie Antoinette could have reached Versailles, Maria

Theresa sent her daughter an additional exhortation to follow the guidance of the aforesaid document.

"Let me recommend you, beloved daughter, to reread it on the 21st of every month. Be trusty in abiding by this wish of mine, this urgent request. The only thing I am afraid is that you may sometimes be backward in saying your prayers and in your readings; and may consequently grow negligient and slothful. Fight againts these faults...Do not forget your mother, who, though far away, will continue to watch over you, until her last breath."

While all the world was rejoicing over the daughter's thriumph, the mother went to church and besought the Almighty to avert a disaster which she alone foresaw.

The arrival of Marie Antoinette was a memorable occasion of the French people. It was decades since Strasbourg had been favoured with the sight of a future queen of France, with blue sparkling eyes the girl- a fair-haired and delicately built creature - smiled from the glass chariot at the huge crowd of persons who had assembled from all the towns and villages of Alsace.

From Starsbourg the procession of carriages set off on the last part of the journey through Nancy, Chalons-sur-Marne, and Rheims towards Compiegne. There Marie Antoinette was to meet her husband, her grandfather by marriage and most of her new relations.

On May 1770, Marie Antoinette was welcomed by the House of Bourbon. As soon as a fanfare from the respective trains had announced the near approach of the procession, Louis XV got out of his chariot to receive his grandson's bride. Louis XV kissed her on both cheeks and gave her a thoroughly appraising look. Then the Dauphine turned to his grandson and the man who was already her husband, and kissed him too. The Dauphin hardly reacteed. Thirty-six years later it was the scene of another first encounter: between Napoleon and Marie-Louise, also from Austria.

Although only fifteen years and nine months old, Louis-Auguste was already 5 feet 10 inches tall, heavily built and clumsy. Undeniably slow-witted, he appeared quite stupid due to the fact that he was distressingly short-sighted and couldn't even recognised his friends at three paces.

The second wedding festival, the real one in succession to the proxy affair in Vienna, took place on May 16, 1770, at Versailles in the chapel of Louis XVI. When the ceremony was over, the people were graciously allowed to participate in the rejoicings at the monarchical festival. Then, while the officers and men of the guard stood to attention, the royal family marched out between bowing nobles, ranged in rows on either side. The festival was over. With the Dauphiness on the right and the Dauphin on the left, His Majesty conducted the wedded children, whose joint ages barely exceeded thirty years, to their sleeping apartment. At length the court left the youthful husband and wife to their privacy. Louis and Marie Antoinette were alone together for the first time since they had been married, and the rustling curtains of the great four-poster closed around an unseen tragedy.

To be continued.........

The seven-years of their married-life bore no fruits. Marie Antoinette had been coupled with a "nonchalant mari", with a negligient husband; and at first the general belief was that nothing but timidity, inexperience or a "nature tardive" had made the youth of sixteen impotent when put to bed with so fascinating a maiden. Young Louis was subjected to physical examination; and at length it became plain that the Dauphin's sexual impotence was not what we should term "psychogenic" but was due to a trifling organic defect - to phimosis. Marie Antoinette who had meanwhile been fully informed about these things by experienced lady friends, did her utmost to persuade her husband to submit surgical intervention. He hesitated, procrastinated, tried futile measure after another, until the situation of the married pair, at once ludicrous and horrible, grew shameful to the Queen. Thus matters dragged on fo another 2 years, making in all seven years of frustation. Then Emperor Joseph undertook the journey to Paris to inspire his rather pussillanimous brother-in-law with sufficient courage for the operation. The needful was done. But Marie Antoinette as a woman and a wife....

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