depended on the packet from Vienna.
"I swear to you," she wrote to the Empress in July of 1770, "that I have not received one of your dear letters without having the tears come to my eyes. ... I ardently wish I could see my dear and very dear family for an instant at least."^ The warm family life of Vienna was gone forever, to be replaced by the chili of constant suspicion and scheming. There were no safe havens at Versailles, no places where she could go to be free from prying eyes and whispers. The King, Madame Du Barry, Mercy had spies in every dark corner, watching and listening; every keyhole seemed to invite surveillance.
Antoinette became particularly anxious about locks and keys during her early months at Versailles. She didn't feel safe in her own apartments, and worried that her enemies had skeleton keys that they used to enter and leave at will, and also to open her desk and read her letters. She confessed to Vermond that she imagined her own keys were taken from her pockets at night—and without them, especially the one Adelaide had given her so that she could come and go at will to Adelaide's own rooms, she would be a prisoner of her entourage. Indeed even with her keys she had no true freedom, bound as she was by etiquette, routine and the confines of the great labyrinthine palace, whose corridors, never truly bright with welcome, now began to seem forbiddingly dim.
N Antoinette's large, chilly rooms at Versailles, disorder :| reigned. The huge guardroom at the top of the wide mar-j ble staircase was cluttered with weaponry and the accoutrements of the guards, who whiled away their idleness gambling and telling stories while all around them tradesmen waited for a chance to show the dauphine their wares and messengers and visitors to court milled expectantly. In the antechamber, where her attendants waited for their turn to serve her and where the "Great Table" was laid for the midday dinner, there were holes in the tapestries where Antoinette's two curly-tailed pug dogs had scratched at them, and the parquet floor was muddy with paw prints. "Madame la dauphine loves dogs very much," Mercy told Maria Theresa, adding that she had requested that another dog be sent from Vienna, a tawny pug with a black nose. Mercy was willing to endorse the request, though he noted that the two dogs she already had were "extremely unclean."^
The state chamber too, with its huge bed, bore the marks of the dogs, but their depredations were greatest in the private rooms> where Antoinette let them romp freely on the damask-upholstered furniture and chew at the gilded chair legs. They relieved themselves wherever and whenever they liked, as Antoinette did not bother to prevent them and none of the servants was assigned the specific duty of looking after the royal pets. Adding to the chaos were two little children, one four years old and the other five. One was the son of the dauphin's chief valet, Thierry, and the other belonged to Antoinette's first bedchamber
woman. The children were always underfoot, running and chasing each other, playing with the dogs and creating a cheerful mayhem, especially when Antoinette was supposed to be receiving instruction from Vermond or having a singing lesson or embroidering the King's vest.
Madame de Noailles, "Madame Etiquette" as Antoinette called her, was dismayed at the chaos. She had been deeply offended when her mistress, in an attempt to cut through the time-consuming procedures required to make an appointment to her household, sent Madame Thierry to her to say that the dauphine wanted her in her service. Injured and furious, Madame de Noailles had gone to Antoinette in a huff and announced that she had no intention of taking orders from a chambermaid—especially one who had not yet been formally appointed to her position. It had taken all of Mercy's diplomacy to soothe the injured pride of Madame de Noailles—who was on the point of resigning—and restore some semblance of harmony.
"I swear to you," she wrote to the Empress in July of 1770, "that I have not received one of your dear letters without having the tears come to my eyes. ... I ardently wish I could see my dear and very dear family for an instant at least."^ The warm family life of Vienna was gone forever, to be replaced by the chili of constant suspicion and scheming. There were no safe havens at Versailles, no places where she could go to be free from prying eyes and whispers. The King, Madame Du Barry, Mercy had spies in every dark corner, watching and listening; every keyhole seemed to invite surveillance.
Antoinette became particularly anxious about locks and keys during her early months at Versailles. She didn't feel safe in her own apartments, and worried that her enemies had skeleton keys that they used to enter and leave at will, and also to open her desk and read her letters. She confessed to Vermond that she imagined her own keys were taken from her pockets at night—and without them, especially the one Adelaide had given her so that she could come and go at will to Adelaide's own rooms, she would be a prisoner of her entourage. Indeed even with her keys she had no true freedom, bound as she was by etiquette, routine and the confines of the great labyrinthine palace, whose corridors, never truly bright with welcome, now began to seem forbiddingly dim.
N Antoinette's large, chilly rooms at Versailles, disorder :| reigned. The huge guardroom at the top of the wide mar-j ble staircase was cluttered with weaponry and the accoutrements of the guards, who whiled away their idleness gambling and telling stories while all around them tradesmen waited for a chance to show the dauphine their wares and messengers and visitors to court milled expectantly. In the antechamber, where her attendants waited for their turn to serve her and where the "Great Table" was laid for the midday dinner, there were holes in the tapestries where Antoinette's two curly-tailed pug dogs had scratched at them, and the parquet floor was muddy with paw prints. "Madame la dauphine loves dogs very much," Mercy told Maria Theresa, adding that she had requested that another dog be sent from Vienna, a tawny pug with a black nose. Mercy was willing to endorse the request, though he noted that the two dogs she already had were "extremely unclean."^
The state chamber too, with its huge bed, bore the marks of the dogs, but their depredations were greatest in the private rooms> where Antoinette let them romp freely on the damask-upholstered furniture and chew at the gilded chair legs. They relieved themselves wherever and whenever they liked, as Antoinette did not bother to prevent them and none of the servants was assigned the specific duty of looking after the royal pets. Adding to the chaos were two little children, one four years old and the other five. One was the son of the dauphin's chief valet, Thierry, and the other belonged to Antoinette's first bedchamber
woman. The children were always underfoot, running and chasing each other, playing with the dogs and creating a cheerful mayhem, especially when Antoinette was supposed to be receiving instruction from Vermond or having a singing lesson or embroidering the King's vest.
Madame de Noailles, "Madame Etiquette" as Antoinette called her, was dismayed at the chaos. She had been deeply offended when her mistress, in an attempt to cut through the time-consuming procedures required to make an appointment to her household, sent Madame Thierry to her to say that the dauphine wanted her in her service. Injured and furious, Madame de Noailles had gone to Antoinette in a huff and announced that she had no intention of taking orders from a chambermaid—especially one who had not yet been formally appointed to her position. It had taken all of Mercy's diplomacy to soothe the injured pride of Madame de Noailles—who was on the point of resigning—and restore some semblance of harmony.
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