55 pages • 1-hour read
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
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Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Dauphine”
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “France’s Happiness”
It took two and a half weeks for Marie Antoinette to travel from Vienna to Versailles, a town outside Paris. She was celebrated with balls, operas, and cheering crowds at stops along the way. The Comte de Noailles was sent to prepare Marie Antoinette for the demands of French court etiquette. At the border between French and Austria, everything Austrian was left behind: Marie Antoinette’s Austrian attendants were sent away and she took off her clothes; both were replaced with French versions. Afterward, she traveled to Strasbourg, where a celebration was held.
On May 14, 1770, Marie Antoinette arrived in the town of Compiègne, where she was greeted by King Louis XV, Dauphin Louis Auguste, and three of the king’s daughters. The king found her pretty, but flat-chested. That night, Marie met the Princesse de Lamballe, a future friend, as well as the king’s official mistress, the controversial Comtesse Du Barry.
On May 16, Marie Antoinette arrived at the court of Versailles for her wedding day. The dauphin was described as “cold” and “sulky” during the ceremony. That night, select members of the court, including the king, went to Marie and Louis’s bedroom to watch the ceremonial start of the marriage consummation (i.e. sexual intercourse). However, Marie Antoinette and Louis Auguste did not have sex that night—or for many nights to come.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “In Front of the Whole World”
Royal life at Versailles was entirely public. Thousands of people lived at the court, and many had official positions guaranteed by birthright. Commoners, meanwhile, could come to Versailles to observe royals at ceremonies like the daily public dinner. For instance, market women had a “general right of access” to address the queen (74). Minor nobles jealously guarded even the most seemingly minor duties, such as the right to hand the dauphine her under garments during the long morning readiness ritual. Marie Antoinette largely went along, but older ladies at the court found her subtly making fun of this highly orchestrated life. The Count Mercy d’Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador, was given the task of guiding Marie Antoinette through the requirements of court life; he was particularly devoted to Maria Theresa, Marie’s mother.
Breaches of this system of etiquette, even unintentional ones, could cause a scandal. Marie Antoinette often caused minor uproars, for example when she personally intervened to ensure a peasant injured during a hunt was cared for.
Months later, Empress Maria Theresa grew frustrated when she learned that Marie Antoinette and Louis Auguste had not yet consummated their marriage, admonishing her daughter to do more to seduce Louis Auguste. Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette courted more controversy by snubbing the king’s official (and favorite) mistress because the Comtesse Du Barry was not of noble birth.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “Strange Behavior”
At 15, Marie Antoinette grew close with the good-hearted, if not overly intelligent, Princesse de Lamballe, who was 21. Maria Theresa continued to send cruel messages about consummating the marriage; her letters scolded that Marie Antoinette was not beautiful, intelligent, brilliant, or talented—only her good nature could secure her position at court. If the marriage was not consummated it could be annulled.
On Marie’s 16th birthday, Maria Theresa sent a letter encouraging her to placate King Louis XV by showing favor to Du Barry. Marie Antoinette complied. In 1772, following a territorial dispute over Poland, Maria Theresa asked her daughter to talk to the King about the importance of the Franco-Austrian alliance, but Marie Antoinette felt trepidatious about this. She did not have a gift for or interest in geopolitical intrigue.
In 1773, the marriage still had not been consummated. King Louis XV ordered a doctor to examine the dauphin. It was discovered Louis Auguste had phimosis, or a “tightness of the foreskin, due to insufficient elasticity” (102), that could inhibit an erection or ejaculation.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Love of a People”
On June 14, 1773, Marie Antoinette and the dauphin visited Paris for the first time. They were observed by enthusiastic crowds while walking the grounds of the Tuileries Palace, then located at the Louvre in the center of the city. That summer, Marie and the dauphin finally had sex for the first time. However, it was reported to Maria Theresa that the dauphin did not ejaculate inside Marie, so no pregnancy was forthcoming.
Marie Antoinette maintained a correspondence with her old friends in Austria, including her governess Countess Brandeis. However, she was also adjusting to life in France. Her French language abilities improved. By the time she was 18, she was regularly attending the opera and theater. In 1774, she met the handsome Swedish nobleman Count Axel Fersen at a masked opera ball. (Later, he would become her lover.) Marie Antoinette also became the patron of her music teacher, opera composer Christoph Gluck, who joined her in Versailles. His striking, dramatic operas caused a stir at court.
On May 10, 1774, when King Louis XV died of smallpox, the court was evacuated for fear of an epidemic; Marie Antoinette was immune to the disease due to childhood exposure. Nineteen-year-old Marie Antoinette and 20-year-old Louis Auguste were suddenly king and queen of France. They felt they were “too young to reign” (116).
Part 2 Analysis
Fraser expects her readers to have some degree of familiarity with the mainstream conception of Marie Antoinette and the myths about her life. For instance, in tacit response to the persistent myth that Marie Antoinette and Swedish Captain Axel Fersen fell in love at first sight in 1774, Fraser takes pains to note the facts of their first meeting. To counter the myth, Fraser points out that Fersen did “not at this date mention the charms of the Dauphine” (111), even as he wrote about other women he encountered. This illustrates how Fraser uses primary documents to dismantle popular misconceptions, distortions, and hyperboles about Marie Antoinette.
Fraser also expects the audience to be familiar with Parisian geography and the various property holdings of the French royals. For instance, when she references the Tuileries Palace, she assumes that readers know that it was part of the royal palace of the Louvre. Today, the Louvre is a museum, and the Tuileries Palace portion of the complex no longer exists, as it partially burned down during the Paris Commune of 1871 and was later entirely demolished.
In Part 2, Fraser focuses on The Power of Women at Court. Part 1 explored how Marie Antoinette was given seemingly contradictory messages by her formidable mother, Maria Theresa, about the role women play in royal life. Some of the potential for power came from sexuality. Explicitly, Marie Antoinette’s primary duty was to provide France with an heir to the throne; she could thus draw power from being mother to future monarchs. The frank communications to Maria Theresa about Marie Antoinette’s menstrual cycles, physical development, and sexual practices were all in relation to this function. Conversely, Marie Antoinette’s early failure to procreate sowed the seeds for future public resentment and distrust. In contrast to the official sexuality represented by Marie Antoinette, the biography describes the power wielded by King Louis XV’s official mistress, the low-born Comtesse du Barry. A brilliant and alluring woman, she used her sexual appeal to ascend, commanding enough social power that those who wished to depose her, such as the Duc du Choiseul, were exiled from the court.
Marie Antoinette also had potential access to another source of influence, as a representative of Austria’s political interests. Although women were formally excluded from diplomatic roles, with intelligence and political savvy, they could wield immense power, like Empress Maria Theresa or Louis XV’s previous official mistress, Madame de Pompadour. However, Marie Antoinette had few resources to draw on for excelling as an unofficial ambassador: She had little education and no interest in affairs of state. As Fraser points out, for Marie Antoinette, being asked to speak to the king about political events was personally terrifying: “The interesting aspect of the Polish affair from the point of view of Marie Antoinette is the real fear with which she greeted her diplomatic instructions from her mother” (100). Here, Fraser foreshadows how Marie Antoinette’s political ineptitude would eventually lead to her death.
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