Marie Antoinette - Early Life

Early Life

Maria Antonia of Austria was born on 2 November 1755 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria; on the next day, she was baptised Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna (also known as Maria Antonia Josephina Johanna). She was the youngest daughter of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and ruler of the Habsburg dominions. Her godparents were the King and Queen of Portugal. In her family, she was simply called Antonia. Described at her birth as "a small, but completely healthy Archduchess", she was also known at the Austrian court as Antonia, but more often as Madame Antoine, since French was commonly spoken in the Hofburg. After all, Viennese society itself was multilingual, with many able to speak German, French, Italian and/or Spanish.

The relaxed ambience of court life in the Hofburg, where it was possible to often deviate from protocol, was compounded by the private life which was developed by the Habsburgs even before Maria Antonia was born. In their private life, the family dressed in bourgeois attire, played games with non-royal children (they were, in fact, encouraged to play with such 'common' children by their parents), and were treated to gardens and menageries. She later attempted to recreate this atmosphere through her renovation of the Petit Trianon in France.

Maria Antonia had a simple and carefree childhood, especially in comparison to that of Louis XVI. She was never lonely, since she never had the chance to be alone. This was particularly evident in her relationship with her older sister, Maria Carolina: they were the two youngest girls, and shared the same governesses, first Countess Brandeis, then Countess Lerchenfeld, until 1767; Carolina once described her sister as someone she "loved extraordinarily".

The Imperial family was one that thoroughly enjoyed music. Antonia herself learned to play the harpsichord, spinet and clavichord, as well as the harp, taught by Gluck. During the family's musical evenings, she would sing French songs and Italian arias. She also excelled at dancing – an accomplishment often remarked by those who saw her, whether friendly or hostile, having been carefully trained in it since her early youth. She had an "exquisite" poise and a famously graceful deportment; Horace Walpole once quoted Virgil as to her gait, saying, "vera incessu patuit dea" (she was in truth revealed to be a goddess her step). She also loved dolls as a young girl, as captured by a family portrait in which seven-year-old Antonia excitedly held up a fancy doll. Numerous dolls arrived at the Hofburg as soon as Marie Antoinette turned 13, wearing miniature versions of the ball dresses, afternoon dresses, and gold-trimmed gowns proposed for her.

Antonia's education was poor, or at least it lacked the rigorous training of Louis XVI's; her handwriting, for instance, was sprawling and careless in form. It was not so much the teachers themselves, though, that made her education sub-par, but rather her lack of willingness to contribute intellectually to her lessons. Often, her tutors would finish the work themselves, out of fear of losing their positions. Under the guidance of Gluck, she excelled to some extent in her musical endeavors. She drew often; at ten, for example, she had drawn a good chalk likeness of her father. She learned Italian, from Metastasio, on top of the necessary French and German, as well as Austrian history and French history, though from an Austrian perspective. But while she flourished in her learning of Italian, her other languages proved to be a weak point. Conversations with her were stilted, and her ability to read and write German and French (the 'universal' language of Europe at this point in time) was undeniably poor.

By many accounts, her childhood was somewhat complex. On the one hand, her parents had instituted several innovations in court life which made Austria one of the most progressive courts in Europe. While certain court functions remained formal by necessity, the Emperor and Empress nevertheless presided over many basic changes in court life. This included allowing relaxations in the type of people who could come to court (a change which allowed people of merit, as well as birth, to rise rapidly in the hierarchy of imperial favor at court), relatively lax dress etiquette, and the abolition of certain antiquated court rituals, including one in which dozens of courtiers could be present in the Empress' bedchamber while she gave birth. The Empress disliked the ritual, and would eject courtiers from her rooms when she went into labor.

While she had an idyllic "private" life, her initial role in the political arena – and in her mother's main aim of alliance through marriage – was relatively small. Because there were so many other children who could be married off, Maria Antonia was sometimes neglected by her mother. As a result, she later described her relationship with her mother as one of awe-inspired fear. She also developed a mistrust of intelligent older women as a result of her mother's close relationship with the Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, Marie Antoinette's older sister.