Marie Antoinette Read Online Free PDF

their parents. *05
    Francis Stephen loved plants and gardens; the Dutch Botanical Garden at Schönbrunn was created in 1753 and an orangery was built two years later, housing a rich collection of tropical plants. The gardens themselves were planned and replanned with zest, an enthusiasm that Madame Antoine herself would take for granted as one of the natural interests of a civilized royal person. A menagerie, situated so that Francis Stephen could enjoy contemplating it over his breakfast, had been established in 1751; it included a camel sent by a sultan, a rhinoceros that had arrived by boat down the Danube, a puma, the red squirrels favoured by Marie Christine and the parrots that were the favourites of Elizabeth. There was a theatre for those constant musical and dramatic celebrations.
    Another theatre was built at Laxenburg in 1753. Like everything to do with Laxenburg, it was on a much smaller scale. That was in fact the point of the Empress’s predilection for this charming rococo palace. *06 It lay about ten miles south of Vienna in the direction of Hungary, at the edge of a small pretty town, and was bordered by thick woods good for hunting. Here there was simply no room for the vast crowds of courtiers thought essential to the imperial dignity at Schönbrunn and the Hofburg; even great officials had to make do with houses in the town. Understandably, the imperial family greatly preferred performances in the Laxenburg theatre, because the scale made it much easier for them to hear.
    This was a period when many royalties were embellishing their country retreats by requiring special uniforms (the modern equivalent of this dress code would be that oxymoron casual chic). For example, the colours demanded by the Pompadour at Bellevue were purple, gold and white. Laxenburg’s dress code was a red cloth frockcoat ( le frac ), which was considered informal at this period, with a green waistcoat, and red dresses for the ladies. Both had to be ornamented with gold, which made their casual chic expensive for the courtiers to produce. Nevertheless the message was clear: Laxenburg is different; even the clothes are different.
    The Empress herself, with all her cares of state, was known to be generally cheerful while at Laxenburg; her father Charles VI had also loved it for the beauty of its surroundings. These were in effect family holidays. It was no wonder that of all the scenes of Antoine’s childhood, Laxenburg was the one that exercised the greatest nostalgic pull. Not only was there that cheerful mother but the Archdukes and Archduchesses could also enjoy a measure of personal freedom.
    Early in the next century, the Empress Marie Louise, Marie Antoinette’s great-niece, would be struck by the similarity between Laxenburg and the Petit Trianon at Versailles; no doubt the resemblance was one effect of Marie Antoinette’s affection for this first exquisite palace of retreat. In fact Laxenburg was an adapted hunting lodge, rebuilt by Leopold I, like so much else, after the end of the Turkish depredations. It was during Antoine’s own childhood that the court architect Nicholas Pacassi designed the so-called Blue Court (a corruption of the original owner’s name) as a further enlargement; the need, as at Schönbrunn, was to accommodate the royal family.
    A belvedere now crowned the roof of the north wing and there was a sequence of playrooms, like elevated garden rooms, with wide views across the park. *07 They were painted with a series of trompe l’oeils , birds on the ceiling, and romantic pastoral scenes on the walls, glimpsed through pale green latticework up which climbed painted sweet peas. The feeling of freshness, of greenery and light, was intended to be vivid for the children, even when the weather was bad. In eighteenth-century royal terms—the only ones Marie Antoinette was in a position to understand—Laxenburg presented an image of rustic bliss, a paradise that could perhaps one day be recreated.
     
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