The Queen`s Confession Read Online Free PDF Page B

King would detect it and naturally be displeased.”
    She said nothing about the Dauphin who was to be my husband, so I did not think of him either. It was all the King, the Due de Choiseui, the Marquis de Durfort, Prince Starhem burg and the Comte de MercyArgenteau all those important men who had taken their minds from state affairs to think about Me. But then I had become a matter of state the most important they had ever had to deal with. It was so incongruous that I wanted to laugh at it.
    At the beginning of every month,” said my mother, ” I shall send a messenger to Paris. In the meantime you can prepare your letters so that they can be given to the messengers and brought to me at once.
    Destroy my letters. This will enable me to write to you more frankly.
    ”
     
    I nodded earnestly. It seemed so very exciting like one of the games
    Ferdinand and Max used to like to play. I saw 29 myself receiving my mother’s letters, reading them and hiding them in some secret place until I could bum them.
    “Antoinette, you are not attending I’ My mother sighed. It was a reproach I constantly heard.
    “Say nothing about domestic affairs here.”
    I nodded again. No! I must not tell them how Caroline had cried, how she had declared the King of Naples to be ugly; what Maria Amalia had said about the boy she had, been sent out to marry; how Joseph had hated his secondJ wife and how his first had loved Maria Christina. I mustf forget all that. ‘a “Speak of your family with truth and moderation.” H Should I speak of these matters if I were asked? I was’U pondering this but my mother went on: “Always say yourlj prayers on rising and say them on your knees. Read from a spiritual book every day. Hear Mass every day and with-l draw for meditation when you are able.”
    “Yes, Mamma.” I was determined to try to do all she said.
    “Do not read any book or pamphlet without the consent of your confessor. Don’t listen to gossip, and don’t favour anyone.”
    One had one’s friends, of course. I could not help liking some people better than others and when I liked them I wanted to give them things.
    It went on endlessly. You must do this. You must not do that. And I shivered as I listened, for although the weather f was improving as we came nearer to April it was still cold in the bedroom.
    “You must learn how to refuse favours—that is very important. Always answer gracefully if you have to refuse something. But most of all never be ashamed to ask for advice.”
    “No, Mamma.”
    Then I would escape perhaps to the Abbe Vermond for my lesson, which was not so bad, or to the hairdresser, who pulled my hair, or to my dancing lesson, which was sheer joy. There was an understanding
    between Monsieur J Noverre and me that we would forget the time; we wouldj 30 be surprised when a servant came to tell us that Monsieur 1”Abbe was waiting for me, or the hairdresser, or that I must be ready for my interview with Prince von Kaunitz in ten minutes’ time.
    “We were absorbed in the lesson,” he would say, as though by referring to that delightful exercise as a lesson he excused us.
    You are fond of dancing, my child,” my mother said in the cold bedroom.
    “Yes, Mamma.”
    And Monsieur Noverre tells me you make excellent progress. Ah, if only you were as well advanced in all your studies. ” I would show her a new step and she would smile and say I did it prettily.
    “Dancing is after all a necessary accomplishment. But do not forget that we are not here for our own pleasure. Pleasures are given by God as a relief.”
    A relief? A relief from what? Here was another suggestion that life was a tragedy. I started thinking about poor Caroline but my mother brought me out of my reverie with:
    “Do nothing contrary to the customs of France, and never quote what is done here.”
    “No, Mamma.”
    “And never imply that we do something better in Vienna than they do in France. Never suggest that anything we do here should be