Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey Page A

embrace. Oh, if only it were so! “It will be very grim here, after you’ve gone. And you must write to me every day.” I managed a faint laugh. “You must promise to tell me what it is like to be a married woman.”
    We sat on the bed facing each other with our bare legs tucked beneath us. Charlotte reached over and touched an errant curl that had escaped my nightcap. She twined it about her finger, drawing closer. “I will also confess that I don’t envy that lion’s cage in your mouth!” she said, endeavoring to inject some levity into the bleakest moment of our lives.
    I hunted about for a handkerchief and wiped a wayward tear from the tip of my nose. “And there is so much more to come,” I said. “One day you might not recognize me! Now Maman intends to engage two French actors performing at the Burgtheater to teach me proper diction and elocution.”
    I mimicked what I imagined I might sound like after the players finished with me, enunciating every syllable and elongating each vowel with comical precision. “
Bon-joooour, Vo-tre Maaa-jes-téeeeee; je suuuuuuiiiis l’ar-chiiii-duuuuu-chesse Maria Antonia d’Au-triiiiiche.
”
    I saw that my silliness cheered Charlotte, so I continued to regale her with our mother’s elaborate system for turning an ill-educated caterpillar named Maria Antonia of Austria into adazzling butterfly.
Un papillon
. “Monsieur Noverre, the great ballet master, has been invited to forsake the duke of Württemburg’s court at Stuttgart and come to Vienna to improve my dancing. Not only that, the sister of the duc de Choiseul is dispatching her own
friseur
to alter my hairline somehow. At least you,” I said to Charlotte, squeezing her hand, “have been judged perfection.”
    “Perfection for an ugly and indolent idiot who entertains ambassadors in the commode,” Charlotte replied bitterly. “A
hideous and stupid
indolent idiot.” A ponderous sigh escaped her lips. “Oh,
meine kleine Schwester
—my dear little sister—if I cannot find happiness in marriage, I hope at the least to learn that your union with the dauphin of France will be filled with radiant joy and many, many babies.”
    I nodded vehemently. “I love babies.”
    She glanced at my favorite doll. “Then may your rooms be filled with the joyous babble of real ones.” Charlotte cradled Poupée in her arms. “Her face is dirty,” she observed, then licked her finger before using it to remove a black smudge from the poppet’s wooden cheek, a gesture Madame von Brandeiss had employed on my own face with a handkerchief a hundred times a year. Charlotte straightened the doll’s yellow dress and fluffed her white fichu and cap.
    I gazed lovingly at Poupée as if she were the child I would someday hold and coddle, whose every gurgle would send me into raptures. “I want sixteen of them. Just like Maman had.”
    My sister blushed. “Me too. Sixteen. So I have many others to love instead of my husband. And every one of them will be fat, healthy, and boisterous. With big pink cheeks and chubby limbs.”
    From that minute, and for the next few weeks until Charlotte’s proxy wedding on the seventh of April, the pair of us treasured every moment we were able to share. Monsieur Ducreux had yet to complete my sister’s portrait, which would be sent toNaples in advance of her scheduled arrival there on the twelfth of May. Meanwhile, I had to endure the constant discomfort of the bandeaux and the wires that encircled my teeth like a golden fence; there was no thought of the painter commencing his portrait of me until the braces were removed. Once a week, Monsieur Laveran would inspect my progress, often tightening the tiny screws that held the wires until I was sure I felt my teeth shift, despite his repeated assurances that the process was not nearly as immediate as I imagined it.
    While the plans for Charlotte’s wedding proceeded with undue speed I was being put through my paces like one of the white stallions at