Antoinette's Sister

There were few things as enjoyable as being able to see the unveiling of a suitor’s portrait. The event, attended by four of my six sisters, was an opportunity for us to assess what our mother’s intentions were. Our mother, Empress Maria Theresa, was not only the ruler of the Austria-Hungary Empire, but was also the absolute ruler of the Habsburg royal family—all eleven of us. No Habsburg child, male or female, was immune to her strict cultivation. We were all expected to be rulers in whichever court the empress mother deemed appropriate and, as such, were savagely pruned by her sharp tongue.

On this day, my younger sister Antoinette and I skipped down the hallways quickly, passing the ornate tapestries depicting the proud double eagles of the Habsburg crest. Large paintings, commissioned by the greatest artists in all the kingdom, celebrated the greatness of the Habsburg dynasty.

“Did you hear about Josepha’s new fiancé?” Antoinette said with an evil grin, her blue eyes sparkling with the news she was burning to tell me. The older we got, the more differences I began to see in our looks. At one point, we were considered to be indistinguishable, even though I was three years older. While her hair had maintained its ash-blond coloring, mine had darkened to the color of chestnuts. In every other way, our features were the same, from our blue eyes to our rosebud lips. Day and night, people would tell us; that’s what we were. One the counterpart of the other.

“They say that young Prince Ferdinand is just as mad as his older brothers,” Antoinette interjected, breaking up my thoughts.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Why, the maids of course. They know all the palace scandal.” Her eyes widened with joy. “Now that King Carlos rules Spain, he has to reposition what titles his sons are going to inherit. They say his older brother died of severe melancholy. That’s how he got the Spanish throne.”

“What makes you think Ferdinand and his brothers are mad?” It was always a great annoyance when my sister heard the best secrets before I did.

“Well, everyone knows the eldest son, Philip, is an imbecile; they can’t even include him in court life. They only trot him out on important occasions, and then he is shuffled back to his rooms. The poor prince had to be excluded from the line. They couldn’t even consider him as a ruler. Carlos’s second son, Carlos the Fourth, is of course destined for the Spanish throne. But Naples, that belongs to Ferdinand.” She shrugged. “It’s the lesser kingdom anyway, so it’s probably for the best. I can’t picture Josepha ruling anything more prestigious.”

Of all six of my living sisters, Josepha was the one Antoinette and I liked the least. Well, not quite the least: Elisabeth, because of her great beauty, was Mother’s favorite and therefore could do no wrong. It was no secret that Mother intended on her getting the best marriage out of all of us. While I, on the other hand, was always being criticized for my behavior.

The title that Mother sought for Josepha was Queen of Naples, not one of the more prestigious titles. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies took up the southern half of the Italian peninsula. Keeping to itself, the kingdom was seen more as a puppet of Spain than an independent country.

Once, the Holy Roman Empire had held almost all the territories of the Italian peninsula, but, as Mother liked to lament, our grandfather had squandered them away. The Two Sicilies had been ours, and Mother wanted them back in the Habsburg fold, regardless of the cost. This marriage alliance was so important that Mother had attempted to marry our sister Johanna to the young king, but she died before the negotiations got very far. Now, it was Josepha’s turn to fulfill Mother’s will.

“How terrible this is for her,” I lamented. “She has to marry our sister’s intended husband.”

“Only you would think that.” Antoinette laughed. “You refuse to even share a name with a sister who died well before you were born.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to be confined to anyone else’s fate.”

We turned the corner and skidded to a stop on the royal red carpet, just in time to avoid running into the large gold-and-white porcelain vase perched on the pedestal. The butler that stood nearby raised an eyebrow as I grabbed the wobbling antique vase, steadying it on its roost. “Sorry,” I mumbled as we scurried toward the small royal parlor. The hallway, white with gold trim, was lined with paintings of former rulers. Pompous men who didn’t come close to the empress mother’s fortitude. They each stared down at us in judgment. All except one, Francis I, the Holy Roman emperor. Our father.

It’d been only a few months since his death, but his absence could be felt throughout the whole palace. He was the one who had tempered Mother and brought a smile to her face. When he was young, they had called him the “sweet little cavalier.” But for all his charm, Mother had almost not been allowed to marry him. Grandpapa wasn’t convinced that the indebted Duke of Lorraine was the best match. Grandpapa had regularly threatened to cancel the whole thing, but Mother had refused to marry anyone unless it was her dear prince. Later our father proved his loyalty to the crown when Prussia betrayed us.

When Grandpapa realized he could find himself with a daughter as an heir to the kingdom, he created the Pragmatic Sanction, a document naming our mother, Maria Theresa, as the next in line for the throne. But the document wasn’t official until he had the support of another country. He managed to get the backing he needed from Prussia, but once he died, Prussia invaded, thinking Mother was weak. It was our father who stood by her side, who helped her defend the kingdom. Together, my parents had sought the glory of the Holy Roman Empire, but now that Father was gone, it was up to Mother to keep the legacy alive.

“Charlotte, come along.” Antoinette tugged at my arm. “We’re going to be late.”

“Well, there you are!” Elisabeth said from her perch opposite the door. Like the spoiled child she was, she held out a goblet for the servant girl to refill, never once bothering to acknowledge the lesser creature. “We were beginning to think that you wouldn’t make it.”

“I was trying to replicate your toilette,” I said, “but I found that I just didn’t have the number of creams and powders required. How many is it that you use now? Twenty?”

Elisabeth sneered at me in response before taking a long sip and shifting her gaze, with her ice-blue eyes, to Antoinette. Instinctively, I took Antoinette’s hand and pulled her into the golden-trimmed armchair with me. She sat partially on my lap as we shared the chair.

The room covered in gold brocade was one of the more familial rooms in the palace. Though too quaint to hold all eleven of the empress mother’s children, it was large enough to hold four of her seven daughters. We were spread out on overstuffed blue sofas and matching chairs. Mother had ordered the drapes, in blue as well, to be opened, so that we could better see the portrait of Ferdinand that sat covered in front of the marble fireplace. Near the front of the room, directly in front of the painting, sat Mother with my sister Josepha at her side.

Josepha was only a year older than me, but the difference between us could have been a vast cavern. Josepha tried to model herself after Elisabeth in both attitude and looks. She had little patience, especially for the likes of me, but spent as much time as she could doting on our eldest brother, Joseph, Mother’s coruler and heir apparent. Next to Josepha was her governess, the serious Countess Lerchenfeld.

Lerchenfeld was Mother’s intermediary in the care and upbringing of all the empress mother’s daughters. It was Lerchenfeld’s duty to see that we had the best tutors, from music and dance to philosophy, so that the archduchesses would be the envy of the Holy Roman Empire. She also managed the other governesses, like Antoinette’s and my own vile warden, Countess von Brandeis.

“Ladies, I believe that now that we are all here, we can begin the viewing,” Mother proclaimed with a little wave directing a servant to remove the burgundy cloth draped over the painting. For a moment, we all stared in silence. Shock, really. And then—I couldn’t help myself—a burst of laughter erupted from my gut and traveled to Antoinette. Mother snapped her head to us, her hawk eyes fixed on our uncouth behavior. I pressed my face into Antoinette’s shoulder, doing all that I could to hide my laughter.

“Well, he’s…” The words died on Elisabeth’s lips. There was no way to rectify the situation. The young king’s beady black eyes stared back at us. They were a little too close together, but they weren’t even the worst feature on his face. His nose, that poor bulbous appendage, jutted out from his face like a beak. Only, unlike a bird’s beak, it had a rounded bump at its tip that resided just above a pair of exceptionally large lips.

“He is by far the ugliest man I have ever seen!” I exclaimed as my sisters turned to me.

“Charlotte, that is enough. We do not need your commentary,” Mother said, not bothering to look at me. “This will be a most fortuitous marriage.”

“For him, maybe,” Antoinette whispered in my ear. I snorted as everyone’s eyes turned back to me.

“According to his tutors, he is of amazing health,” Countess Lerchenfeld stated. “He is strong and well loved by his people.”

“At least he has that,” Antoinette murmured.

“Ladies, I believe we have seen enough. You may leave. I would like to speak with Countess Lerchenfeld alone.” My sisters all got up and filed out of the room, but I slipped behind the ornate door. Pressing my ear to the gap between the hinges and the wall, I listened intently to the two women discuss my sister and her future husband.

“Tell me, Countess, how are Josepha’s studies progressing?” My mother’s commanding voice drifted from the room.

“Quite well. I feel that she is going to make a fine ruler.”

“Good. Very good. This gives me comfort. The situation in Naples is far worse than I was led to believe.” I could hear my mother set down her goblet. “King Carlos is worried about the mental stability of his sons; it is understandable after the problems he has had with his eldest. But it would appear that he is afraid all three of his sons have the illness.”

“Are they indeed ill? More importantly, what of Ferdinand?”

“I don’t know.” My mother’s sigh fell heavy about the room. “According to my ambassador, the regents who have been controlling him have sought to control the country. Their method for doing this has been to keep the young man out of all affairs of state. I am told that the young king spends his days hunting, playing games, and carousing with the common people. He has no sense of duty. No patience for matters of state. And I don’t believe he even knows how to read. He may not be ill, but he is certainly a fool. And fools make incompetent rulers.”

“What do we do, Your Highness? Is it too late to back out of the agreement?”

“It has always been too late to go back on the agreement. Catherine the Great is waiting for any opportunity to pick at our borders. We can’t afford a war with Russia. Spain is the greatest military power on the continent, followed by France. If I can marry my daughters into those Bourbon families, then we stand a chance to secure the stability of the Holy Roman Empire.” There was a long silence. “I just wish this didn’t feel like I had to sacrifice Josepha.”

“What would you have me do?” Lerchenfeld asked.

“Prepare my daughter to rule the country like a proper Habsburg queen. I don’t want to do this, but I am a queen before I am a mother.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

I scurried down the hall, burning to tell Antoinette what I heard.