To the scaffold by Carolly Erickson Read Free Book Online

the fourteen-year-old dauphin Lx>uis, she began to be called "the dauphine," and in the fall of 1768 her mother authorized her ambassador at Versailles, Prince Starhemberg, to spend the extravagant sum of four hundred thousand livres for her trousseau. All the clothes were to be made in Paris, commissioned from the dressmakers who regularly served the French court. It was customary for the dressmakers to send dolls— poupees de la mode — dressed in the current styles to clients in distant cities to enable them to make their selections. Scores of these dolls began arriving at the Hofburg as Antoinette turned thirteen, wearing miniature versions of the robes and gowns proposed for her.
    That her trousseau would be extensive was a foregone conclusion. An Austrian Archduchess, soon to be dauphine of France and one day Queen—such a personage would require a wardrobe to rival any in Europe. The dresses, trimmings and accessories would have to be of surpassing excellence in their materials and workmanship, and they would have to conform to the rigid traditions of the Bourbon court, where each season had its prescribed fabrics and certain days their prescribed colors.
    Styles were changing in the late 1760's. Voluminous petticoats were beginning to replace the stiff elliptical hoops that had been worn for a generation and more; the hoops were known as panierSy or "hen-baskets," because they resembled the poultry baskets peasant women carried to market. Hen-basket skirts, which spread out to a width of several feet on either side of the wearer's waist, took up the space of three or four people and made for enormous inconvenience in entering and leaving rooms, getting in and out of carriages, and walking up and down staircases. With the waning of the hen-basket skirt came an increase in the heel height of women's shoes and changes in the line of the torso, with more fullness in the bodice and at the hips. Such innovations were watched carefully by the style-conscious denizens of Versailles and other courts, but they were of interest to a wider public as

    well, for it was just at this time that fashion plates came into existence—and with them the beginnings of those broad shifts in public taste that we call fashion.
    To be sure, formal court dress—as opposed to the informal clothes worn for ordinary occasions and in the privacy of the wearer's apartments—remained traditional. Court gowns had wide hoop skirts beneath heavily embroidered petticoats, with long trains fastened on at the waist and trailing along behind. Special stiff bodices, lined with whalebone, were worn above the petticoats, laced so tightly that they were ready to burst; the neck and chest were bare, the arms covered with rows of lace that fell to the elbow.^
    The prevailing colors of the time—cream, pale green, China blue, silver, lavender-pink and pastel yellow—were flattering to Antoinette, and her trousseau must have included dozens of ball gowns, afternoon dresses, robes and petticoats in a score of delicate shades, the silks and brocades embroidered with floral designs or silk ribbon appliqu^, the borders trimmed with serpentine garlands or silver and gold lace. French dressmakers outdid themselves in inventing ornaments, festooning their already overdeco-rated fabrics with fields of artificial flowers, feathers, tassels and silk ribbon bows, rosettes and ruffles, passementerie and beading and costly metallic fringe. The overall effect was one of deli-ciously playful sensuality, luxuriance and youthfulness—a perfect foil for the charms of a thirteen-year-old Queen-to-be.
    Charming the ftiture Queen certainly was, but charm alone would not be sufficient in one who was called to be mistress of Versailles. Her doll-like prettiness aside, Antoinette had flaws, and with her exalted marriage in prospect these flaws were magnified a hundredfold. Her longtime governess. Countess Brandeiss, had been accustomed to tie her abundant blond hair back with a