We had glimpsed Habsburg grandeur elsewhere on our voyage, including at Prague Castle, a 750,000 square foot complex remodeled by Maria Theresa that she only visited three times in her forty year reign.
Nothing would compare to Vienna, where the magnificent Hofburg Palace in central Vienna wasn't sufficient for the royal family.
Schönbrunn Palace has 1440 rooms and acres of magnificent gardens, but it was considered a hunting lodge.
Maria Theresa remodeled it to its magnificent culmination, which is essentially what you may see today on a tour during your river cruise.
We opted out of AmaCerto's afternoon guided tour of Schönbrunn and took a self-guided audio tour during our two night stay in Vienna at the end of our cruise, but because you really should do this tour when on your Danube River cruise and most likely won't return to Vienna at the end as we did, I thought I should include some photos and thoughts along with the rest of our port day experience.
Photos are not allowed inside Schönbrunn, as is the case at many historic castles, museums and churches, but you can find assorted photos online, including at the website for the palace.The Rococo splendor of Maria Theresa's era dazzles our eyes even today, so imagine a time when most people barely earned a living.
At some point, even the most ardent royal follower must come to the conclusion that it's incredibly excessive.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
While most royals considered themselves to be placed on their thrones by God, giving them the right to inherit the kingdom from ancestors, I found it over-the-top for the glories of Maria Theresa's reign to be represented in paintings on a large ballroom ceiling at Schönbrunn, like representations of the Bible and God in the Sistine Chapel.
With that perspective, we gain greater respect for our 13 colonies that banded together to establish an entirely new form of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
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| Habsburg Family photo from Schonbrunn Habsburgs website |
They dressed more comfortably and enjoyed family activities together.
Maria Theresa loved her husband, even if he was something of a philanderer on the side.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
When Emperor Francis unexpectedly passed away in 1765 at age 56, Maria Theresa was heartbroken.
She cut her beautiful hair and began packing on weight, becoming quite obese rather than seeking another husband.
Nonetheless, M.T. carried on with the affairs of state, naming her son Joseph to be her co-ruler of Austria and its domain.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
When Emperor Joseph II died without heirs in 1790 at the age of 48, he was succeeded by his younger brother, who became Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II.
Leopold died two years later at age 44.
It seems no matter how much wealth and power you had in the eighteenth century, life could be short, and in fact it seemed to be getting shorter rapidly for Holy Roman Emperors.
Leopold II's son succeeded him, becoming Holy Roman Emperor Francis II.
You may recall that Francis II turned out to be the last Holy Roman Emperor when the Empire lost a decisive battle to Napoleon, the self-titledEmperor of France.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Francis II had proclaimed Austria to be an empire, and declared himself Emperor Francis I of Austria a couple of years before the Holy Roman Empire fell.
Despite that fact that M.T.'s grandson Francis had fought against Napoleon, he nonetheless understood the Habsburg method of conquest through marriage rather than battles, and his daughter married Napoleon in hopes of assuring peace between these empires.
Preceding that, Maria Theresa had also married off her daughters, all of whom had the first name Maria, to create similar alliances, including Maria Antonia, who was moved up in the lineup to marry the Dauphin of France when the betrothed prince of an older sister died.
Maria Antonia had not been a diligent student.
In fact, her teacher, who apparently wanted to be more of a friend than instructor --- or perhaps didn't want to jeopardize her position by admitting failure --- did most of Maria Antonia's writing assignments for her.
So, this pre-teen girl who could barely read and write found herself preparing to become the assumptive Queen of France.
Her teeth were straightened and her wardrobe was updated with the latest French fashions, emphasizing the natural beauty that graced her.
Lessons intensified until Maria Antonia could speak French fluently and also have at least an overview of worldly knowledge so that she could be presented to the public.
At 13 1/2 years old, she passed the scrutiny.
She was given a small picture of her fiancé, Daughin Louis-Auguste and began to fantasize about what he might be like.
Maria Theresa, who had for the most part focused on ruling her kingdoms rather than raising her children, for which she gave responsibilities to governesses and others, began to share her room with Maria Antonia. They even traveled the countryside together, becoming quite close for the first time.
Maria Antonia cherished this time together with her remarkable, imposing mother, but eventually the time came to leave.
After an official wedding with a stand-in groom in Vienna, Maria Antonia left her home forever, accompanied by 57 coaches carrying "ladies in waiting, officials, couriers, doctors, cooks and dressmakers" plus 20,000 horses "commissioned to ensure that journey stages went as smoothly as possible," according to the linked book that I've been reading on my new Kindle.
It would take 2 1/2 weeks for Maria Antonia and her huge retinue to reach the French border.On an island in the Rhine River, the official handover took place in a five room building that had two Austrian chambers and two French chambers flanking a neutral room.
Maria Theresa took off all of her clothing in the Austrian chambers and became re-clothed in the French chambers, signifying renouncement of all things of her past life.
Keep in mind, her mother had spent a fortune on this new wardrobe that was being discarded to prepare Maria Antonia for her wedding, so those ladies in waiting who accompanied her to the handover must have been thrilled with the castoffs.
Her French attendants quickly robed her in a new dress of the finest gold cloth.
Her natural complexion "literally blending lilies and roses" and her strawberry blonde hair were powdered heavily in the fashion of Paris.
They might have even painted her face white with pink circles on the cheeks as was the style in Versailles at the time.
Someone from her new entourage addressed Maria Antonia in German, and in perfect French, she said she was now French and would no longer converse in her former tongue.
Soon after marrying, she became thoroughly entranced by French fashion, spending lavishly on her wardrobe and jewelry, but she was goaded to do so by the equally frivolous courtiers who surrounded her from the moment she arrived in France.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
Like all of us, this teenager wanted to fit in, though admittedly she did become addicted to the Paris nightlife and gambling, which did harm to her image in the eyes of the vast majority of the French populace, who already had doubts because she was Austrian and so a natural enemy in their minds.
At age 19, Maria Antonia became Queen of France when the King Louis XV died.
Her husband was now King Louis XVI, monarch of a super power of its day.
In 1776, perhaps she and Louis should have read the tea leaves from across the ocean, where rebels made a stand against royal rule, but alas ---or should I say fortunately? --- they did not.
Instead, France was convinced by an ambassador named Benjamin Franklin to eventually send military advisers and subsequently French war ships and troops.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
Committing so much military might to help rebels against France's longtime enemy Britain came at a steep financial cost, just as had the War of the Austrian Succession.
Costs of wars tend to be hidden from citizens, while Maria Antonia's frivolous spending had been on full display.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
The fact that her husband also liked to lavish her with expensive gifts, and that various hucksters popped up with scams designed to take advantage of these assumptions about "that Austrian woman" to line their own pockets, made Queen Maria Antonia an easy scapegoat.
It should be noted that just as cities and countries are frequently given names different from what they call themselves, so are people.
The Empress generally called Maria Theresa in the USA is called Maria Theresia in Austria (I think that is a silent "i" in Theresia, based on how everyone pronounced it there), and her youngest daughter, Maria Antonia, became famous with the French accent as Marie Antoinette.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
You may find it ironic that the King and Queen of France who were beheaded for their extravagance in the face of poverty of the masses were actually happiest pursuing less grand activities.
King Louis XVI was a socially awkward science geek who most loved his books and was something of a slob, eschewing the glamorous royal life whenever possible.
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| Dramatization at Petit Trianon from Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" |
As absurd as it may seem, she considered herself living the life of a simple country girl at Petit Trianon.
The rumor mill conjured up images of her having wild orgies inside diamond-encrusted walls.
She did spend a good deal of money on the gardens at Petit Trianon but otherwise lived relatively simply, especially compared to palace life in Versailles or Vienna.
While Marie Antoinette may forever be remembered as the Queen who, when told that here people had no bread laughingly said, "Let them eat cake," there's actually no record of her having said that.
The genesis of the phrase was a joke in "Confessions," the autobiography of the philosopher Rosseau, published in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was still a child in Austria.
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| Photo from Schönbrunn Tour website |
The French Revolution did not put an end to the excesses of the aristocracy in general or the Habsburgs in particular.
Maria Theresa had sixteen children, eleven of whom lived to adulthood. The lives of her descendants make for many colorful anecdotes during Schönbrunn tours.
We would also learn about her favorite child, Maria Christina, in our next port, Bratislava.
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