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demimonde. She is not respectable, but in her own arena she is without peer. Pay close attention and you will learn a great deal from her.”
    June 16, 1770
    What an afternoon I have spent! I am quite enraptured by Madame Solange, who is one of the most beautiful and delightful women I have ever met. I know my mother would not approve of my friendship with her, my mother disapproves of courtesans and orders her Chastity Commission to fine them and send them away from Vienna. But I like Madame Solange very much and hope to see her again.
    She invited me to her apartments which were small but tastefully decorated in white with gilded moldings. A flowery, spicy scent filled the rooms which were lit by dozens of glowing candles, the curtains being drawn against the afternoon glare.
    I felt myself relax, basking in the delicious scent and soft light and in the warm, caressing voice in which the smiling Solange spoke to me.
    “Madame la dauphine, you do me honor. Please join me.” She led me into her boudoir, where an ornate bed of carved mahogany with a red velvet canopy stood against walls hung with glimmering pale silk. Madame Solange opened a wardrobe of polished wood and brought out a nightgown gossamer sheer and trimmed with fine lace and pink ribbons.
    “This would be lovely on you, I think,” she said, handing me the delicate garment, which when I took it, weighed almost nothing. It was much more immodest than anything in my trousseau, and at the thought of wearing it I blushed.
    “Pink cheeks become you, your highness. With your blond hair and blue eyes and smooth white skin, and your trim figure, you are like a little love-doll, every man’s dream of pleasure.”
    “But not my husband’s,” I said.
    “That will change, I hope. We must make you irresistible.”
    She talked to me then, at some length, about matters of love and lovemaking, describing to me ways of stroking and caressing a man, of playfully teasing him, making him want me. As she spoke I could not help thinking of Eric, and the desire I had seen in his eyes and the feel of his lips on mine. Try as I would, I could not force myself to think of Louis, with his ungainly, overstuffed body and sad, plain features.
    But I listened, and asked questions, and by the time the afternoon was over I felt much older and wiser in the ways of the world. Merely being in the presence of so experienced a woman as Madame Solange was a lesson in worldliness, for she spoke with such frankness about the body and its natural needs, as if sex were as normal as eating or sleeping.
    I thought of Father Kunibert and his talk of wicked carnality, and remembered too my mother’s cautions about theFrench, how they are candid and liberal-minded and how this can seem welcome yet be very dangerous.
    I am determined to use what I have learned, to make my husband desire me. If only I could talk to Carlotta, how much I would have to tell her! I don’t dare put my thoughts down in a letter to her, as all our correspondence is read by spies.
    I have begun locking this journal because Count Mercy warned me not to trust my French chamberwomen, who are paid by Choiseul to find out everything they can about my private life. Of course, I imagine that most of them cannot read, and so could not decipher what I write here.
    June 18, 1770
    Last night Madame Solange helped me prepare myself and my bedchamber for my husband’s nightly visit. I put on the revealing nightgown, loosened my hair so that it fell in long curls down my back instead of letting Sophie braid it as she usually does, and together we scented the room with a potpourri of cloves and vanilla.
    We lit small candles and madame made me a gift of some slippery satin sheets for the bed. Madame Solange tinted my lips and cheeks with rouge, which made me look very grown up.
    Then she left and I waited for Louis to arrive.
    He did not come until after ten o’clock, and I was very drowsy. He was dirty and sweaty, as he had been working