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with him to Austria two carriages which the King of France had had made for the sole purpose of taking me to France. We had heard of these carriages in advance. They had been made by Francien, the leading camagemaker in Paris, and the King of France had ordered that no expense should be spared in the making.
    Prancien had lived up to his reputation arid they were quite magnificent, lined with satin and decorated with paintings in delicate colours, with gold crowns on the outside to proclaim them royal carriages. I was to discover that they were not only the most beautiful I had ever travelled in but the most comfortable.
    The Marquis came with a hundred and seventeen bodyguards, all in coloured uniforms; and it was boasted that the cost of this merry little cavalcade was about three hundred and fifty thousand ducats.
    On the twenty-first of April my journey to France began. During the last few years I have often thought of my mother when she said goodbye to me. She knew it was the last time she would hold me in her arms, the last time she would kiss me. No doubt words came into her mind.
     
    Remember this. Don’t do that. Surely she had said it all to me 35 in her icy bedroom; but knowing me, she would realise that I had forgotten half of it by now. In any case I should have heard little of what she said to me. Now I knew she was praying silently to God and the Saints, asking them to guard me. She saw me as a helpless child wandering in the jungle.
    “My dearest child,” she whispered; and suddenly I did not want to leave her. This was my home. I wanted to stay in it-even if it did mean lessons and painful hairstyles and lectures in a cold bedroom. I should not be fifteen until November and suddenly I felt very young and inexperienced. I wanted to plead to be allowed to stay at home for a little longer, but Monsieur de Durfort’s magnificent carriages were waiting; Kaunitz was looking impatient and relieved that all the bargaining was over. Only my mother was sad and I wondered if I could be alone with her and beg to be allowed to stay. But of course I could not. Much as she loved me she would never allow my whims to interfere with state affairs. 7 was a state affair. The thought made me want to laugh—and it pleased me too. I really was a very important person.
    “Goodbye, my dearest child. I shall write to you regularly. It will be as though I am with you.”
    “Yes, Mamma.”
    “We shall be apart but I shall never cease to think of you until I die. Love me always. It is the only thing that can console me.”
    And then I was getting into the carriage with Joseph, who was to accompany me for the first day. I had had little to do with Joseph, who was so much older and had become so important now that he was Emperor and co-ruler with my mother. He was kind, but because of my mood I found his pomposity irritating, and all the time he gave me advice to which I did not want to listen. I wanted to think about my little dogs, which the servants had assured me they would care for.
    When we passed the Schonbrunn Palace I looked at the yellow walls and the green shutters and remembered how Caroline, Ferdinand, Max and I used to watch the older ones perform their plays, operas and ballets.
     
    I remembered how the servants used to bring refreshments to us in the gardens—lemonade, which my mother thought was good for us, and little Viennese cakes covered with cream.
    Before I left, my mother had given me a packet of papers which she said I was to read regularly. I had glanced at them and saw that they contained rules and regulations which she had already given me during our talks. I would read them later, I promised myself. I wanted now to think about the old times—the pleasantness of the days before Caroline and Maria Amalia had been so unhappy. I glanced at Joseph, who had had his own tragedies, and thought he seemed to have recovered as he sat there so serenely against the gorgeous satin upholstery.
    “Always remember