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Looking at Marie Antoinette and Tsarina AlexandraComparison between historical personalities should, as a rule, always be treated with caution even if given life circumstances are similar; an example of this might be ‘comparisons’ made between the legendary Empress Elisabeth of Austria and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Where an interest or association is deliberately fostered by one of the individuals, this can, of course, be better justified. I became interested in the possible links between Marie Antoinette and the last Tsarina of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918), because of certain instances where there might be considered to be a historical overlap. Alexandra it appears was interested in the Austrian-born Queen of France and read about her to a certain extent (Alexander Palace Time Machine). I wanted to see if these associations bore any weight, having also read hints of it in Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette: The Journey.
Marie Antoinette, in fact, numbered two Princesses of Hesse amongst the dearest of her youth; these were Princess Charlotte of Hesse-Darmstadt – her particular friend, the ‘dear Princess’– and Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt. The latter became first Landgravine of Hesse, the former, the second bride of Prince Karl of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the stepmother of Prussia’s fabled Queen Louise. Marie Antoinette thought so highly of these Hesse princesses that she even took portraits of them with her on the last journey of her life, from the Temple to the prison of the Conciergerie (Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Pg 518, 2000). These were in a packet, with a portrait of the Princesse de Lamballe; along with locks of hair of Louis XVI and those of her children, showing that these portraits of her ‘Princesses’ were indeed among the last personal objects that she prized the most (Ibid, Pg, 518). A volume of the letters exchanged in French between Marie Antoinette and the Landgravine Louise were published in 1865. Importantly, Princess Charlotte of Hesse predeceased Marie Antoinette, dying at the tragically early age of thirty in Hanover in 1785, as Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; perhaps another reason why Marie Antoinette guarded her memory so closely.
When Marie Antoinette began her momentous journey from Vienna to Versailles in 1770 as French Dauphine, she did not pass through Hesse; she was geographically closest to the home of her ‘Hesse Princesses’ when she took the road via Ulm to Freiburg.
The portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children, by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun
(Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun [United States Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
In the year of their coronation in 1896, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna made a vital State Visit to France, during which the foundation stone of the elegant Pont Alexandre III was laid. The ‘Hesse Princesses’ of Marie Antoinette’s youth made a family trip to Paris in 1780, with their father, Prince George William of Hesse. As part of this visit, Marie Antoinette invited Princess Louise, the future Landgravine of Hesse, her husband, Prince Louis and her brother, Prince Frederick of Hesse, to visit her beloved private retreat of the Petit Trianon. This was a sure sign of royal favour: ‘It’s looking so beautiful that I should be charmed to show it to you’ (Ibid, Pg 210). During a performance at Versailles, Princess Charlotte even sat in the Queen’s box at the opera (Ibid, Pg 210).
As part of the Russian Imperial State Visit, Alexandra was ‘assigned’ the rooms of Marie Antoinette at Versailles for one night. If she considered her Hesse forebears having been invited to Versailles in 1780, she made no mention of it. Alexandra was directly related to Landgravine Louise, as Antonia Fraser has observed, as her fourth cousin, four generations removed (Ibid, Pg 538). Alexandra’s father, Grand Duke Ludwig IV, was the nephew of Grand Duke Ludwig III of Hesse – the grandson of Grand Duke Ludwig I – as Landgravine Louise’s husband became known, the title of Hesse becoming Hesse and by Rhine in 1816. According to Antonia Fraser’s biography, Alexandra was “delighted” (Ibid, Pg 538) with being given Marie Antoinette’s rooms, which presumably, given the fact that she stayed overnight, must have been the glorious Queen’s State Bedchamber, as there is no mention of the Trianon, nor did Marie Antoinette’s private quarters contain her bed. Alexandra’s biographer, Greg King, states that in Marie Antoinette’s rooms, Alexandra spent the night underneath “the damask canopy of the doomed queen’s bed”, citing Alexandra’s earlier biographer Baroness Buxhoeveden, for this (Greg King, The Last Empress, Pg 115, 1994).
As a result of this visit, Alexandra would later tell her daughters, the four Grand Duchesses, tales of Paris and Versailles, according to Buxhoeveden (Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, The Life & Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna, 1928). Alexandra’s suite, by contrast, had found the fact that the young Tsarina had been given Marie Antoinette’s rooms at Versailles “ominous”, while the Tsarina herself was “thrilled” by Versailles (Ibid, Pg 75). In a pleasant parallel to the theatrical performance given for Marie Antoinette’s ‘Hesse Princesses’, the Tsarina attended a theatrical performance at Versailles with the Tsar, in the Salon d’Hercule (Ibid, Pg 75).
There were other associations, however. According to Marfa Mouchanow’s 1918 book My Empress, Alexandra had the Imperial Bedroom at the Winter Palace used by herself and Tsar Nicholas, hung with silk, itself inspired by a pattern used in Marie Antoinette’s rooms at the chateau of Fontainebleau (King, Pg 90).
The Formal Reception Room at the Alexander Palace,
with the tapestry of Marie Antoinette to the right of the large central painting
(By Romanov family [United States Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
On Alexandra’s marriage to Tsar Nicholas II in 1894, she took many books with her to Russia which had belonged to her mother, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse. It was interesting to discover a reference in Alice’s letters to her mother, Queen Victoria, telling her in 1865 from Darmstadt, that she was “reading at this moment a book by Herr von Arneth – the publication of letters from Maria Theresia to Marie Antoinette from 1770-80. I recommend it to you… the advice the Empress gives her daughter is so good; she was a very wise mother” (Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Biographical Sketch and Letters, Pg 89, 1884). Perhaps Alexandra also took this volume with her to Russia, if her mother had kept it among her books.
There was a further, more important association, too. Alexandra was given a Gobelin tapestry which was hung in the Formal Reception Room at the Alexander Palace, the imperial couple’s private residence at Tsarskoe Selo, outside St. Petersburg. Significantly, it depicted Marie Antoinette and was a copy of the iconic portrait by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, which showed the French Queen in red velvet trimmed with fur, with her three children and the cradle which had the fourth child, Madame Sophie who had recently died, painted out. Today this painting hangs at Versailles, in the Antechamber of the Grand Couvert. The tapestry had been a gift from the last President of the Third Republic, Albert Francois Lebrun. It would have hung there when the Russian Imperial Family left Alexander Palace forever on 1 August 1917, as was described in the Alexander Palace’s official booklet (Fraser, Pg 538). That said, it is unlikely that the Imperial Family would have passed directly through this room however, as it was in the far right corner of the palace. This was probably said, so that it would seem to add momentum to oncoming tragedy, through the presence of the doomed French Queen. A possible parallel could also be seen then, in the fact that in October 1789, Marie Antoinette left Versailles forever for Paris, never to return.
This allusion was maintained by palace guides in later years, (Alexander Palace Time Machine) who thought all this presaged disaster, perhaps just as Alexandra’s suite had felt her occupying Marie Antoinette’s rooms at Versailles had done, in 1896. Importantly, however, this hindsight can mislead. Alexandra never viewed the tapestry as “ominous”, just as she had not considered staying in Marie Antoinette’s rooms as being so, either – in contrast to Empress Josephine, who commented grimly about sleeping in the Tuileries Palace, “I can feel the Queen’s ghost asking what I am doing in her bed” (Fraser, Pg 536).
ELIZABETH JANE TIMMS
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