Maria Pia Oelker - A Woman In The Shadows

Territories and peoples, marriages and nuptial agreements, financial clauses and ceremonial arrangements, etiquette and government, all in the same cauldron. It has always been like that and there was no reason to change it, if the mechanism worked perfectly, tested over centuries of dynastic history.

Together with our nannies’ milk, we had sucked in this simple concept: we are pawns in a game that is bigger than all of us, we have to subordinate our personal wishes to that which the family had decided in the supreme interest of power.

In reality, when I was sixteen or eighteen years old, I did not know anything about concepts like personal aspirations, free will or things of that kind. None of my teachers or tutors had taken the trouble to even mention it to us. To my brothers, one destined for the Naples throne and the other to that of Spain, perhaps (I say perhaps and not by chance) something had been said, but not to us women, no. Only many years later, did I hear talk of my husband and his friends and, even though I had to initially make a considerable effort to follow them in their discussions and reasoning, it was a source of pride for me to understand and I ended up becoming very impassioned by those discussions. In my adolescence, ignorant of big philosophical matters, the problems which hounded me were very different, in common with my noble female friends and cousins. Who will I marry? Will he be a pleasant or an absolutely odious life companion, kind or overpowering, intelligent or stupid, vacuous and ignorant?

Will he like me, notwithstanding that my looks are not among the most fascinating?

We spent hours taking care of our clothes and our manners. We knew how to dance and gracefully take part in conversation. I had been taught French and I had a very basic knowledge of German (notwithstanding it was my mother’s native tongue); Italian, which was the language of culture and art, I had known since I was little, even though my teachers did not manage to take away my Neapolitan accent, which according to them did not go down at all well. When I then learned that I would be going to Florence, they redoubled their efforts to refine my diction, but in vain, I fear: I never managed to adopt that sweet elocution that they used in Tuscany.

From the alchemy of my father’s advisers, there finally emerged the dates and names, which would define the course of my future life. I would therefore marry the third son of the Hapsburg Lorraine house, the Archduke Peter Leopold, first at Madrid by proxy, then at Innsbruck. The date fixed for the religious marriage was the 5th of August 1765.

I knew nothing about Peter Leopold, or almost nothing, at the moment I left for Genoa and from there for Austria.

Or better, about him as Archduke and future Grand Duke of Tuscany, I had been given all the information possible, from the detailed history of his imperial family, to his studies, his culture (always and only the official virtues, you understand, not his weaknesses or his personal inclinations). I had a portrait of him that had been sent from the Imperial Court and that I wore, set in a pearl bracelet, on my wrist. But I knew that then, in person, he would necessarily have looked different. For the rest, when I had been able to see the portrait done for me by the court painter, ready to be sent to Vienna, I had to admit that, even he would be surprised: I was really not so angelic and, if my blond hair was not bad and my physique could be considered to be well shaped and elegant (I was also rather vain about my clothes, I admit), my face was not particularly seductive.

I was not good at making myself look more attractive through make-up, perhaps because, in reality, I hated plastering myself too much and preferred more natural-looking faces.

My girlfriends sometimes looked like grotesque masks and I did not understand how they could believe they looked more attractive with all that white and that red and lipstick Among other things, my delicate skin itches for days and days, when I give in to their insistence and let myself be convinced to follow the fashion. In this way, if I could, I would willingly do without it, but the general effect, I must admit, was rather dull. The honest and cruel mirror gave me back the image of a face too long, with a significant nose and not very big eyes. Let’s be frank: I did not like myself and I was convinced that I also would not have made a good impression on my husband, I certainly would not have enchanted him and this made me nervous. I would have wanted a wedding dress rich in precious decorations and hoped that at least that would have enhanced a little, if not the aesthetic look, at least my morale.

I knew that he would have been accommodating and we would have seen each other for the first time only some days after the wedding, just for a few hours, that is to say that I would not even have had the possibility to fascinate him at least with my spirit, which everyone said was lively and sparkling.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that my education, just average for a noble-woman, according to the norms of the era and, in particular, those of Spain, could stand comparison with Leopold’s. Everyone talked about him as a boy in love with knowledge and science, a student of law, economics and philosophy They said that he was very serious and mature for his age, that, even before being installed on the Tuscan throne, he had already learned in detail about the situation of his realm.

I had recently given myself a lot of work, reading and studying, arousing ironical perplexity among my ladies-in-waiting and cousins, who suggested other more mischievous routes to conquer the heart of a husband, but I did not know if I could have been able to maintain a learned conversation with him.

And, moreover, since he was a baby, Leopold had been brought up and educated to be a sovereign, but not I; no-one expected me to be well-educated and informed like a man, rather some judged it to be useless, if not inconvenient, even my love of books.

There were only a few days left before our departure. Everything was ready by now and I did nothing but cry at the thought of leaving my palace: for the second time in my life, I had to abandon familiar places, friends, life-long habits and, this time, to go to marry a man that I did not know, from a country and a culture different from mine. Having grown up in a Nordic country where snow fell in winter and the sun showed itself only a little for many months of the year, where there was no sea (had he ever seen the sea?) and the bright and splendid colours of the Mediterranean natural environment. Who knows if he was like his country, which I imagined cold and melancholy, full of rainy darkness.

Someone said that Leopold was sensitive and good, even if a bit too withdrawn, but they were rumours, not official reports.

What did they say about me?

That I would be a perfect wife, docile, kind, loving, that I was strong and healthy and I certainly would give him many children. That I would not cause trouble for him and would obviously put up with his private life without making any scenes, whatever it was, remaining always and in every circumstance, faithful and beyond reproach. That I have never loved any men and therefore came to him, not only a virgin (this was implied and moreover the nuptial contract testified to it solemnly and clearly), but pure and innocent also in my soul.

This latter thing was not completely true, but only I and my close girlfriend, Amalia, knew it, as I had confided to her my first and only adolescent love for a gentleman in my brother’s entourage.

A platonic love perhaps, but overwhelming and passionate; that did not let me close my eyes for entire nights and even brought me to become delirious about impossible elopement, rebellions infeasible under the court etiquette; which made me get agitated and cry ever more bitter and resigned tears, when I realised that, even if he had loved me, there could never be any bond between us and that I could never belong to any other man than the husband predestined for me, without contemplating a suicide consequent to a prohibited act of love.