_The Viennese court_
Vienna, 14 _Sept_. o.s. [1716].
Though I have so lately troubled you, my dear sister, with a long
letter, yet I will keep my promise in giving you an account of my
first going to court.
In order to that ceremony, I was squeezed up in a gown, and adorned
with a gorget and the other implements thereunto belonging: a dress
very inconvenient, but which certainly shews the neck and shape
to great advantage. I cannot forbear in this place giving you some
description of the fashions here, which are more monstrous and
contrary to all common sense and reason, than 'tis possible for you
to imagine. They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads about
a yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with
numberless yards of heavy ribbon. The foundation of this structure is
a thing they call a _Bourle_, which is exactly of the same shape
and kind, but about four times as big, as those rolls our prudent
milk-maids make use of to fix their pails upon. This machine they
cover with their own hair, which they mix with a great deal of false,
it being a particular beauty to have their heads too large to go into
a moderate tub. Their hair is prodigiously powdered, to conceal the
mixture, and set out with three or four rows of bodkins (wonderfully
large, that stick two or three inches from their hair), made of
diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that it certainly
requires as much art and experience to carry the load upright, as to
dance upon May-day with the garland. Their whalebone petticoats outdo
ours by several yards circumference, and cover some acres of ground.
You may easily suppose how much this extraordinary dress sets off and
improves the natural ugliness with which God Almighty has been pleased
to endow them all generally. Even the lovely empress herself is
obliged to comply, in some degree, with these absurd fashions, which
they would not quit for all the world. I had a private audience
(according to ceremony) of half an hour, and then all the other ladies
were permitted to come make their court. I was perfectly charmed
with the empress: I cannot, however, tell you that her features are
regular; her eyes are not large, but have a lively look, full of
sweetness; her complexion the finest I ever saw; her nose and forehead
well-made, but her mouth has ten thousand charms that touch the
soul. When she smiles, 'tis with a beauty and sweetness that force
adoration. She has a vast quantity of fine fair hair; but then her
person!--one must speak of it poetically to do it rigid justice; all
that the poets have said of the mien of Juno, the air of Venus, comes
not up to the truth. The Graces move with her; the famous statue of
Medicis was not formed with more delicate proportion; nothing can be
added to the beauty of her neck and hands. Till I saw them, I did not
believe there were any in nature so perfect, and I was almost sorry
that my rank here did not permit me to kiss them; but they are kissed
sufficiently; for every body that waits on her pays that homage at
their entrance, and when they take leave.
When the ladies were come in, she sat down to Quinze. I could not play
at a game I had never seen before, and she ordered me a seat at her
right hand, and had the goodness to talk to me very much, with that
grace so natural to her. I expected every moment when the men were to
come in to pay their court; but this drawing-room is very different
from that of England; no man enters it but the old grand-master, who
comes in to advertize the empress of the approach of the emperor.
His imperial majesty did me the honour of speaking to me in a very
obliging manner; but he never speaks to any of the other ladies; and
the whole passes with a gravity and air of ceremony that has something
very formal in it.
The empress Amelia, dowager of the late emperor Joseph, came
this evening to wait on the reigning empress, followed by the two
archduchesses her daughters, who are very agreeable young princesses.
Their imperial majesties rise and go to meet her at the door of the
room, after which she is seated in an armed chair, next the empress,
and in the same manner at supper, and there the men had the permission
of paying their Court. The archduchesses sit on chairs with backs
without arms. The table is entirely served, and all the dishes set on
by the empress's maids of honour, which are twelve young ladies of the
first quality. They have no salary, but their chambers at court, where
they live in a sort of confinement, not being suffered to go to the
assemblies or public places in town, except in compliment to the
wedding of a sister maid, whom the empress always presents with her
picture set in diamonds. The three first of them are called _Ladies
of the Key_, and wear gold keys by their sides; but what I find most
pleasant, is the custom which obliges them, as long as they live,
after they have left the empress's service, to make her some present
every year on the day of her feast. Her majesty is served by no
married women but the _grande maîtresse_, who is generally a widow of
the first quality, always very old, and is at the same time groom of
the stole, and mother of the maids. The dresses are not at all in the
figure they pretend to in England, being looked upon no otherwise than
as downright chambermaids.
I had audience next day of the empress mother, a princess of great
virtue and goodness, but who piques herself so much on a violent
devotion; she is perpetually performing extraordinary acts of penance,
without having ever done anything to deserve them. She has the same
number of maids of honour, whom she suffers to go in colours; but she
herself never quits her mourning; and sure nothing can be more dismal
than the mourning here, even for a brother. There is not the least bit
of linen to be seen; all black crape instead of it. The neck, ears,
and side of the face covered with a plaited piece of the same stuff,
and the face that peeps out in the midst of it, looks as if it were
pilloried. The widows wear, over and above, a crape forehead cloth;
and in this solemn weed go to all the public places of diversion
without scruple. The next day I was to wait on the empress Amelia, who
is now at her palace of retirement half a mile from the town. I had
there the pleasure of seeing a diversion wholly new to me, but which
is the common amusement of this court. The empress herself was seated
on a little throne at the end of a fine alley in the garden, and on
each side of her were ranged two parties of her ladies of honour with
other young ladies of quality, headed by the two young archduchesses,
all dressed in their hair full of jewels, with fine light guns in
their hands; and at proper distances were placed three oval pictures,
which were the marks to be shot at. The first was that of a CUPID,
filling a bumper of Burgundy, and this motto, '_Tis easy to be valiant
here_. The second a FORTUNE, holding a garland in her hand, the motto,
_For her whom Fortune favours_. The third was a SWORD, with a laurel
wreath on the point, the motto, _Here is no shame to the vanquished_.
Near the empress was a gilded trophy wreathed with flowers, and made
of little crooks, on which were hung rich Turkish handkerchiefs,
tippets, ribbons, laces, etc., for the small prizes. The empress gave
the first with her own hand, which was a fine ruby ring set round
with diamonds, in a gold snuff-box. There was for the second, a little
Cupid set with brilliants; and besides these, a set of fine china for
a tea-table enchased in gold, japan trunks, fans, and many gallantries
of the same nature. All the men of quality at Vienna were spectators;
but only the ladies had permission to shoot, and the Archduchess
Amelia carried off the first prize. I was very well pleased with
having seen this entertainment, and I do not know but it might make as
good a figure as the prize-shooting in the _Eneid_, if I could write
as well as Virgil. This is the favourite pleasure of the emperor, and
there is rarely a week without some feast of this kind, which makes
the young ladies skilful enough to defend a fort, and they laughed
very much to see me afraid to handle a gun.
My dear sister, you will easily pardon an abrupt conclusion. I
believe, by this time, you are ready to fear I would never conclude at
all.