receive an income in his wake. At Court, however, the match was not so popular, due to the long-standing tensions between Austria and France, which had only so recently been mollified. Behind her back, Mesdames Tantes called Marie Antoinette l'Autrichienne, or the "Austrian woman" from Autriche (French for Austria). Later on, on the eve of the Revolution, l'Autrichienne was easily transformed into l'Autruchienne, a pun making use of the words autruche (ostrich) and chienne (bitch).


From the beginning, the Dauphine had to contend with constant letters from her mother, who wrote to her daughter regularly and who received secret reports from Mercy d'Argenteau on her daughter's behavior. The Dauphine was constantly criticized for her inability to "inspire passion" in her husband, who rarely slept