On Saturday, April 21, 1770, the Austrian archduchess, Maria-Antonia, left her home, the imperial palace of Hofburg in Vienna, forever and embarked on the long journey to France. On departure, in the courtyard in front of the palace, the royal entourage assembled. Two grand berlines lavishly upholstered in blue and crimson velvet and decorated with fine embroidery had been provided by the French ambassador to take Maria-Antonia to Paris. These were to be conveyed in a cavalcade of almost fifty carriages, each to be drawn by six horses, and an array of guards and outriders. The whole of the Austrian court, in all its silken and bejewelled finery, attended this auspicious event. Maria-Antonia, the youngest daughter of the distinguished Empress Maria-Theresa and Emperor Franz I, was to marry the future king of France and, it was hoped, consolidate Austria's troubled relationship with France.

Maria-Antonia was slightly built with all the attractiveness of youth. "She has a most graceful figure; holds herself well; and if, as may be hoped, she grows a little taller, she will possess every good quality one could wish for in a great princess," wrote her tutor, the Abbé Jacques de Vermond, adding, "her heart and character are both excellent." Maria-Antonia had large blue eyes, reddish blond hair and a good complexion; many even considered her a beauty. The aging French king, Louis XV, eagerly inquiring about the prospective Austrian bride for his grandson was told by officials that she had "a charming face and beautiful eyes." She had, however, inherited the Habsburg projecting lower lip and prominent brow, which prompted her mother, in preparations for the event, to bring a coiffeur from France to arrange her hair to soften the line of her forehead.

Maria-Antonia, the subject of all this detailed scrutiny, had had her future determined when she was thirteen. "Others make war but thou, O happy Austria, makest marriages" was a family motto. Her mother, the Empress Maria-Theresa, who was widely considered to be the best queen in Europe since Elizabeth I of England, ruled the Habsburg Empire. Her territories encompassed most of central Europe, reaching to parts of Romania in the east, regions of Germany in the north, south to Lombardy and Tuscany in Italy and west to the Austrian Netherlands, now Belgium. Some of this success was due to a series of strategic marriages, which were an important part of royal diplomacy. Maria-Antonia was the youngest of sixteen children, and several of her older sisters had already taken part in Austrian foreign policy. One sister was married to the governor general of the Austrian Netherlands, another became the Duchess of Parma, and a third, Maria-Antonia's favorite sister, Maria-Carolina, had become the queen of Naples -- a role that at first she deplored. "The suffering is true martyrdom," Maria-Carolina wrote home, "made worse by being expected to look happy... I pity Antonia who has yet to suffer it."

For the Empress Maria-Theresa, eclipsing all these marriages was the prospect of an alliance with the French. France was seen as the richest and most powerful state in Europe, and, with twenty-five million people, also the largest. Yet France had been Austria's enemy for over two hundred years. For many, a permanent alliance between the two former long-standing enemies seemed out of the question, even potentially dangerous. However, the empress was determined to secure a match between her youngest daughter and the dauphin of France. Such an important marriage would seal a political alliance and enable the two countries to work as allies against the growing Prussian influence.