"If I Was King for Just One Day..."

March 31, 2010

I’ve heard it said, or maybe read

Only money makes the world go ‘round

But all the gold won’t heal your soul

If your world goes tumbling to the ground.  

“King for a Day,” -- Thompson Twins

Am I dating myself by quoting the Thompson Twins?  Why, yes, I believe I am.  But I think the Habsburgs could have benefited from the nuggets of wisdom to be found in these here lyrics; they just came along a little too late, after the monarchy had already tumbled… 

  

We were back at the palace of Schoenbrunn today with some friends, although it was rainy and we didn’t wander the gardens, so I didn’t get my moment of wistful longing for jogging or imperial ball-going grandeur…  My kids, however, did get to indulge their fancy dress-up fantasies of the era at the children’s museum, and we visited a nursery/play room, dressing room, bathroom, scullery room, kitchen, dining room, and others, all filled with exhibits and hands-on samples of those things that were typical of the time.  The girls particularly enjoyed the dress-ups, as they each tried on at least four or five different gowns and required full photographic documentation of each and every one.  Cade reluctantly participated in the dress-ups, but seemed to really enjoy some of the interactive exhibits in the museum, as well as the wooden toys in the play room and the as-much-fake-food-as-you-can-pretend-to-eat buffet in the dining room.   As for me, I liked reading the explanations throughout the museum, including the one that explained the need for 1,441 rooms at the Schoenbrunn Palace.  It turns out that the royal family needed 1,000+ servants to tend to their gardening, household-maintaining, tutoring, dining, transporting, festivity-organizing, royal hair-washing and other important needs.  In fact, “there wasn’t enough room for all the members of the imperial court household at Schoenbrunn, so only the most important ones were chosen [to stay there].”  So, clearly, 1,441 rooms were not excessive, but rather if anything, were modest-bordering-on-insufficient…  Fortunately, the enormous winter palace, the Hofburg, was only four miles away…

Maria Theresa was the only female ruler in the 650-year history of the Habsburg dynasty.  She ruled for 40 years in the mid-1700’s.  For half of that time, beginning from the time of her marriage at age nearly-19 until her late thirties, she was almost always pregnant with one of 16 children (12 grew to adulthood – including her youngest daughter Marie Antoinette).  16 pregnancies!  While ruling an entire empire!  I’m sure a few of those 1,000 servants helped with the care and rearing of the children, but I have to give her props for doing the pregnancies herself.  Actually, by most accounts, she appears to have been a devoted mother, although she followed the Habsburg tradition of forming alliances through marriage and married off the majority of her children to members of various royal houses in Europe.  (Perhaps that was the motivation behind 16 pregnancies?  It was a fairly effective strategy…)  She is often (mis)quoted as having said, “Let others wage war; you – happy Austria – marry!”    

We happily finished off the day with both Wienerschnitzel AND Italian Eis --  so one might say we were royally spoiled.