Schönbrunn Palace
The young archduchess was the sixth daughter and ninth child of Francis of Lorraine, Emperor of Germany, and of the illustrious Maria Theresa. A story is told that one evening in the early autumn of 1755, when the empress was receiving at Schönbrunn, she laughingly asked the Duke von Tarouka, “Shall I have a boy or a girl?” “A prince, without doubt, Madame,” replied the courtier. “Well,” Maria Theresa answered, “I wager two ducats that I shall give birth to a girl.” Some time after, the child was born. The Duke von Tarouka lost; he sent the amount of the bet to the empress enclosed in this ingenious quatrain of the poet Metastasio: –
“I have lost: the august girl has condemned me to pay. But if it be true that she resembles you, then all the world has gained.”
The Life of Marie Antoinette, Volume 1 By Maxime de La Rocheterie, Chapter 1, pg 1-2.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 766
