Excerpt from In the Shadow of the Empress by Nancy Goldstone , plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Three days of solemn rites and extravagant celebrations followed. There was an evening of theater, with a new ballet written and choreographed by the renowned French master in honor of his student. The next day, Joseph hosted a formal state dinner for 1,500, complete with gold and silver plate, with a gorgeous masked ball and fireworks afterward. Not to be outdone, the French ambassador presided over a similarly brilliant gathering, dazzlingly illuminated by an even showier display of bursting colored rockets and night sparklers. The proxy ceremony itself took place on the evening of April 19, 1770, at the Church of the Augustinian Friars. Marie Antoinette, radiant in a cloth-of-silver gown with a flowing train, was led down the aisle by her mother; her brother Ferdinand, at a year older almost exactly the same age as the dauphin, stood in for the bridegroom. Maria Theresa and Joseph, seated side by side on thrones, presided over the ceremony in their capacity as co-regents. The bride and her brother the surrogate knelt before them; a papal nuncio led the service; the Te Deum was sung. And, just like that, the youngest archduchess was married.

Excerpted from In the Shadow of the Empress by Nancy Goldstone . Copyright © 2021 by Nancy Goldstone . Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.