Like his brother Maximilian, he too traveled incognito, under the title of the Count Falkenstein; and he persisted in maintaining his disguise so absolutely that he refused to occupy the apartments which the queen had prepared for him in the palace, and insisted on taking up his quarters with Mercy in Paris, and at a hotel, for the few days which he passed at Versailles.
However, though by his conduct in this matter he to some extent disappointed the hope which his sister had conceived of an uninterrupted intercourse with him during his stay in France, in every other respect the visit passed off to the satisfaction of all the parties principally concerned.

Fortunately, at their first interview Marie Antoinette herself made a most favorable impression on him.

She had been but a child when he had last seen her.

She was now a woman, and he was wholly unprepared for the matured and queenly beauty at which she had arrived.

He was not a man to flatter any one, but almost his first words to her were that, had she not been his sister, he could not have refrained from seeking her hand that he might secure to himself so lovely a partner; and each succeeding meeting strengthened his admiration of her personal graces.