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Daughter of Francis I of Austria, second wife of Napoleon. In 1809 Napoleon invaded Austria and occupied Vienna. Emperor Francis I of Austria, beaten again, had to leave his capital. He left behind him his oldest daughter, Marie Louise, who was too sick to be moved. Through a window she could perceive the silhouette of the man who would become her husband some months later. Still, at that time she shared the resentment her father felt against Napoleon, who was, little by little, cutting up Austria.
After the Battle of Wagram and signing the peace treaty Napoleon, who had had proof he was not sterile by the birth of an illegitimate son, looked for a woman of the blood royal to give him an heir. He had his choice of two princesses, the sister of Czar Alexander I or Marie Louise, who belonged to one of the oldest families of Europe, the Hapsburgs. The Czar did not seem anxious to give a reply. On the other hand, Prince Schwarzenberg, of the court of Vienna, speeded up the negotiations. Perhaps Austria had had a second thought, that it was better to become the ally of an enemy which was invincible on the battlefield. Emperor Francis consented, provided his daughter agreed.
Would Marie Louise agree to become the
bride of Napoleon and the empress of the French? Her great aunt
Marie Antoinette had been queen of those people and ended up on
the scaffold. Metternich asked her; she consented. She solemnly
renounced her rights to the imperial Austrian succession. The
religious marriage was celebrated in Vienna on March 11, 1810,
without the two spouses having ever been able to talk with each
other. The next day she left to meet her husband. The prince of
Wagram (the latest defeat of Austria), formerly called Berthier,
had been sent by the emperor to take her to her new country.
The French accepted Marie Louise, particularly after they learned
she was expecting a baby. On March 20, 1811, the birth was difficult.
The lives of both mother and child were both in danger; which
should the doctor favour? Napoleon chose the mother. At the end
both were saved. The people awaited the canon fire announcing
the event: twenty one shots if a daughter, one hundred one for
a son. At the twenty second shot cheers burst out. Napoleon had
a son-- Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles, King of Rome.
In 1814 Francois I made his daughter,
who had fled from Paris to Blois, return with his grandson, whom
he rebaptised duke of Reichstadt. He accepted the principle of
the restoration of the Bourbons. Marie Louise remained empress
of the French but she also became duchess of Parma, Plaisance,
and Guastalla. She was often seen in the company of the count
of Neipperg. She wrote some letters to Napoleon but does not seem
to have decided to share his exile on the Island of Elba.
When the emperor regained his throne in 1815 she did not reappear.
The following year she left her son in the care of her father,
Emperor Francis I, to return to her Duchy of Parma.
On May 5, 1821, she became a widow. Four months later she married the count of Neipperg, by whom she would have two sons. In 1834, widowed again, she remarried, to the count of Bombelles.
It was in reading the "Gazette de Piemont" in July, 1821, that she learned of the death of Napoleon on Saint Helena. "I declare that I was quite shocked", she wrote on the nineteenth to her friend Victoria, daughter of the countess of Colloredo. "Although I never had any sort of strong feeling for him, I cannot forget that he was the father of my son, and that far from mistreating me, as the world believes, he always shoed me every regard, the only thing one can want in a political marriage. That's why I have been very affected, and although one may be happy that he has ended his miserable existence in a Christian manner, I would never the less have wished him many more years of happiness and of life, provided it was far away from me."
She was officially regent of France during
the Russia campaign she did not show great interest for the goverment
business.
The Duchess died on 17 December 1847 and she was buried, on her
wish, in Vienna in the Capuccini's crypt where even today her
"subjects" still bring her the sweet-smelling violets
she loved so much and to which she has linked her name.
After the Napoleon's abdication she went with his son, the young
King of Rome, to Vienna at her father's court where she remained
up to the Vienna Congress in 1815 which assigned her the Dukedom
of Parma, Piacenza e Guastalla.
She arrived in the Dukedom on 19 April 1816 by crossing the border
on the Po river to meet with the representatives of the new State.
She spent her first night in Parma at
the Colorno Palace, and the recollection of that night should
have been so dear to her as to make her assume the title of "Countess
of Colorno" whenever she wanted to preserve her incognito.
She governed with wisdom and humanity, she was beloved by her
subjects. After Napoleon's death she married the Niepperg Count
and left a widow a short time later, she spent her last times
with the Bombelles Count whom she married in 1834.
The Duchess died on 17 December 1847 and she was buried, on her
wish, in Vienna in the Capuccini's crypt where even today her
"subjects" still bring her the sweet-smelling violets
she loved so much and to which she has linked her name.
