CO NTEN TS . EARLY YEAns 1809 THE PR M R OF THE W G ELI INA IES EDDIN . ‘ HA L THE BETROT ‘ C I U C O C O O O O O Q Q O O O C I O O U O O I O I D O O O Q HE R G U D IFFICU LI’ ‘Y T ELI IO S . THE AM BASSADOR EXTR AORDINARY THE WEDDING AT VIENNA THE E l D O O O Q O O D O O C I U I I w O I I . l O C O COMP I GNE O O C O ‘ THE CIVIL THE ENTRANCE INT O I ' O I THE RELIGIOU S XV . P XVI. TIIE TRI IN THE 1810 XVII. THE M H OF JU ONT NE , XVIII THE B AU R . ALL AT THE ST IAN CO TE T N N S . TEE BIRTH OF THE KING O F ROM E THE P M THE BA TIS . SAINT CLOU D AND THE TRIP TO NA POLEON AT THE HEIGHT 0 1" m s POWER -MARIE LOU ISE IN 1812 ’ THE EmpREss s HOU SEHOLD D RESD E NO Q O O C Q I I I I I C O D PRAG E U O C Q Q I . l o . O O Q Q Q Q Q Q I Q Q I Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q ‘ THE HAPPY DAYS THE EMPRESS MARIE L OUISE. INTR D CTI O U ON. N 1 814 N ol n n , while ap eo was ba ished in the islan d I Elb Em r of a, the p ess Marie Louise and her grand N l mother, Marie Caroline, Queen of ap es, happen ed Vi n n . d to meet at e a The one , who had been epr ived of the French crown , was seeking to be put in posses m sion of her new real , the Duchy of Parma the other, who had fled from Sicily to escape the yoke of e e o En lish her pret nded prot ct rs , the g , had come to d m n d r t N l e a the es itution of her kingdom of ap es , where Murat continued to rule with the connivance Of s r . a Au t ia This Queen, Marie Caroline, the d ughter Em r h of the great p ess, Maria T eresa, and the sister Of un o the fortunate Marie Ant inette, had passed her life in detestation of the French Revolution and of b Napoleon, of whom she had een one of the most m e inent victims . Well, at the very moment when the Austrian court was doing its best to make Marie Louise forget that she was Napoleon ’s Wife and to MP O 2 THE E RESS MARIE L UISE. separate her from him forever, Marie Caroline was pained to see her granddaughter lend too ready an ear to their suggestions . She said to the Baron de M n l i é eva , who had accompanied Marie Lou se to “ : had in Vienna I have , , my time, very good cause for complaining of your Emperor ; he has pers ecuted — I me and wounded my pride , was then at least fi 4 fteen years old, but now I remember only one — thing, that he is unfortunate . Then she went on to say that if they tried to keep hu sband and wife apart, Marie Louise would have to tie her bedclothes ” n di . to her wi dow and run away in sguise That, ’ she exclaimed, that s what I should do in her place ; for when people are married, they are married for their whole life If a woman like Queen Marie Caroline , a sister of r Marie Antoinette, a queen d iven from her throne by d Napoleon, could feel in this way, it is easy to un er stand the severity with which those of the French who were devoted to the Emperor, regarded the conduct of his ungrateful wife . In the same way, in Josephine , spite of her occasionally frivolous con duct, has retained her popularity, becaus e she was e k t nder, ind, and devoted, even after she was di vor ced ; while Marie Louise has been criticised, in because after lov g, or saying that she loved, the mighty Emperor, she deserted him when he was a prisoner . The contrast between her conduct and that of the wife of King Jerome, the noble and courageous Wur tem ber Catherine of g, who endured every dan NT T 3 I ROD UC ION. h ger, and all sorts of persecutions , to share her us ’ band s exile and poverty, has set in an even clearer light the faults of Marie Louis e . She has been avi blamed for not h ng joined Napoleon at Elba, for not having even tried to temper his suff er ings at Saint s i Helena, for not con ol ng him in any way, for not even writing to him . The former Empress of the French has been also more severely condemned for t — her two morgana ic marriages, one with Count s a an d Of Neipperg, an Au tri n general a bitter enemy w i n Bom belles Napoleon, the other th Cou t de , a Fre nchman who left France to enter the Austri an r w as service . Certainly Ma ie Louise neither a model wife nor a model widow , and there is nothing sur prising in the severity with which her contemporaries hi r judged her, a severity w ch doubtless histo y will hi r not modify. But if t s p incess was guilty, more than one attenuating ci r cums tance may be ur ged in s uld i her defence, and we ho , in just ce, remember that e is it was not without a struggle, without t ars, d tress, r to and many conscientious sc uples, that she decided ’ Obey her father s rigid orders and become again what - she had been before her marriage , simply an Aus trian princess . It must not be forgotten that the Empress Marie w e Louis e, who was in two ays the grandni ce of Queen Marie Antoinette , through her mother Maria r Theresa Of Naples, daughter of Queen Ma ie Caro a line, and through her father the Emperor Fr ncis , son of the Emperor Leopold II . , the brother of the 4 THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. martyred queen , had been brought up to abhor the French Revolution and the Empire which succeeded it . She had been taught from the moment she left d the cra le , that France was the hereditary enemy, h the savage and implacable foe, of her country . W en i d d she was a ch l , Napoleon appeare to her against a un d backgro of blood, like a fatal being, an evil genius , a satanic Corsican, a sort of Antichrist . The few Frenchmen whom she saw at the Austrian cour t é é were migr s , who saw in Napoleon nothing but the fi s sel sh revolutioni t, the friend of the young Robes r pierre, the creature of Bar as, the defender of the 1 3th Of members of the Convention, the man of the d é i Ven mia re, the murderer of the Duke of Enghien , Of the enemy all the thrones of Europe , the author r of the t eachery of Bayonne , the persecutor of the m d i Pope , the excom unicate sovere gn . Twice he had i Of u an d driven Austr a to the brink r in, it had even been said that he wished to destroy it altogether, like a second Poland . The young archduchess had never heard the hero of Austerlitz and Wagram spoken of, ns e except in terms i pired by resentm nt, fear, and . n hatred Could she , then, in a si gle day learn to love the man who always had been held up before the her as a second Attila, as scourge of God ? Hence, when she came to contemplate the possibility of her marriage with him , she was overwhelmed with surprise, terror, and repulsion, and her first idea was to regard herself as a victim to be sacrificed to a fin “ vague Minotaur . We d this word sacrifice on T T IN RODUC ION. 5 the lips of the Aus trian statesmen who most warmly the li favored French al ance, even of those who had ns n cou elled and arra ged the m atch. The Austrian Sw ar tzenber ambassador in Paris , the Prince of g, e r 8 1 810 “I wrot to Mette nich, February , , pity the pr incess ; but let her remember that it is a fin e thing r i to b ng peace to such good people. l And Metternich r 15 Sw a n wrote back, Februa y , to the Prince of r tze “ berg, The Archduchess Mar ie Louis e sees in the m her us suggestion ade to by her aug t father, that Napoleon may include her in his plans , only a means of proving to her beloved father the most absolute u ll r fi devotion . She feels the f force of the sac i ce, but ” her filial love will outw eigh all other considerations . Having been brought up in the habit of severe disci pline and passive obedience, she belonged to a family in which the Austrian prin cesses are regarded as the docile instruments Of the greatness of the Hapsbur gs .