Napoleon's Forgotten Wife

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0:57Weedian House is a podcast that's changing the narrative. I'm Theo Henderson, and I created the show while I was unhoused on the streets of Los Angeles. We've grown into a two-time Webby Award winning podcast. The only podcast that shares unhoused stories and news from the unhoused perspective. Listen to We The Unhoused on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation.

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2:03If I went up to a historically literate stranger on the street and told them I was writing an episode of this podcast on Napoleon's wife, I imagine the reply would be, oh, Josephine. Napoleon and Josephine Josephine and Napoleon They are considered one of history's great love stories, even by people with only a passing familiarity with European politics of the early 19th century. In the first Sex and the City movie, for example, Napoleon's letters to Josephine are specifically referenced as an example of the height of romantic writing. A famous painting of Napoleon's coronation, in which the emperor raises a crown high in anticipation of lowering it onto Josephine's head, who's kneeling at the center of the canvas, is on display currently at the Louvre, awing visitors with its massive size, almost 33 feet wide and more than 20 feet tall.

3:12Quite literally, Josephine and Napoleon loom large. But Napoleon did not end his life married to Josephine. Though the two were married for almost 14 years, when Josephine reached her mid-40s and the two had still not produced an heir, Napoleon was pressured to divorce her in order to preserve the future of his empire. Of course, this led to the looming question, who would Napoleon marry next? Josephine he had married for love. Now, as an emperor at the height of his power, he would need to be marrying for political reasons, in order to position France favorably on the grand stage of Europe. He would be marrying a princess, a daughter from a noble family, someone who would, ideally, be able to provide him a son and cement an international alliance.

4:17In the end, his second wife would successfully achieve the first of those goals, not quite the second. Marie-Louise of Austria was raised believing in Napoleon as something of a boogeyman, the Corsican ruffian leading their enemy France. And of course, it hadn't been that long ago that Marie-Louise's great-aunt, Marie Antoinette, had come from Austria to become a French bride, and look how that turned out for her. But when the tides shifted and Marie Louise was told that she would be marrying Napoleon, the teenage archduchess had no choice. She left her home and her family and married a stranger for the sake of her family's power.

5:11But as you probably know, Napoleon's reign would end abruptly, twice actually, and young Marie-Louise was left in no man's land. Her father and his armies had ousted her husband. Was her loyalty supposed to lie with her home country or with the man she had married? What was an empress to an emperor deposed and in exile? Marie-Louise was young and alone, forced to navigate a landscape that shifted under her feet like crumbling sand as the map of Europe was redrawn around her in real time. She was a casualty of Napoleon's power, and then she would become a casualty of his defeat. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

6:11On January 21st, 1810, with Josephine cast aside, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte gathered a small group of important advisors together to discuss a very important question. Who should his next bride be? The Princess of Saxony was an option, as was the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, and Anna Pavlovna, the younger sister of Tsar Alexander I of Russia. Russia was an appealing prospect. It would be good to make a diplomatic marriage with such a massive and important country. But the demands they were making complicated things a bit. If Anna were to come marry Napoleon, Russia would require that each palace had a Russian Orthodox church and that France would allow free practice of Russian Orthodoxy.

7:08There was also the slight issue that Anna was only 15 at this time, and though that was certainly considered a marriageable age, the entire purpose of this marriage was begetting an heir as quickly as possible, and it might be a number of years before she was able to conceive. The better choice, a few years older, was Archduchess Maria Luisa of Austria. Historically, Austria and France had not had the best relationship. The last time their two nations had joined in royal marriage had been during another brief gap in the warfare the two countries waged against each other. Back then, Marie Antoinette had married the future king, Louis XVI, and you don't need me to remind you that that didn't end well for her.

8:04In fact, this very meeting that Napoleon and his men were having just happened to be on the anniversary of King Louis XVI's beheading. Austria wasn't thrilled at the prospect, in theory, of sending yet another royal daughter into the tumult of a country that beheaded its kings, and which was now under the rule of a non-royal upstart like Napoleon. Napoleon was a heated figure in Austria, especially among their royal family. Napoleon's War of the Third Coalition had been devastating for Austria, and in 1805, the Austrian royal family had even been temporarily forced into exile. But bygones were bygones, and given the circumstances, the countries needed to cooperate.

9:00Austria knew if Napoleon chose to marry the Russian girl, Austria would be sandwiched between these two great allied powers. Definitely a bad idea. Marie Louise, just 18 years old, was not thrilled about the situation herself. Growing up, she had referred to Napoleon in letters as the Antichrist and Krampus, framing him like a monster in the children's stories she might have read. Her grandmother, Maria Carolina, had been Marie Antoinette's sister, and she was very vocal about her hatred and mistrust of the French. And that's in addition to the whole, Napoleon and his armies caused my whole family to need to go into temporary exile thing.

9:48On January 2nd, unaware of the conversations that were happening almost simultaneously, In Napoleon's private rooms, Marie-Louise wrote to a friend, quote, Since Napoleon's divorce, I continue to open the Gazette de Frankfurt in the hope of finding an announcement of his new bride. I must admit that this delay has given me much cause for worry. She also wrote, I pity the poor princess whom he'll choose. Still, she knew what her place was, and she continued in the letter stating, If misfortune so wishes it, I am prepared to sacrifice my own happiness for the good of the state. Marie-Louise had known for her entire life that she was raised for a diplomatic marriage.

10:41Her parents had her learn multiple languages in order to broaden her marriage prospects. She spoke her native German, but also French, English, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. And in order to preserve the all-important purity of a young lady, Marie-Louise had had almost no contact with men outside of her family. Even her pet rabbit was required to be female. On March 9, 1810, the marriage contract was signed. A few days later, she set out for Austria. If you're a longtime listener of the show, or maybe I should say a very, very longtime listener of the show, you might recall in our very first episode when I discussed the ceremony Marie Antoinette underwent at the border between Austria and France, in which she was required to strip out of all of her Austrian clothes and then get dressed again in things that were entirely French.

11:48Now, 40 years later, Marie-Louise went through those exact same steps again. The girl, still young, was already quite tall. A contemporary described her, fairly harshly, I might add, as, quote, quote, not beautiful. Neither her will nor her desires are expressed in her eyes, which are a very bright blue framed by fine blonde hair. She has a curvaceous figure and is slightly taller than average. She was, in case you were wondering, a few inches taller than her husband, Napoleon, who was not unusually short for the time at about five foot seven, but Marie-Louise was approximately five foot nine.

12:38The emperor was very eager to meet his new bride. Though there was an elaborate first meeting and reception planned for them, Napoleon became impatient and instead rode out to meet Marie-Louise and her carriage at Compiègne, which was meant to be a staging post stop. The couple had already been married by proxy, but the plan was that the two would sleep separately until their elaborate religious wedding ceremony planned in Paris. Alas, not for Napoleon. Upon seeing Marie-Louise, he declared that she was much better looking than her portraits, and they spent that very night together. It seems as though they both shared a pleasant reversal of low expectations.

13:29Marie-Louise, too, thought Napoleon better looking in person than his portraits. Almost certainly, one can imagine that there was something infectious about his passion and power. Soon after arriving in France, Marie-Louise wrote to her family, assuring them that things actually weren't that bad. She wrote, quote, I find that he improves a lot on closer acquaintance. There is something attractive and polite about him which is impossible to resist. I am convinced that I will be able to live with him quite happily. On April 2nd, Napoleon and Marie-Louise were married in the chapel at the Louvre.

14:11He was 40, she was 18, wearing the fur-lined cloak and iron crown, which Josephine had worn just five years earlier. She was now the Empress of France, wife to Napoleon, and, hopefully for all involved, the mother to his heir. After all, that was the entire point. To Marie-Louise's surprise and delight, in contrast to Napoleon's ogre-like reputation, he was a considerate and doting husband. He secretly arranged for her favorite furniture, which she hadn't been able to bring with her from Vienna, to be transported to Paris for her, which must have felt very welcoming for a teenage girl arriving alone in a foreign country without her family.

15:06And furthering the Marie Antoinette comparisons, back when Marie Antoinette was queen, she had a small, picturesque false village at the Petit Trianon with artificial mountains and streams and a miniature farm, dairy, and water mill. Napoleon had it restored for his new wife, and Marie Louise loved it, writing to her father that it reminded her of the palace she had spent her childhood at. Napoleon seemed to adore Marie Louise. He called her Louise and apparently would frequently kiss her, saying her name over and over again in delight. She may not have been the formidable, challenging partner or lover that Josephine was, but she was, at least to my eyes, beautiful, well-mannered, well-educated, and an incredibly sheltered young woman for Napoleon to dote on.

16:05And how could she not enjoy, at least to some degree, the very fact of the most formidable man in Europe doting on her? Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before Marie Louise was pregnant, and the birth itself would prove a testament to Napoleon's devotion. When the baby was finally coming, it was facing the wrong way, and the doctor called for forceps. Napoleon was sitting next to Marie-Louise, holding her hand so tightly his knuckles turned white. The doctor whispered that they might be required to either sacrifice the mother or child in order to save the other. Save the mother! Think only of her and devote all your efforts to her, Napoleon shouted.

16:51For God's sake, treat her like a common townswomen of the Rue Saint-Denis! Fortunately, it did not come to that. On March 2nd, 1811, about a year after Marie Louise and Napoleon were married, their son, Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph Bonaparte, was born, immediately styled King of Rome. Napoleon was overjoyed. His remarriage had officially been a success, and he doted on his new son the way he did his wife. One moment I find particularly charming is a story that Napoleon would take their son through the gardens in a little carriage drawn by goats. But the perfect family scenes of domesticity would only last for so long.

17:44In 1812, Napoleon would embark on a disastrous campaign in Russia, which would change the course of French history, leaving Marie-Louise stranded and lost, empress in an enemy country. The last time Marie-Louise ever saw her husband was January 1814. The previous autumn, Napoleon had entered Moscow in what would turn out to be a military disaster. Thanks to a horrific Russian winter and unexpected guerrilla attacks, More than half of Napoleon's Grand Army was destroyed. Marie-Louise had been left in France as regent, although not one making any real political decisions. With France so weakened, Prussia joined Russia and the UK in declaring war.

18:39Austria, for the time being, did not join in the fighting, but that diplomatic abstention would be short-lived. Napoleon lost at the Battle of Leipzig. The Sixth Coalition came together to defeat Napoleon. They hoped for good. In the middle of the night on January 25th, Napoleon rode off to try to fight the Allied forces invading France. The invaders were getting closer and closer to Paris, while Marie-Louise waited in the capital with their son and without her husband. Marie-Louise spent the early part of that year terrified and anxious. She and Napoleon wrote to each other every day, and she also received word from her father in Austria, letters with an ominous, condescending tone.

19:31Napoleon advised his wife to remain cheerful with the servants in their household, never mentioning war, but still, she knew what was coming. The young king of Rome would be running around the garden, declaring that he wanted daddy's troops to defeat granddaddy's troops. Finally, at the end of March, the moment Marie Louise had been dreading came. Napoleon's brother arrived to tell the empress that a siege was imminent. She had to stay in Paris. Of course, she had to stay. She could confront the Austrian forces, her father's forces. They wouldn't dare take her or her son. Meanwhile, other French aristocrats were already fleeing for the countryside.

20:18Should Marie-Louise take the little king of Rome and join them? The Regency Council debated the matter back and forth, but ultimately it was Napoleon who made the final decision. Joseph Bonaparte pulled out a letter he had received from the emperor that said, Never leave the Empress or King of Rome in the hands of the enemy. He instructed that Marie-Louise and the son should be sent away, along with prominent dignitaries and counselors. And then he added, Do not leave my son. Remember that I prefer to know him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemy of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner of the Greeks, has always seemed to me the saddest in history.

21:06Despite Marie Louise's instincts, she knew she had no choice but to obey her husband. The council took a vote after the letter was read, and fleeing won out. And so Marie Louise, the king of Rome and court, fled the city the day before the Allied forces invaded Paris. To her utter shock, her home country, Austria, the kingdom of her father, had taken Paris and dethroned her husband, Napoleon, the man her father had made her marry in the first place. When she heard of Napoleon's abdication, she was dismayed. My father will not stand for this. He has repeatedly told me over 20 times that he has put me on the throne of France and that he would keep me there forever, and my father is a good man.

21:59With Marie-Louise off in the countryside and her finances growing thin, many of her staff members muttered about missing wages and began to flee themselves. Meanwhile, the leaders of Europe were determining what should be done with Napoleon. The only one who considered that Marie-Louise should be by his side seemed to be Marie-Louise. In all the chaos, she finally received a letter from Napoleon, written so quickly he didn't even sign it. Quote, I am waiting while matters are arranged with the Allies. Russia desires that I am granted the sovereignty of Elba and that I stay there, and that you are granted Tuscany for your son after you, which will enable you to spend as much time with me as will not bore you or adversely affect your health.

22:50End quote. Marie-Louise was 22 years old at this point, and she was determined to join her husband in his exile on Elba. As long as I breathe, I shall stand by Napoleon, she declared. but the forces moving the world now had put her beyond her depth. Her father was the enemy of France, and when Marie-Louise wrote him, begging to see him in person and figure the situation out, her father wrote back simply, Unfortunately, I cannot give you the comfort you seek, however much I might want to. Everything has been concluded between your husband and the Allies. I can only assure you, no matter what happens, I will always love you as a tender father, and your child, and also your husband, for he has made you, as his wife, happy.

23:43If you need a refuge, take your people with you to my home." At this point, the stress was beginning to affect Marie Louise physically. According to Deborah Jay's book, Napoleon's Other Wife, she was suffering headaches, fevers, and she was spitting blood. There was nothing to do except wait to see where the men in charge of various European countries would put her. In the end, she did not get Tuscany. The Allies in the Abdication Agreement granted her the duchies of Parma, Piancheza, and Gustatella. There, at least, would be a stable and pretty place to live, somewhere too past the time, when she wasn't, of course, with her husband on Elba.

24:34Despite Marie-Louise's determination to get to Elba to be with Napoleon, it seems that her father and the men around him had already made a silent agreement to try to untie her from Napoleon as best they could. Marie-Louise no doubt felt the uncanny sensation of other people talking about you and making arrangements on your behalf without her knowledge. Letters from Napoleon didn't contain any plans for the two to finally meet up again. Instead, Napoleon just instructed his wife that she should wait to hear from her father. Marie-Louise planned to finally meet the Austrian emperor in person at the Palace of Rambouillet.

25:22From there, it was essentially over. The meeting with her father at Rambouillet, she must have slowly realized, was a trap. Her servants disappeared, replaced by Cossacks. Marie-Louise wrote to Napoleon, An order has been given to restrain me, by force if necessary, from joining you. Take care, my dear friend, for they are deceiving us, and I am terrified to death for you. She left for Vienna on April 23rd in a miserable haze of confusion and powerlessness. She was assured she and her son would be welcomed back in Austria as members of the family. It's not as though you can call an oopsies or a mulligan on a royal marriage, but it seems like the emperor of Austria was hoping to give it a try.

26:17The king of Rome, though the Austrian emperor's grandson, was also essentially a hostage, though the Austrian emperor seemed to adore the young boy whom he had just met for the first time. Heartbreakingly for Marie-Louise, her husband had not been writing to her. She continued to write, carefully numbering each letter, unsure whether or not her letters were reaching Napoleon at all, while she was living among Viennese court, a strange refugee in her own homeland, having to turn a blind eye to all of the snickering and gossip about Napoleon's demise. Especially painful were the rumors about how Napoleon pined for Josephine.

27:04That bit of gossip would continue even after Josephine's death, with various courtiers whispering into Marie-Louise's ear about how heartbroken her husband was over his first wife, slowly weakening the steely resolve Marie-Louise had had earlier to come join her husband in exile come hell or high water. Marie-Louise wrote, I am in a very unhappy and critical position. I must be very prudent in my conduct. There are moments when that thought so distracts me that I think the best thing I could do would be to die. Marie-Louise, still weak, ill, and losing weight, needed some time to recover, and she was going to take a trip to the thermal baths at Ex.

27:57It was also a chance to escape the claustrophobic prison that Vienna had become. Her father convinced her it was imprudent to travel with the young King of Rome, for the sake of economy, of course, and he would, conveniently, remain back in Vienna. Her father made another strategic chess move, assigning as her escort the dashing Comte de Nieperg. He was adept at sympathizing with Marie-Louise and seemingly sharing her admiration for her husband. The Count acted like he supported her plan to escape to Elba to be with Napoleon, when really the Count was under orders from Vienna to make sure that she did not go.

28:45When a messenger came with a secret letter from Napoleon telling her to leave for Genoa where a ship would be waiting for her, Marie-Louise asked for Count Neberg's advice. He, wouldn't you know it, wrote to Emperor Francis of Austria who had the messenger arrested. There were also orders in place by the Austrian, Russian, and French police to arrest Marie-Louise should she try to escape to Elba. The Count advised Marie-Louise to write to her father and assure him that she had never actually intended on following through with the plan to join Napoleon, for the sake of preserving her duchies, her tenuous financial future, and any hope of stability, especially for the sake of her son.

29:36Marie-Louise remained wracked with guilt and shame. She replayed the moment of Paris' invasion and wished she had stuck to her initial impulse of standing in Paris as the daughter of the Austrian emperor to stay strong and try to protect the city. After X, she returned to Vienna, where she and her son were treated alternately as circus attractions or spies, outcasts or objects of curiosity and ridicule. Rumors about Napoleon were largely about how much he preferred the company of Josephine and his mistress as opposed to his wife. Though Marie-Louise would never divorce her husband, it's around this time that most accounts suggest that she began to fall in love with Count Neperg.

30:30Perhaps her father's assignment of the dashing count as her escort had been multi-purposed. When Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815 to return to France for a brief but triumphant stint as emperor, before his ultimate defeat at Waterloo, Marie-Louise did not attempt to rejoin him. She wrote through an intermediary, I hope he will understand the misery of my position. I shall never assent to a divorce, but I flatter myself that he will not oppose an amicable separation, and that he will not bear any ill feeling towards me. The separation has become imperative. It will in no way affect the feelings of esteem and gratitude that I preserve.

31:21History tends to paint Marie Louise as disloyal and flighty. Easily seduced is one phrase that I came across. And yet, with someone like Count Neperg, frequently portrayed as the handsome lover she wantonly cast Napoleon aside for, It reads to me as though this was a desperate and lonely, confused young woman, finding comfort in the arms of the nearest authority figure it seemed as though she could rely on. She's someone that I have sympathy for, an incredibly sheltered young woman, kept pristine as a specimen in a jar, away from all men, even male pets growing up, just waiting to be deployed as a diplomatic bride.

32:10And like her great-aunt Marie Antoinette, she suffered for the bad luck of being married to a French leader at the wrong moment. Marie Antoinette's punishment was death. Marie Louise's sentence was irrelevance and humiliation. As Deborah Jay wrote in her book, Marie Louise would be, quote, rootless, a fugitive and exile, isolated physically, mentally, and emotionally, end quote. At least she would no longer be required to marry as a political pawn. Marie Louise had two children with Neppurg out of wedlock, and after Napoleon died on St. Helena on May 5th, 1821, Marie-Louise finally married Nepperk a month later.

33:00It was a more gnatic marriage, meaning that since he was of significantly lower rank, neither he nor his children would benefit from any of Marie-Louise's titles. Marie-Louise would outlive her second husband as well, and after he died, she would marry again, also more gnatically, this time to a French immigré who had fought with the Austrians, serving as her grand chamberlain. Marie Louise lived for over 50 years, and fewer than five of them were at Napoleon's side. And yet, of course, he is the great event of her life, the high drama of being married to a recent enemy, learning to find her husband amiable and loving, bearing him a son, then separating from him forever, too easily overpowered by the winds of war and diplomacy.

33:57In her notebook, Marie-Louise wrote, Love is a chapter in a man's life, the whole story for a woman, end quote. Perhaps she was all too aware of how her story would be told in history. It's worth noting, at the end of Jay's book, she points out what a tremendous impact Marie-Louise had in later life in her humble duchy of Parma, creating schools for boys and girls, schools for the deaf, libraries, colleges, and museums, hospitals, and orphanages, a vast number of public works. She may not have been as charming as Josephine. She was not a woman who awed historians with moments of independence or dramatic bravery.