Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

EMPRESS MARIE-LOUISE
The confirmation in 1809 that Napoleon’s Polish mistress,
Countess Marie Walewska, was pregnant, supplied the impetus
for his decision to divorce Josephine, who had been unable to
give him a child. Despite his deep affection for her, the need to
found a dynasty was paramount to his ambitions, and in the
choice of a new consort an Imperial alliance was a prerequisite.
An alliance with Austria was regarded as desirable for France,
who needed an ally against England. Josephine retired to
Malmaison (where she died in 1814), while Napoleon was now
betrothed to Princess Marie-Louise, the eldest daughter of
Habsburg Emperor Franz II (Franz I of Austria) and great-niece
of Marie-Antoinette who had been executed in Revolutionary
Paris in 1793. Having been raised to fear the French Emperor as
her country’s greatest enemy, Marie-Louise was horrified when
informed of the nuptial arrangement; however, she could not
foresee the seductive power of Napoleon’s charm with women,
and her marriage was to be a relatively happy one.
This second marriage gave Napoleon his longed-for heir, Napoleon II
(first titled the King of Rome, later the Duke of Reichstadt),
who was born on 20 March 1811. The union, however, was doomed
by unfolding political events, which within three years saw
Napoleon defeated by a new alliance of powers, including Austria,
and banished to Elba. Marie-Louise subsequently returned to
Vienna and by the time of Napoleon’s final defeat and exile
to St Helena in 1815, was completely estranged from him.
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