Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey Listener discretion advised. If 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 nineteenth 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 raised is a crown high in anticipation of lowering it onto Josephine's head, whose kneeling at the center of the canvas is on display currently at the Louver, aweing visitors with its massive size, almost thirty three feet wide and more than twenty feet tall. Quite literally, Josephine and Napoleon loom large, but Napoleon did not end his life married to Josephine, though the two
were married for almost fourteen years. When Josephine reached her mid forties and the two had still not produced an air, 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. In 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. But 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 Danish schwartz and this is noble blood. On January twenty first, eighteen ten, 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 Sar Alexander the First 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 Mary Napoleon, Russia would require that each palace had a Russian Orthodox Church, and that France would allow free practice of Russian Orthodoxy. There was also the slight issue that Anna was only fifteen at this time, and though that was certainly considered a marriageable age, the entire purpose of this marriage was begetting an air 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 that two countries waged against each other. Back then, Marie Antoinette had married the future King Louis the sixteenth and you don't need me to remind you that that didn't end well for her.
In fact, this very meeting that Napoleon and his men were having just happened to be on the anniversary of King Louis the sixteenths 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 eighteen oh five, the Austrian royal family had even been temporarily forced into exile. But bygones were bygones, and given the circumstances the countries needed to cooperate, Austria 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 eighteen years old, was not thrilled about the situation herself. Growing up, she had referred to Napoleon in letters as the Antichrist and Crampus, 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. On January twod, unaware of the conversation 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 Frankfort 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. Her parents had her learn
multiple languages in order to broaden her marriage prospects. She spoke her native German, but also French, English, Italian 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 ninth, eighteen ten, the marriage contract was signed. A few days later, she
set out for Austria. If you are a long time listener of the show, or maybe I should say a very very long time 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 was required to strip out of all of her Austrian clothes and then get dressed again in things that were entirely French. Now forty 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 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 cravaceous figure and a 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. The 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 Compien, 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. Marie 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 second, Napoleon and Marie Louise were married in the chapel at the Louver. He was forty, she was eighteen, 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 ogerlike reputation, he was a considerate
and doting husband. He secretly arranged for her favorite friend 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, and furthering the Marie Antoinette comparisons. Back when Marie Antoinette was queen, she had a small, picturesque false village at the Petitrenon, with artificial mountains and streams and a miniature farm, dairy,
and watermill. 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. And 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, for God's sake, treat her like a common townswoman of the Rue Saint Denis. Fortunately it did not come to that. On March second, eighteen eleven, 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 doated 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. In eighteen twelve, 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 eighteen fourteen. 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 gorilla 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. Austria 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 twenty fifth, Napoleon rode off to try to fight the Allied forces invading France. The invaders were getting closer and closer to Paris, while Marie Louise waded 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. Napoleon 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. Should 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 Buonaparte 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 Astianax, prisoner of the Greeks, has always seemed to me the saddest in history. Despite 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 one 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 twenty 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. With 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. End quote. Verrie Louise was twenty two 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 this 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. If you need a refuge, take your people with you to my home. End quote. At this point, the stress was beginning to affect Marie Louise physically. According to Debor 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, Pianceza and Gusta Tella. There at least would be a stable and pretty place to live, somewhere to pass the time when she wasn't, of course, with her
husband on Elba. Despite 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 Ramboulay. From there, it was essentially over. The meeting with her father at Ramboulay, 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 for Vienna. On April twenty third, 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 oopsie's or a mulligan on a royal marriage, but it seems like the Emperor of Austria was hoping to give it a try. The 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. That 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 x It 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 dinneypurg 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. When a messenger came with a secret letter from Napoleon telling her to leave for Genoa, where a sho would be waiting for her, Marie Louise asked for Count Nepberg'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. Marie Louise remained
racked with guilt and shame. She replayed the moment of Paris's 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 Nepperg. Perhaps her father's assignment of the
dashing count as her escort had been multi purposed. When Napoleon escaped from Elba in eighteen fifteen 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 him. She wrote through an intermediary, I hope you will understand the misery of my position. I shall never assent to a divorce, but I flatter myself that he will not oppose inamicable 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. History tends
to paint Marie Louise as disloyal and flighty. Easily seduced is one phrase that I came across, and yet with someone like Count Nepperg frequently portrayed as the handsome lover, she wantonly cast a Napoleon aside for and 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. And 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 Deborgey 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 nepberg out of wedlock, and after Napoleon died on Saint Helena on May fifth, eighteen twenty one, Marie Louise finally married Nepberk a month later.
It was a Morganatic 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 morganatically, this time to a French immigree who had fought with the Austrians, serving as
her grand chamberlain. Marie Louise lived for over fifty 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 to too easily overpowered by the winds of war and diplomacy. In her notebook, Marie Louise wrote, love is a chapter in a man's life, the whole story for a woman.
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. But perhaps it's enough just to simply say she did the best she could in a situation far beyond her control. That's the story of Marie Louise. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear what happened to Napoleon's son. After Marie Louise and her son, the King of Rome, returned to Austria. Her son would be kept there sort of as family, but also sort of as a hostage.
After Napoleon's defeat, the small child was no longer the King of Rome, and he would ultimately be restyled as the Duke of Reichstadt, living in Vienna, where he was known as Franz. His grandfather, the Emperor of Austria, loved him, but most Austrians in power fundamentally distrusted him. How could they not. He was Napoleon's son and rightful heir, after all. At any moment, one of Napoleon's many loyalists might smuggle him back into France, where he might reclaim the empire
and wreck havoc all over Europe. The way his father did, and yet the efforts to defrancify the boy and turn him against Napoleon backfired. He was resentful at the suspicious and dismissive way he was treated, and began to identify
himself not as Frands but as Napoleon the Second. It infuriated him that his mother had produced two children out of wedlock before Napoleon died, and he once commented to a friend, if Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have been buried at Saint Helena, and I should not be at Vienna. My mother is kind but weak. She was not the wife my father deserved. That's the kind of melodramatic statement you might expect from any angsty
teenager romanticizing the lost father he never knew. Might Napoleon the Second have shared his father's brilliance and political acumen. Sadly we will never know. Still living in Vienna, Napoleon the Second, Napoleon's only legitimate air, died of tuberculosis when he was just twenty one. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski,
and me Dana Schwartz. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin, with supervising producerrima Ill Kali and executive producers Eron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.