Napoleon Marie Louise Marriage1. Painting. Louvre.

Marie-Louise de Habsburg-Lorraine was born on 12 December, 1791, in Vienna. Her parents, Francis II, who succeeded his father, Leopold II, as Holy Roman Emperor on 1 March, 1792, and Maria Theresa of Naples were both related to Marie-Antoinette. Raised by her various governesses, she had a bourgeois but happy upbringing despite the difficulties imposed upon her after her family’s exile in 1805. This experience developed into a distinct aversion to France and a loathing of the one known as the “Corsican ogre”. Upon her marriage to Napoleon I, Marie-Louise became Empress, which she would remain for four years. Napoleon did not have to wait long for an heir: on 20 March, 1811, after a long and difficult labour, Marie-Louise gave birth to a son, who received the title of Roi de Rome. Nicknamed “the eaglet”, he was conferred to Madame de Montesquiou, who would become his governess. Marie-Louise’s life was governed by ceremony and etiquette. Josephine’s chambers in every one of the imperial palaces were refurbished for her, and strict protocol imprisoned the young lady in a golden cage. She fulfilled her representative role with diligence and conducted herself with dignity.