Austrian-French royalty, Archduchess of Austria who later became empress of the French as the second wife of the emperor Napoleon I. Later, she was duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, 1816-47.
A member of the House of Habsburg, Marie-Louise was the eldest daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Francis II and Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily. She was the niece of Marie-Antoinette, queen of France. Napoleon was looking for a wife with royal blood, having decided to dissolve his childless marriage to Joséphine when the Austrian statesman, Klemens von Metternich, apparently suggested Marie-Louise. The marriage was arranged in February 1810, and on 4/01/1810, they were married in a ceremony in Paris. On 3/20/1811, she gave birth to his son, Napoleon II, the long-awaited heir to the throne, the king of Rome and the future Duke von Reichstadt.
After Napoleon’s first abdication on 4/11/1814, she and her son returned to Vienna, Austria and ignored entreaties to join him in exile in Elba. Their estrangement became permanent when he threatened to abduct her forcibly. She was awarded duchies at the Congress of Vienna, and ruled ineptly from Parma. In 1831, she was forced to take refuge with the Austrian garrison in Piacenza due to a rebellion, but was soon restored to power.
Following Napoleon’s death, she entered into a morganatic marriage with Adam Adalbert, Count von Neipperg, in September 1821. He had been her lover for quite some time, and she had already borne him two children. She visited the dying Duke von Reichstadt in Vienna in 1832, and then in February 1934, she contracted a second morganatic marriage, with Charles René, Count de Bombelles. Marie-Louise died in Parma and was buried in the Capuchin Church in Vienna.
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