A Member of the House of Habsburg
Marie-Louise was born on December 12, 1791 in Vienna and Died December 17, 1847, Parma, Italy. She was an Australian Princess who became the second wife of the French emperor Napoleon I and later duchess of Parma.
Marie-Louise , a member of the House of Habsburg, was the eldest daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa of Naples-Sicily and niece of Mari-Antoinette, queen of France. Klemens von Metternich, the Australian statesman, seems to have suggested her to Napoleon, who was looking for a wife with royal blood and had already decided to dissolve his childless marriage with the empress Josephine. The match was arranged in February 1810. Marie-Louise was married to Napoleon at Paris on April 1-2. On March 20, 1811, she bore him the long-desired heir, the king of Rome and the future Napoleon II.
While Napoleon was campaigning in Russia, Marie-Louise served as regent for him in Paris. After his first abdication (signed at Fontainebleau, April11, 0814), however, she returned to Vienna with her son. The Treaty of Fontainebleau awarded her the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla with full sovereignty. She became completely estranged from Napoleon when he threatened to abduct her forcibly to Elba, where he was in exile.
In September 1821, soon after Napoleon’s death that May, Marie-Louise married Adam Adalbert, Graf von Neipperg, having already borne him two children. Together they governed the duchies more liberally than did most other princes in Italy, though some authorities suggest this resulted more from weakness of character than from policy. After Neipperg’s death, however, circumstances forced her to countenance the reactionary administration of her prime minister.
