The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

The Happy Days of the Empress
Marie Louise [with accents]

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Marie Louise
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Title: The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise
Author: Imbert De Saint-Amand
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THE HAPPY DAYS
OF
THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE
BY
IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND
TRANSLATED BY THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY
ILLUSTRATED

CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. EARLY YEARS
II. 1809
III. THE PRELIMINARIES OP THE WEDDING
IV. THE BETROTHAL
V. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY
VI. THE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY

VII. THE WEDDING AT VIENNA
VIII. THE DEPARTURE
IX. THE TRANSFER
X. THE JOURNEY
XI. COMPIÈGNE
XII. THE CIVIL WEDDING
XIII. THE ENTRANCE INTO PARIS
XIV. THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONY
XV. THE HONEYMOON
XVI. THE TRIP IN THE NORTH
XVII. THE MONTH OF JUNE, 1810
XVIII. THE BALL AT THE AUSTRIAN EMBASSY
XIX. THE BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME
XX. THE RECOVERY
XXI. THE BAPTISM
XXII. SAINT CLOUD AND TRIANON
XXIII. THE TRIP TO HOLLAND
XXIV. NAPOLEON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER
XXV. MARIE LOUISE IN 1812
XXVI. THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD

XXVII. DRESDEN
XXVIII. PRAGUE

THE HAPPY DAYS
OF
THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE
INTRODUCTION.
In 1814, while Napoleon was banished in the island of Elba, the
Empress Marie Louise and her grandmother, Marie Caroline, Queen of
Naples, happened to meet at Vienna. The one, who had been deprived
of the French crown, was seeking to be put in possession of her new
realm, the Duchy of Parma; the other, who had fled from Sicily to
escape the yoke of her pretended protectors, the English, had come to
demand the restitution of her kingdom of Naples, where Murat
continued to rule with the connivance of Austria. This Queen, Marie
Caroline, the daughter of the great Empress, Maria Theresa, and the
sister of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, had passed her life in
detestation of the French Revolution and of Napoleon, of whom she
had been one of the most eminent victims. Well, at the very moment
when the Austrian court was doing its best to make Marie Louise forget
that she was Napoleon's wife and to separate her from him forever,
Marie Caroline was pained to see her granddaughter lend too ready an
ear to their suggestions. She said to the Baron de Méneval, who had
accompanied Marie Louise to Vienna: "I have had, in my time, very
good cause for complaining of your Emperor; he has persecuted me and
wounded my pride,--I was then at least fifteen years old,--but now I
remember only one thing,--that he is unfortunate." Then she went on to
say that if they tried to keep husband and wife apart, Marie Louise
would have to tie her bedclothes to her window and run away in
disguise. "That," she exclaimed, "that's what I should do in her place;
for when people are married, they are married for their whole life!"
If a woman like Queen Marie Caroline, a sister of Marie Antoinette, a
queen driven from her throne by Napoleon, could feel in this way, it is
easy to understand the severity with which those of the French who
were devoted to the Emperor, regarded the conduct of his ungrateful

wife. In the same way, Josephine, in spite of her occasionally frivolous
conduct, has retained her popularity, because she was tender, kind, and
devoted, even after she was divorced; while Marie Louise has been
criticised, because after loving, or saying that she loved, the mighty
Emperor, she deserted him when he was a prisoner. The contrast
between her conduct and that of the wife of King Jerome, the noble and
courageous Catherine of Wurtemberg,