Murat had urged on his brother-in-law and the grand dignitaries the fact that a marriage with a relative of Marie Antoinette, who was an abhorrence to the adherents of the Revolution, would alienate a large public, but Murat's objections were suspected of having personal colour and overruled. It is, however, beyond conjecture that the King of Naples had diagnosed aright; whether from self-interest or not, the warning proved accurate. The most loyal and devoted of his subjects felt that their invincible hero was drifting into a vortex of trouble. They had learned by bitter experience the duplicity of Austrian diplomacy. The remembrance of the cruel wars they had been cunningly trapped into, the bleached bones of Frenchmen that lay on Austrian soil, and the denuded homes that resulted from Austria's odious policy of greed, worked on them like a subtle poison. And the glory of their conquests over her was nullified by the eternal suspicion that she was ever hatching new grounds of quarrel. They thought, indeed, their premonition of Austria's perpetual treachery was clear and definite, and that the new Empress would be a useful medium of their enemies' machinations.
We can never fully estimate to what extent these impressions influenced their minds and actions and the part they played in hastening the great national humiliation. It is a pretty certain conclusion that it was only the colossal successes and magical personality of the Emperor that kept subdued the spirit of resentment which the marriage had caused.
And we have historic evidence before us which clearly shows that the well-balanced mind of Napoleon was torn and tattered between doubt and conviction, and he fell into the fatal error of allowing his judgment to be overruled either by circumstances or pride. Had he relied on his superstition even, the chances are that St. Helena would never have had the stigma of his captivity stamped upon it.
French and Austrian alliances have never, so far as they affected political history, been very successful. The stability of earthly things is governed, not by sentiment or theoretic doctrines, but by facts as hard as granite, and no one knew this more thoroughly than the man who fell a victim to the devices of the Austrians and their French allies.
He was usually reticent about his domestic sorrows while in exile, but when his thoughts were far off, reviewing the great mystery of human destiny, he broke the rule, and with a sort of languid frankness spoke the thoughts that crowded his mind, and it was during these spasmodic periods that he opened his soul by declaring that it was his "having married a princess of Austria that ruined him, and that his marriage with Marie Louise was the cause of the expedition into Russia," and that "he might not have been at St. Helena had he married a Frenchwoman." It is said that he seriously thought of doing this, and had some available ladies put before him with that object. These dreamy utterances reveal that his mind was centred on the causes of his misfortunes, and that he held definite views on the marriage tragedy, and perhaps his sense of pride, the interests of his son (the King of Rome), and the reluctance to admit that he knew he was going wrong at the time, constrained him to withhold much that he thought and knew. The impression we get is that he could not bring himself to utter the whole of the unutterable canker which haunted him.
It is strange that this keen-sighted man should have yielded up his own convictions and sunk under the admonitions of less capable judges. Even so far back as the Directory days, when Bernadotte was insulted at Vienna, he summed up the Austrian character in the following terms:—"When the Austrians think of making war, they do not insult; they cajole and flatter the enemy, so that they may have a better chance to stick a knife into him." He told the Directory they did not understand the Cabinet of Vienna; "it is the meanest and most perfidious to be found." "It will not make war with you because it cannot." "Peace with Austria is only a truce." His diagnoses were confirmed by Bernadotte, and more than confirmed in after years. The marvel is that he did not allow himself to benefit by his shrewd observations at a moment when so much depended on strength, not vacillation and weakness.
A vivid justification of the opposition to another Austrian princess sharing the throne of France is embodied in the lofty ideals (?) of the Emperor Francis to his daughter Marie Louise at Schönbrunn after she had deserted Napoleon. He said to her:—"As my daughter, all that I have is yours, even my blood and my life; as a sovereign, I do not know you."
The benediction, pure and big of heart, benignly expressed, is promptly qualified with kingly sternness; the orthodoxy being that so long as Napoleon was in power she was his daughter, all that he had was hers, including his life and blood, but now that he has fallen she must not thwart his wishes, and loyally share the fate of him who was the father of her son, who had given her unparalleled glory, and been so merciful to Francis himself. If she elected to be at all wifely and cling to her husband in his misfortune, then he would assert the sovereign, and as readily gore her as he would Napoleon if, in his patriarchal wisdom, he judged national interests were at stake. His spirit-crushing rhetoric had a real ultra-monarchical ring about it. But it was meant for other ears and a purpose other than that of making his daughter shudder. So far as she was concerned, he might have saved himself any anxiety on that score. She bowed her head in conformity, and swiftly cast her amorous eyes on Neipperg, a man after his and her own heart. This was the culminating event that brought her destiny with Napoleon to an end, though he tried to avert it, and the causes are summarised in his own pathetic language, clearly expressed from time to time.
His nephew, Napoleon III., taking a lesson from his folly, refused to be buffeted into political matrimony by any of the matchmaking factions. When his turn came he acted with independence and wisdom by ignoring the blandishments of meddling advisers and royal conventionalism, and elected to marry the lady on whom he had set his affections.
Incidentally, it may be stated that Napoleon III.'s merits have been overshadowed by the greater genius of his uncle, but as time separates the reigns of the two men it will be realised that, though he was not looked upon as a great military general, he had genius of a different kind, and was unquestionably a great ruler, acting under somewhat changed conditions, but subject to the same human caprices, and a time will come when the benefits he bestowed upon the French nation will be appreciated more than they are this day.