THUS at the beginning of 1810 Napoleon found himself once more unmarried, and free to choose himself a new bride. There never was a choice so fraught with possibilities of disaster. It was not so much a matter of making the most advantageous selection, as of making the least dangerous. If he married a woman of inferior rank, all Europe would exultantly proclaim that it was because no royal family would admit him. If he married a princess of one of his subject kingdoms, Bavaria, Würtemberg or Saxony, the others would become instantly jealous. A Bourbon bride was obviously out of the question, seeing that he was keeping all three royal branches out of their patrimonies. Should he choose a Hohenzollern, then the countries which held territories which had once been Prussian would become justifiably uneasy. There only remained the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs, and a marriage with either would annoy the other. The best thing Napoleon could do was to ally himself with the more powerful, which was undoubtedly the royal house of Russia.
But here Napoleon met with an unexpected reverse. The Czar Alexander was at once a realist and an idealist, and he could not decide anything without months of cogitation. Moreover, the clever advisers round him foresaw that Napoleon’s demands of their country must increase unbearably, and they had no intention of tying their ruler’s hands in this fashion. Torn between his ministers’ advice and the urging of his old admiration for Napoleon, between his pride of race and his desire for a powerful alliance, Alexander temporized and then temporized again. He explained that all the Grand Duchesses were members of the Greek Church, and he had qualms about the necessary change of religion. He tried to show that they were all already affianced. He said, literally, that his mother would not allow him to act.
In the end, Napoleon, fearing a rebuff, and conscious that delay would weaken his position, abandoned the project and turned his attention to Austria. Alexander was naturally annoyed. 1812 may be said to have begun in 1810.
However, if a Grand Duchess were unavailable, an Archduchess would certainly bring Napoleon compensations. The House of Hapsburg-Lorraine was the most celebrated in Europe; it had supplied Holy Roman Emperors since the thirteenth century. After Napoleon and Alexander, Francis was easily the most powerful continental ruler, despite his recent defeats; Aspern and Wagram had just shown how delicately the balance was poised. But more than this; the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons had repeatedly intermarried; if there were anything that would convince the doubters that Napoleon was a real, permanent monarch, it would be his marriage with the niece of Louis XVI, the daughter of His Imperial, Royal and Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Duke of Styria, of Carinthia and of Carniola, erstwhile Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and titular King of Jerusalem.
The achievement would be deficient in some respects. Tyrol and Dalmatia no longer figured in the Emperor’s resounding list of titles—France ruled one and Bavaria the other, and Austria might easily demand restitution as the price of Marie Louise’s hand. The very name of the new Empress would remind people of Marie Antoinette, her ill-fated aunt, and a family alliance between Napoleon and the autocrat of autocrats might well give the coup de grâce to the moribund belief in Napoleon as the Apostle of the Revolution.
Be that as it may, Napoleon had already gone too far to draw back, and early in 1810 he prevailed on Francis I. to make a formal offer of his daughter’s hand.
They were an oddly contrasting couple. He was forty, she was eighteen. He was an Italian-Corsican-French hybrid of unknown ancestry, she was of the bluest blood in Christendom. He was the victorious leader of the new idea, she was the scion of a dying autocracy. Three times had Marie Louise fled with her family from the wrath of the French; all her life she had heard the man who was about to become her husband alluded to as the embodiment of evil, as the Corsican Ogre, as the Beast of the Apocalypse. They had never met, and she had certainly not the least idea as to what kind of a man he was. All things considered, it was as well that she had been trained all her life to accept her parents’ decision on her marriage without demur.
Her training had been what might have been expected of the etiquette-ridden, hidebound, conservative, dogmatic House of Hapsburg. She was familiar with every language of Europe, because it could not be foreseen whom she would eventually marry. Music, drawing, embroidery, all those accomplishments which permitted of surveillance and which did not encourage thought were hers. But she was proudest of the fact that she could move her ears without moving her face.
Every possible precaution that she would retain her valuable innocence had been taken. She had never been to a theatrical performance. She had never been allowed to own a male animal of any species; her principal pets were hen canaries. Her reading matter was closely scrutinized beforehand, and every single word which might possibly hint at difference of sex was cut out with scissors. It seems probable that she had spoken to no man other than her father and her uncles. One can hardly be surprised at reading that her mental power was small, after being stunted in its growth in this fashion for eighteen years.
Napoleon sent as his proxy to Vienna Berthier, his trusted chief of staff. One can find nowhere any statement that the Austrians were pleased to see their princess standing side by side with a general whose latest acquired title was Prince of Wagram.