The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

"But Count Metternich?"

"There is no difficulty about him."

"But the Emperor?"

"Or about him, either."

"And the Empress, who hates us?"

"You don't know her; she is ambitious, and could be persuaded."

M. de Sémonville started at once to report this curious conversation to his friend, the Duke of Bassano, who at once hastened to speak of it to the Emperor. Napoleon appeared pleased, but not astonished. He said that he had just heard the same thing from Vienna.

This is what had happened in the Austrian capital: the Count of Narbonne had been passing through before going to Munich, where he was to represent France as Minister Plenipotentiary. This amiable and distinguished man, of whom M. Villemain has written an excellent life, had succeeded in attracting Napoleon's favor, and after receiving an appointment as general in the French army, he had been made ambassador and one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp. M. de Narbonne, who was a model of refinement and bravery, had been one of the ornaments of the court of Versailles and of the Constituent Assembly. He had been a Knight of Honor of Madame Adelaide, the daughter of Louis XV.; Minister of War under Louis XVI., in 1792; a friend of Madame de Staël; an émigré in England, Switzerland, and Germany; and in 1809, thanks to Napoleon's good-will, he had once more resumed his military career, after an interruption of seventeen years. Towards the end of the campaign the Emperor had sent him as governor to Raab, to keep an eye on Hungary and Bohemia, and in case Austria should refuse to accept the conditions imposed by her conqueror, to proclaim the independence of those two countries. The peace once signed, General the Count of Narbonne went to Vienna, where he met two of his best friends,—the Prince of Ligne, who had been one of the favorites of Marie Antoinette, and the Count of Lamarck, who had been a confidant of Mirabeau. One day when he was dining with them, and Prince Metternich and a few other intimate friends, the conversation turned to politics. The Austrian Minister congratulated himself on the peace, which, he said, made the future sure, and cut short all danger of trouble and anarchy. The Prince of Ligne expressed similar views. Then M. de Narbonne spoke out somewhat as follows: "Gentlemen, I am surprised by your recent astonishment and your present confidence. Is it possible that you are too blind to see that every peace, easy or hard, is nothing more than a brief truce? that for a long time we are hastening to one conclusion, of which peace is but one of the stations? This conclusion is the subjugation of the whole of Europe under two mighty empires. You have seen the swift growth and progress of one of these empires since 1800. As to the other, it is not yet determined. It will be either Austria or Russia, according to the results of the Peace of Vienna; for this peace is a danger if it is not the foundation of a closer alliance, of a family alliance, and does not finally restore more than its beginning took away; in a word, you are ill advised if you hesitate in your leaning towards France."

The next morning the Count of Narbonne was summoned to the Emperor Francis II., and the Austrian monarch indicated the possibility of a marriage between Napoleon and the Archduchess Marie Louise. The Count of Narbonne approved, and eloquently expressed his conviction that such a happy result as confiding once more an Archduchess to France would at last decide Napoleon to remain at peace, instead of forever hazarding his glory, and to work for the welfare of the people in harmony with the wise and virtuous monarch whose adopted son he would become. M. de Narbonne sent a note of this conversation to Fouché, to be shown to the Emperor, who thus had knowledge of the secret plans of the Viennese court six weeks before the meeting over which he presided at the Tuileries, to ask his councillors their opinion on the choice of an Empress.

Since the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two powers, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris had been Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg, the warrior and statesman who later, as commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces, was to deal such heavy blows to France. In 1810 he was all for peace, and his sole aim was to undermine, for the good of his country, the influence of his Russian colleague, Prince Kourakine. The Austrian Ambassador was very anxious that the Archduchess Marie Louise should become Empress of the French; for he was convinced that such an event would be of as much benefit to him as to his country. Yet he was still afraid to hope for the realization of his dream, when one of his friends, Count Alexandra de Laborde—who, after serving as an émigré, in the Austrian army, had returned to France and been appointed Master of Requests in the Council of State, encouraged him in his ideas which might at first have seemed fanciful, M. de Laborde, whose father had been court-banker before the Revolution, and had most generously aided Marie Antoinette, was well known and much liked in Vienna. In this matter of the marriage of Marie Louise he was the secret agent between Napoleon's Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prince of Schwarzenberg, in whom he kindled so much zeal in behalf of the French alliance that the Ambassador, as we shall soon see, signed the marriage contract of the Archduchess with Napoleon, even before he had received the authorization of his government.