The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-09-05
MEMOIRS OF MARIE LOUISE.
The First Meeting of the Great Napoleon
and His Young Austrian Bride.

and His Young Austrian Bride.
A fresh historical study in the form of Me-
mors of the Empress Marie Louise. Napoleons
second wife, has just been published The mar
rative combines truthful history with the charm
of romance, and presents most interesting
picture of the courts of France and Austria dur
ing the periods of the First Emperors glory
Caroline Bauer's memoirs enlisted our pity for
the victim of a royal debauchee; Marie Louses
history inspires rather dislike and contempt
for woman who, having protested love for the
Emperor when powerful abandoned him when
he became helpless captive. But it must be
remembered that her marriage was a. political
one. undertaken at the wish of her father the
Archduke Francis. Even as she left the
cradle she had been taught that France
was the hereditary enemy, the hated
and unrelentlng foe of Austria, her coun-
try When she yet a child Napoleon
was made to appear to her in distant horizon
as a fatal spirit, evil demon. when in her
childhood Marie Louise played with her little
brothers and sisters. soldiers were her favorite
toys The ugliest blacklist and most repulsive
of them was christened Bonaparte, who was
stuck all over with pins. and had maledictions
heaped on his wooden head" When Marie
Louise was coming to a manageable age Aus
tria, already mutilated and paralyzed, was
threatened by graver danger-the marriage of
Napoleon, recently divorced from Josephine,
with sister of the Gar Caught and held fast
between two gigantic empires, the empire of the
East and the West what would become of Aus
tria9 Was it absolutely impossible for the court
of Vienna to bring about matrimonial union
such as that of which Russia was thinking2 In
the result it proved it was by means impossi-
ble Napoleon was prepared to bestow himself
upon Marie Louise insteaI of the Cars sister,
"Marie gave her assent with resignation rather
than with pleasure. Metternich relates in his
memoirs how he said to the Emperor Francis:
Sire. in the existence of states as in the lives of
private individuals, there are cases in which
third person could not put himself in the place of
one who has to take a resolution. These cases
are most particularly those whose calculation
alone can not bring about a resolution. Your
Majesty is sovereign and a father to your
Majesty alone belongs the right to consult your
duties as father and Emperor I leave the de-
cision to my daughter replied Francis H. as I
will never do her violence. | wish before taking
into consideration my duties as a sovereign to
ascertain what she intends to do. Go and find
the Archduchess and then come and tell me what
she has said to you. do not wish to tell her
myself of the request made by the Emperor of
the French, so,that may not appear to be infu-
encing her resolution
IN. De Metternich went at once to the Arch
duchess Marie Louise and simply without any
specious or roundabout phrases, unfolded the
matter to her, without saying anything for or
against the request, essentially his own. The
Archduchess heard with her habitual calm and
after moments reflection asked him What
does my father wishP The Emperor replied
the minister, has charged me to ask your I'm
perial Highress what your wishes are in mat
existence
DO not ask me what the Emperor wishes tell
me what you yourself wish? I only wish what
my duty commands ME to WISH replied Marie
Louise. When the interests of the empire are
at stake, they, and not my wish, must be con-
suited. Beg my father to fulfill his duty as a
sovereign, and not to subordinate it to my per-
sonal interest When M. De Metternich in
formed Francis II of the result of his interview
the sovereign expressed himself in these terms:
What you tell me does not surprise me. I
ZVnnxr ETTan RI hoy kn1
any other reply"
The marriage by procuration took place on
March IL 1910, and the next day Marie Louise
left Vienna to wend her way to the side of her
husband in France: "Marie Louise when she
left Vienna, undoubtedly thought that she
would never see it again. Nevertheless, she was
destined to return there very quickly. and her
return was to bear very little resemblance to her
departure. The Viennese were to see her again
In four years. but under what different crcum-
stances How cruelty did results disappoint the
hopes of peace and happiness to which her mar
riage gave rise! What an awakening after so
sweet dream! How quickly the rainbow
destined to disappear from the sky, and how
soon was the too-sudden bliss to give way to
clouds and storms The hatred of the Austrians
for Napoleon, SO admired by them in the year
1910, was to revive bitterly as in the
days of Austerlitz and Wagram. They would
no longer cheer Marie Louise. They would con-
tent themselves with blaming her. Her father
himself would no longer regard her as SOW
ereign. There will be fetes again in Vienna, but
they will not be for her, the dethroned sovereign
One day her curiosity will lead her to- but it
will be in secret behind the curtain On the
evening of state bali. given by her father in
honor of the members of the Congress of Wen
ma, she will hide herself near an opening made
in the attic or the great drawing-room of the pal
ace, the same room where in honor of her mar
riage such magnificent fetes have been ceebrat-
ed, aud from that spot the wife of the prisoner
of the island of Elba will witness the dancing
of the men who condemned her to be the living
widow OF her husband"
The impotence of the Emperor to meet his
| young bride is we'll told:
AT noon the Emperor received letter in
which Marie Louise announced to him that,
Fastening her journey, she was leaving Vitry 10
/ Francois that morning for Los Saissons. When
this letter reached him, Napoleon was walking
UP and down in the park as ii to Get rid of the
! WEAKNESS of waiting which seemed to him to