princess? Cold reason says yes, for the marriage to Marie-Louise did not
prevent a war with Austria.
In these marriage negotiations in early r8ro Napoleon was at his most
gauche, posturing and aggressive. He was scarcely in keen diplomatic
fo rm at this juncture, for the marriage to Marie-Louise was a mistake on
many different fronts. To the French it seemed like the final abandon
ment of revolutionary principles, for what could be more blatant than
another Austrian marriage, so obviously recalling the hated, doomed and
much abused Marie-Antoinette? There was even a rumour that all who
had voted for the death of Louis XVI and his wife were to be exiled.
Meanwhile, Napoleon absurdly thought that a marriage with one of the
great ancien regime families would win him acceptance among Europe's
crowned heads and the old French oligarchy, so that his ambition of
integrating old and new elites in France would be fulfilled. In fact, by
casting Josephine aside, he alienated many of the old revolutionaries for
whom la Beauharnais was 'one of us', without conciliating any of the old
aristocrats or returned emigres.
Further, many in France gloomily prophesied that Napoleon had put
himself into a position where he could not win, since whichever power,
Austria or Russia, he failed to yoke himself to dynastically would surely
be at war with him within two years. He foolishly thought that Austria
would have to support him politically from now on, which would force
Russia into a league of three Emperors. Metternich, now Foreign
Minister, advised Emperor Francis to sacrifice his daughter to gain
Austria a breathing space but in a letter to his successor as Austrian
ambassador in Paris showed how his mind was really working: 'We must
continue to manoeuvre, to avoid all military action and to flatter ... until
the day of deliverance.'
Castlereagh remarked cynically that it was sometimes necessary to
sacrifice a virgin to the Minotaur. This perception of Napoleon as
monster was one the young Marie-Louise shared, and how could it have
been otherwise when almost from birth she had had vitriolic anti
Bonaparte propaganda dinned into her? But she was a dutiful young
woman, in awe of her father, who professed herself willing to make the
supreme effort of self-abnegation if it meant saving her country. In
personal if not diplomatic terms Napoleon had made a good choice, for
Marie-Louise was not unattractive, even though critics said her face was
high-coloured and that she looked a little coarse, with her popping eyes
and ugly Habsburg lip. In compensation, she was a tall blonde with a
good bust and a peach-blossom complexion. Moderately intelligent, she
painted landscapes and portraits in oil, read a lot (with a fondness for
marcin
(Marcin)
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