Empress Marie Louise of the French by Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin after François Gérard, c. 1812, via Wikimedia Commons
Marie-Louise, Duchess of Parma (1791-1847) was the second wife of French Emperor Napoléon and mother of his only child. Her father was the Holy Roman Emperor, and he married Marie-Louise to Napoléon after the end of war between the two countries — Napoléon divorced his wife Joséphine as they hadn’t had any children. Marie-Louise became Empress of the French and Queen of Italy. The couple had one child (Napoléon II).
After Napoléon’s fall and eventual death, Marie-Louise was confirmed as Duchess of Parma (in modern Italy) but only for life (i.e., not a hereditary title). She remarried to an Austrian count (who she’d hooked up with before Napoléon’s death) and the two had four children; and then after his death, married another guy, who helped her out when there was an uprising in Parma.
Marie-Louise is often a footnote in productions about Napoléon, but nonetheless she’s been on screen a number of times. Sometimes it’s so small a role that I haven’t been able to track down any images, but here’s the ones I can find!
Note: Anna Mawn will play her in Napoleon (2023), but I haven’t yet been able to find any images of her in costume/from the film.
Suzanne Bianchetti in Madame Sans-Gêne (1925)
Paula Wessely in So Ended a Great Love (1934)
A German film focused on Napoléon and Marie-Louise’s marriage.
Madeleine Foujane in Let’s Go Up the Champs-Élysées (1938)
One of French director Sacha Guitry’s multi-episodic looks at French history.
Maria Schell in Napoléon (1955)
A biopic about the emperor.
Marianne Koch in Napoléon II, l’aiglon (1961)
A TV film about Marie-Louise’s son.
Susan Wooldridge in Napoleon and Love (1974)
Another TV film/miniseries focused on Napoléon’s many relationships.
Isabelle Gardien in Napoleon and Josephine: a Love Story (1987)
The shlocky miniseries!
Mavie Hörbiger in Napoléon (2002)
Y’know, another TV biopic.
Do you have a favorite Marie-Louise, Duchess of Parma?
And an uncredited role, played by Violet Rensing, in Marlon Brando’s 1954 “Desiree”. 7th from the bottom on the IMDb full cast list…
I looked for her but couldn’t find any pics!
Just a small correction: Napoleon had at least two acknowledge illegitimate children, one with Josephine’s lectrice and one with his beloved Polish mistress, Marie Walevska. The birth of the latter was what convinced him that he was not the sterile one in his marriage and that he had to divorce and remarry a younger, more fertile bride.
Indeed – Napoléon and Marie Walewska’s son, Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, was an open secret at first. After Napoléon’s death and during the Second Empire, Alexandre was a well received French diplomat. Alexandre apparently sounded exactly like Napoléon. One time, while Alexandre was giving a speech in Paris, naturally some veterans were in the crowd. One veteran burst into tears on hearing his voice. Alexandre asked to meet the veteran and the veteran explained: “I never thought I’d hear that voice again! You sound just like your father!”
And I think it’s important to note that while yes, Napoléon was made aware he wasn’t infertile, the War of the Fifth Coalition played a huge role in the necessity and urgency of Napoléon’s divorce. It’s often overlooked in that regard.
Random fact… Paula Wessely was Mavie Hörbiger´s great-aunt.
My favorite is Mavie Hörbiger, who I think was finally allotted some personality haha. Mavie Hörbiger is just beautiful as Marie-Louise. I don’t think any of them really were given that much room to breath as a character, though.
Also, slight note: your image from Napoleon and Love (1974) is interestingly from something else. I believe it’s Daniele Lebrun, but either way it’s from Joséphine ou la comédie des ambitions (1979). I can tell because in the foreground is Daniel Mesguich as Napoléon, the actor who had the most eerie resemblance to young Napoléon I’ve ever seen:
https://i.imgur.com/O5mPFb2.jpg
It’s a pity Marie Louise is just a spear carrier for Napoleon on celluloid. She led a very interesting and emotionally conflicted life. Married young to a man she’d been brought up to consider an orgre she seems to have been afraid of Napoleon, though gratefully recognizing his kindness to her. She went on to achieve an unusual degree of independence and happiness for a royal woman of the time, presented with her own little kingdom and able to choose men she wanted in her bed.
I just last night finished a book on her. Marie Louise’ biggest issue was going with the last advice she heard…she was talked out of joining Napoleon after his first exile and then, after having written him letters for two years of how she could not bear being away from him, pretty much forgot she ever knew him lol…the love of her life was her second husband the general…she had some children by him before Napoleon died. She married him secretly right afterward. The third husband was her advisor after the general died so she married him too lol. But she did a lot of charity and public works for Parma, her mini kingdom.
Ironically, although her son by Napoleon (actually a quite colourless youth of no particular talents as far as anybody knows, who died young of TB) is the only one of her descendants people bother about, it’s the eldest son of her eldest son with Count Neipperg who actually had a crucial impact on history.
He was the second Prince Montenuovo (a translation into Italian of the Count’s name) and became Obersthofmeister (Grand Master of the Court) to the Emperor Franz Josef. As such he was the arbiter of court ceremonial and etiquette, wehich obessed him. He hated Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife (possibly because his own grandparents’ marriage had been morganatic), and took every possible opportunity to humiliate her. When the couple were assassinated he persuaded Franz Josef that, as Franz Ferdinand had left very strict instructions in his will that they were to be buried together, it would be utterly improper to have a state funeral that included a non-Imperial wife, and ensured that their funeral and burial was carried out as shabbily and privately as possible.
Had there been a state funeral, the crowned heads of Europe, most of them close cousins, would all have as a matter of course have turned up and would have found themselves talking to each other; it would have been impossible for the politicians and generals to hijack the course of events and set their countries on the collision course that was the Great War.