At 19, Marie Louise (Marie Louise of Habsburg-Lorraine) became Napoleon’s wife, at the Château de Saint-Cloud and, with a religious ceremony, in the Salon Carré of the Louvre, which had been converted into a chapel. Napoleon was actually excommunicated and officially a bigamist, as his divorce from Josephine of Beauharnais had not been ratified by Pius VII. The following year, Marie Louise gave birth to Napoleon’s only child: Napoleon Franz Charles Joseph. Marie Louise (sometimes spelled in French, sometimes in German, sometimes in Italian) secured a comfortable retirement with the Duchy of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, while her uncle Ferdinand III governed the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Francis IV, brother of Empress Maria Ludovica, Francis I’s third wife, Marie Louise’s stepmother, but above all her great friend, reigned in Modena. Ferdinand I, her grandfather, sat on the throne of Naples.
