The Emperor's Mistress: A Woman of Influence - or Not?

Marie Łączyńska, Countess Walewska and later on Countess d'Ornano, painting by François Gérard

The Polish countess Marie Walewska (1786-1817) was one of the famous women of European history who earned her fame from becoming the mistress of a powerful man, in this case the Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) of France. Rumours had it that he had fathered one of her three sons, namely Alexandre. However, her aging husband, Athenasius, Count Colonna-Walewski, behaved like a true gentleman and acknowledged him as his child, thus ignoring the infidelity of his wife. 

 

One of Marie's sons, Alexandre Walewski, who most likely was fathered by The Emperor, Napoleon I 

 

 

The young Marie

Marie was a lovely, young girl of 18 when she married the count who at that time was 68. It was a marriage of convenience as the Mother of Marie found that she had to sacrifice her beautiful, young daughter to save the family from bankruptcy after some ill-judged political adventures of her by then deceased husband, the father of Marie and her six siblings. However, as we know that was neither the first nor the last one of that kind of marriages so Marie may not have found it to be an unexpected surprise. 

 

Greta Garbo and Charles Boyer in the most famous of the movies about the couple

In the romantic movies about Marie and Napoleon it looks like they are overcome with genuine love and passion, but in reality - or at least according to Marie's memoirs - she had to force herself to get intimate with The Emperor, andf I suppose it may have been the same with her husband. With her husband it was for her family, and with Napoleon it was for her native country, Poland:

"The sacrifice was complete. It was all about harvesting fruit now, achieving this one single equivalence [convincing Napoleon to support Polish independence movement], which could excuse my debased position. This was the thought that possessed me. Ruling over my will it did not allow me to fall under the weight of my bad consciousness and sadness." (Quote from Wikipedia)

Being in for the Polish cause wasn't easy for Marie when Napoleon decided to divorce his barren empress, Josephine, to marry the Habsburg princess, Marie Louise, the eldest daughter of Emperor Francis II of Austria. That means that no matter what her reasons were for the affair with the emperor she had ended up in a tight spot when he decided to divorce his wife, the Empress Josephine, to marry the Habsburg princess Marie Louise for dynastic reasons. Would he help his mistress in her Polish crusade or would he side with his new father-in-law, the Austrian emperor, Francis II?

Marie Louise, the second wife of Napoleon I, born a Habsburg princess 

Of course Napoleon chose the latter over the first one even though that meant that Marie's fight for her beloved Poland would get sacrificed. Even though Napoleon had to leave his Polish mistress he saw to it that her - and their son's - future was assured by the grant of large land estates in The Kingdom of Naples. The home life of Marie was turned upside down in 1812 when she divorced her old husband, the count, claiming that it had been forced upon her. Not only did she get her divorce, but she also got half of his estates. Four years later she married her long time lover, the handsome count Philippe Antoine d'Ornano.  

Philippe Antoine d'Ornano. After giving birth to his son, Rudolph Augustus, in 1817 she died from kidney failure.

To me it's obvious that the fate of this Polish noblewoman mirrors that of many other women both before and after her. They make the best of their situation as "merchandise" in the patriarchal society, and I doubt that they have been too surprised at being forced into marrying 50 years older men whom they didn't love. The new French empress, The Habsburg princess, Marie Louise, didn't chose Napoleon who was the enemy of her people and her father, but she too made it work. Hopefully she didn't suffer too much in her marriage, but I bet she just sacrificed herself to something she considered a "higher purpose" like Marie said she did .... 

 

 

http://www.walewski.eu/upload//File/Journal_de_Marie_Walewska_version_anglaise.pdf

 

 

Wikipedia