NAPOLEON AS A HUSBAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22006, 12 January 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

NAPOLEON AS A HUSBAND

LETTERS TO MARIE LOUISE Did Napoleon lore Marie Louise, his second wife, as much as he cared for Josephine? Up to recently there had been no two opinions on the subject. It had always been considered that the second marriage was purely one of convenience to enable Napoleon to have an heir to the throne. But the discovery of over 300 letters written by him to Marie Louise, all full of affection and kindliness, has reopened a question which is always of interest to students of the remarkable career of the " Man of Destiny." The letters all through reveal Napoleon as a kindly, considerate and indulgent, husband. It is remarkable that he found time to write so often, considering that after the birth of their child he was engaged in a series of wars'-that never stopped until he was exiled- Several times he wrote to her twice a day, on one occasion three times. They were written on battlefields, in wayside cottages at all hours of the day and night. When it is remembered that Mario Louise had been brought up to regard Napoleon as the most wicked man on earth and that he had more or less compelled her father, the Emperor of Austria, to give her to him in marriage, their mutual affection seems remarkable. • During the horr:>rs of the retreat, from Moscow, Napoleon continued to send .letters, always reassuring Mario Louise about his,,health, and telling her to be gay and not anxious, and even when men were dying around him in thousands the General and Emperor is forgotten in the fa:her. who is writing to know if the litile boy has cut his teeth'. Napoleon was double the age of his wife, and the difference between these letters and those to Josephine are that the former are affectionate and slightly Paternal, while t lose to Josephine Wer? .passionate love-letters which aro almost, literature i i themselves. An odd thing a'beut the Marie Louise letters, however, i;i that no one, not ev en students of Napoleonic literature, were aware of theii existence until tho announcement of tlie recent sale. An even .more odd thing is that Napoleon *as such a bad wr ter that one of the Court ladies had to tell Marie Louise w hat was in them.