Empress Marie Louise (Part I)

Marie Louise of Austria was the second wife of Napoleon I. She was never as popular or as well-known as his first wife Josephine. It is hard to get a clear idea of her character…Josephine was well known for being extremely extravagant... we’d now call her a shopaholic. She was terrible with money and always in debt. Marie Louise was much more sensible, in many ways, but never loved by the French public, as Josephine was. She was born Maria Ludovica and was the daughter of Francis II, the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Born in 1791, Marie Ludovica came from a very fertile family. Her father married 3 times and had an enormous family. Her mother had borne 12.