Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/360

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CHAPTER VIII.

MARIE LOUISE.[1]

It is time to tell something of the other woman who played a great part in Napoleon's career: Marie Louise, his second wife.

I.

THE CORSICAN OGRE.

I find a very good picture of her in an interesting little book called "The Three Empresses." The three Empresses are Josephine, Marie Louise, and Eugénie. The volume is simple, unpretentious, rather uncritical; but the writer is pleasant, sympathetic, and womanly; and one can spend several pleasant hours in her society and that of the three rather hapless women who are her heroines.

Nothing could have seemed more unlikely in human affairs than that Marie Louise should become the wife of Napoleon. Here is one of the first incidents in her life:

  1. "Three Empresses," by Caroline Gearey. (London: Digby, Long, & Co.) "Napoléon et les Femmes," by Frederic Masson. (Paris: Paul Ollendorff.) "The Private Life of Napoleon," by Arthur Lévy. (London: Richard Bentley.)