Stop 13: Marie-Louise and the worst of all imaginable martyrdoms. 
The year 1809 was one of crisis for Napoleon. His marriage, although blissfully happy, was childless and he desperately needed an heir. Poor Josephine suffered agony over her inability to give Napoleon a child. She tried all manner of cures and wishful thinking but, alas, no child came. She wrote sadly to a friend:  
I, who have never been envious, have really suffered when children are brought by their parents to see me. I know I will be shamefully dismissed from the bed of the man who crowned me. God is my witness when I say I love him more than life itself, and far more than the throne.
In 1809 she was indeed dismissed. That year Napoleon regretfully accepted that he would have to marry again in order to produce an heir. ‘Politics have no heart, only a head’ he sighed. 
The members of the Court were gathered together in the Throne Room of the Tuileries Palace for the divorce proceedings. Napoleon spoke first, hopeful that Josephine would: 
never doubt of my sentiments towards her, but may always regard me as her best and dearest friend … God alone knows what this resolve has cost my heart. … I have found the courage to go through with it only in the conviction that it will serve the best interests of France
Josephine spoke next. Despite her great distress, she remained poised during the public ceremony. She acknowledged that the end of her marriage was necessary for the benefit of France. ‘But’ she said:
the dissolution of my marriage will not change the sentiments of my heart. The Emperor will always have in me his best friend.
Who would Napoleon now marry? As part of a grand strategic plan, Napoleon set off to proposition his erstwhile enemies. First, he turned his attention to Russia and asked for the hand of the Tsar’s youngest sister, Anne. Her mother, however, was not pleased with this idea. ‘не возможно’ she said. ‘It is impossible’. 
Napoleon then turned to his bitter enemy, Austria, and asked for the hand of Marie-Louise, the eldest daughter of the Emperor Francis. ‘Es wird vereinbart.’ ‘It is agreed’ He was accepted. God willing, this clever move would end the almost permanent state of war between Austria and France. Also, very pleasingly, this marriage would link Napoleon and his heirs to the powerful noble ancestry of the Habsburgs, who had ruled over a prestigious European empire for over eight hundred years. 
But what of the girl at the centre of all of this? Nineteen-year-old Marie-Louise had been brought up to despise the French and consider them her sworn enemy. 
When she first heard whiff of the idea, she was sure that her father would never allow such a thing. Two weeks later, she was informed that Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, had delivered a contract of marriage and – horror of horrors – her father had signed it. Yet she was – as many women of her time were forced to be – pragmatic. A proxy wedding was held in Austria, with Napoleon’s trusted Chief of Staff, Marshal Berthier, standing in for Napoleon. How strange to think of this husband who did not meet his own wife until after his own wedding! 
Over time, they grew affectionate towards one another. Happily, within a year she was pregnant. By March of 1811, the people of Paris were eagerly awaiting the sound of cannon fire announcing the birth of the child. On the morning of 20 March, a cannon began to fire– one hundred and one for a boy. Napoleon now had an heir for his great empire. He christened him Napoleon François Joseph Charles and immediately gave the infant the prestigious title ‘King of Rome’. Sadly, baby Napoleon did not live to inherit the earth – which was his father’s ambition for him. He died from tuberculosis at age 21 in 1832, having last seen his father when he was three.  
As for Josephine? She stayed on at Malmaison where she continued to tend to her magnificent gardens until her death in May 1814 from influenza. She had been showing the gardens to the Tsar of Russia and had caught a chill in the still frosty spring air, which had not been helped by her penchant for wearing flimsy, low-cut muslin dresses. She took to her bed, surrounded by her incredible creations at Malmaison. At the time, Napoleon was in exile on the Island of Elba. He learned of Josephine’s death a few weeks later in an old newspaper and was terribly upset by the news. He shut himself away to grieve, refusing to see anyone.