Countess Marie Walewska

Countess Marie Walewski (or Walewska) born Łączyńska (1786 - 1817) was a Polish countess, wife of Count Athenasius Walewski, mistress of French Emperor Napoleon I and mother of Alexandre Joseph Colonna, Count Walewski. Her parents were Count Mathieu Laczynski and Eva Zaborowska.

Marriage, first meeting with Napoleon Bonaparte

In 1804 Marie Lączyńska married Count Athenasius Walewski, her senior by several years, by whom she had a son in 1805. Two years later, in January 1807, during a lull in the winter military campaign of 1806-07, she became acquainted with the Emperor.

She related the meeting in her diary: "Napoleon raised his hat, bent toward me, I don't know what he said to me then because I was too eager to express what I was feeling. Be welcome, a thousand times welcome to our country. Nothing that we could do would express strongly enough either our admiration for you personally or the pleasure we have in seeing you set foot on the land which expects you to reestablish it.... Napoleon looked at me closely and took a bouquet which happened to be in the carriage, and as he gave it to me he said, 'Keep it as a pledge of my good intentions; I hope that we shall see each other in Warsaw and that I shall receive a thank-you from your beautiful mouth.'".

Mistress to Napoleon

The emperor noticed her again at a sumptuous affair given by the Polish nobility. He did not stop seeing her. Twenty-two years old, Marie Walewska, blue-eyed and blond, aroused passions. Patriotic friends of the countess tried to push her into becoming his "mistress", which at first she refused to do, but although still married she finally yielded in the hope of inducing the emperor to treat Poland equitably, much as Esther had saved the Jews by influencing King Ahasuerus of Persia. [J. Christopher Herold, "The Age of Napoleon", p. 181. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1963.] "Her character enchanted the emperor and made him cherish her more every day", relates Constant Wairy.

Their affair was passionate. During this time Josephine stayed in Mainz. The idyll was interrupted when Napoleon took command of his army for the Campaign of Eylau. In May 1810 Marie gave Napoleon a son, Alexandre Walewski, later a distinguished French statesman.

During the French retreat from Moscow in late 1812, Napoleon could only with difficulty be convinced to refrain from visiting Marie at her country home near Łowicz. [Adam Zamoyski, "Moscow 1812. Napoleon's Fatal March", p. 522. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.]

After the Battle of Nations and the first abdication, Marie and Alexandre made a discreet trip to Elba to comfort the disgraced emperor, with Marie and Napoleon engaging in torrid lovemaking. [Herold, p. 389.] A rumor wrongly had it that the visit was by Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria and her son, the king of Rome.

Her first husband had died by this time, and in September of 1816 she married a second cousin of Napoleon I, Count Philippe Antoine d’Ornano. She died giving birth to her third son in 1817. Her heart was placed in the crypt of the d'Ornano family in Père Lachaise in Paris and her body was brought back to Poland. In 1869, however, her coffin was found to be empty; it was speculated that some unknown necrophile had removed her remains. [ [http://burknet.com/robsfantasy/section3.html] ]

References

External links

*http://www.histofig.com/history/empire/personnes/pologne_walewska_en.html
*http://www.napoleonicsociety.com/english/CountessWalewska.htm