Marie Louise of Austria

Her Imperial and Royal Highness Maria Luisa Leopoldine Franziska Theresia Josepha Lucia, Princess Imperial and Archduchess of Austria, Princess Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Princess of Tuscany, Duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla was born in Vienna, the daughter of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies.

On March 11, 1810, Marie Louise was married to Napoléon (by proxy). The marriage intended to link the Austrian Empire of her father to the First French Empire of her new husband. On March 20, 1811, the Empress had a son, Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, styled King of Rome and later Duke of Reichstadt.

After Napoleon's abdication Marie Louise and her son fled Paris to Blois then to Vienna where she remained until the Treaty of Paris of April 30, 1814 gave her the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, with her son as heir. However, in 1815, the Treaty of Vienna revised that and made her Duchess of Parma for her life only, with the details of who would become Duke of Parma after her death unspecified. In 1817, a treaty was signed which would leave the duchies to the Bourbons. However, in 1844 it was said that Guastalla would go to the Dukes of Modena.

In 1821, four months after Napoleon's death, she married, morganatically, her lover, Adam-Adalbert, Count and Lord of Neipperg (1775-1829). The couple had two children out of wedlock: