The Next Empress of France – Napoleon vs the Romanovs: Part 2

A daughter’s destiny. A mother’s anguish. A nation on the verge of a fight for its life.

File Under: Fascinating Royal and Noble Women

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This is part two of two in our story about the Romanov grand duchesses caught in a web of political intrigue surrounding Napoleon’s second marriage. In part one, we met Tsar Alexander I, his mother Maria Feodorovna, and his favorite sister Catherine. Although military defeat had forced Alexander into an alliance with Napoleon, he wanted out. As the time for Alexander to meet Napoleon a second time drew near, the Romanovs kept Catherine’s engagement to Prince George of Oldenburg a secret. The marriage would keep her out of Napoleon’s clutches, but at what cost to Russia?

Betrayer’s Waltz

Once Napoleon and Alexander had become allies, French politicians and courtiers started whispering about the possibility of a Russian bride for their boss. Everyone knew his divorce was inevitable, and Grand Duchess Catherine, now 20 years old, was the perfect age to get married and start a family. When the French ambassador in St. Petersburg noticed her taking French dancing lessons, he happily reported the news to Paris.¹ Was it a sign, he wondered? Could Alexander be preparing his sister to become the next empress of France?

In the fall of 1808, Napoleon and Alexander met to reconfirm their alliance at the Congress of Erfurt, a town in French possession in central Germany. For Napoleon, there was more than just politics at stake. He had decided it was finally time to divorce Josephine and remarry – and he wanted Alexander to volunteer his sister for the job.

During one meeting, in between all the discussions about how to continue taking over the world, Napoleon steered the conversation toward his next marriage. This is it, he thought – the moment the powerful tsar of Russia jumps at the chance to become my brother-in-law. But Alexander said nothing. Cool, calm, and collected, he was charm itself – but he never mentioned his sister’s name. Later, an irritated Napoleon wrote, “Your Emperor Alexander is as obstinate as a clam!”²

Of course, at that moment, Napoleon was still a married man. And it’s unclear if he ever actually wanted to marry Catherine, but that wasn’t the point. He wanted the Russians to want him to marry Catherine, because it meant they were serious about the alliance. So far, they weren’t cooperating. Did that mean he couldn’t trust them?

He had to find out.

So Napoleon pulled aside one of his advisors, the always crafty and self-interested Talleyrand. He said, “I must found a dynasty, and my consort must be the daughter of a great line. Alexander has sisters, and one of them is of suitable age.”³ It wasn’t a command, per se, but it was more than a hint.

The very next day, Talleyrand approached Alexander. When he mentioned Catherine as a possible bride for Napoleon, Alexander said, “I should have no objection, but I cannot dispose of my sister’s hand without my mother’s consent.”⁴ That response was classic Alexander: it was polite, positive, and promised nothing.

But Talleyrand was a master manipulator who knew a crucial moment had arrived. Although he was there as Napoleon’s advisor, he had decided the emperor’s disastrous diplomacy and constant wars were destroying France. He trusted his instincts, took a chance, and asked Alexander to work with him to curb Napoleon’s power. He said, “It rests with you to save Europe, and you can only accomplish this by resisting Napoleon.”⁵ Talleyrand warned him not, under any circumstances, to let Napoleon marry his sister.

The conversation with Talleyrand only sharpened Alexander’s desire to escape without giving Napoleon what he wanted. He was perfectly prepared when Napoleon mentioned marriage again. The French emperor said he needed a bride to “consolidate his work and found his dynasty.” Alexander agreed that he did – but just like in their previous conversation, he refused to mention Catherine by name.⁶  He used all his charm and charisma to distract Napoleon, and it worked. Napoleon told Josephine, “I am pleased with Alexander…if he were a woman I think could have him at my feet.”⁷

That was exactly what Alexander wanted him to think.

When he told his sister Catherine what Napoleon said about founding a dynasty, Catherine laughed. She said, “I would sooner marry a simple Russian stoker than this Corsican.”⁸ One week later, the Romanovs announced Catherine’s engagement to Prince George of Oldenburg.

To the rest of the world, the announcement was sudden and shocking. Why had the tsar’s sister chosen such a nobody? Even Alexander’s wife, Empress Elisabeth, had been kept in the dark. When she heard, she wrote, “His appearance is not very pleasant, and even strikingly unpleasant at first glance…I would never have believed he could inspire love, but Grand Duchess Catherine assures me he is the husband she needs and that she attaches no value to looks.”⁹

In marrying George, Catherine had to give up her goal of wearing a crown. But she had the satisfaction of knowing her marriage was the political equivalent of a one-fingered salute in Napoleon’s direction.

Indecent Proposal

With Catherine married, there was one Romanov daughter left: 14-year-old Anna, her mother’s favorite. Napoleon had no intention of letting such a valuable political pawn get lost in the shuffle.

The French ambassador in St. Petersburg, Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt, kept him updated on the tsar and his family. Caulaincourt ate dinner with Alexander as often as twice a week, and enjoyed the good life at the sumptuous Russian court.¹⁰ Here’s how he described the rigors of the job in a message to Napoleon:

Balls, concerts, plays, and suppers occupied the evenings: and sledge parties were a favorite day amusement…At a supper which was given after a ball at the Embassy, a plate of five pears [would have] cost 125 louis. On another occasion, cherries, which had been purchased at the price of four francs each, were served as abundantly as though they had cost no more than twenty sous per pound.¹¹

Napoleon was not amused. He replied, “When I was a sub-lieutenant I should have thought myself very fortunate if my yearly income had been as much as the price of your plate of Russian pears. Such extravagances are only to be expected in madmen or fools.”¹²

But Alexander was neither a madman nor a fool, and Napoleon knew it.

One year after the Congress of Erfurt, in late November of 1809, he asked Caulaincourt to see how the tsar would react to a marriage proposal for Anna. He still hadn’t told Josephine about his decision to divorce her, but the time was drawing near and he wanted to have his next bride ready and waiting.

Alexander, true to form, refused to give a straight answer. Instead, he wove a tissue of words and mood, ensuring it looked as though he were in perfect agreement. More smiles, more words, more lies. He made sure courtiers told the ambassador they would have loved to see Catherine as the French empress. The implication, of course, was that they’d be just as happy if Anna got the job. The ambassador happily reported this tidbit to Napoleon in Paris.¹³

In a matter of days, Napoleon became a single man. His divorce decree was published on December 16, 1809. Right away, he asked Caulaincourt to propose to 14-year-old Anna on his behalf, specifying that he wanted an answer in 48 hours.

From his point of view, there was obviously only one acceptable answer.

But Alexander refused to give it.

The tsar needed time to think: should they let Anna marry Napoleon? After all, there were serious economic and political issues at stake. What if they could use Anna as a bargaining chip to get what they wanted out of Napoleon? Who else in Europe could say they had that kind of leverage over him? Alexander had already received a vaguely threatening letter from Napoleon that read, “I leave it to Your Majesty to decide which of us holds closer to the language of alliance and friendship. A beginning of suspicion means that Erfurt and Tilsit are already forgotten.”¹⁴

Since the matter involved her daughter’s future, Alexander turned to his mother for advice. He told her he’d heard reports that the Bonaparte family wanted Napoleon to marry his brother Lucien’s daughter. But others told him Napoleon was more interested in Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.

Alexander said he’d never actually believed the rumors that Napoleon had wanted to marry Catherine, but this time, with Anna, he did.¹⁵ He called this “one of the most grievous plights in which I ever found myself.”¹⁶ What, he asked, should we do?

As a mother, Maria Feodorovna had done everything she could to keep Catherine out of Napoleon’s clutches. It wouldn’t be right, she said, not to do the same for Anna. But, looking at the situation as a politician rather than a mother, she had to admit there were pros and cons. In the “pro” column, Russia would be at peace with France. That was no small thing considering their ally, Prussia, had been virtually wiped off the map after challenging Napoleon and losing.

On the other hand, if they refused to let Napoleon marry Anna, they risked bruising the ego of the most dangerous man in Europe. How long until he made them pay for it? What if he attacked them? What if he told the people of Russia that whatever misery they were experiencing was all the imperial family’s fault? Their entire future – not to mention their survival – could be at stake.

But Maria Feodorovna had deeper concerns that went beyond the political. If she said yes and sent Anna to France, she was sure it would destroy her. You couldn’t expose a sheltered teenage girl to the French court, a place full of “villainy and vice,” and expect a happy ending. The mere thought of it tore at her heart. She wrote, “For how wretched would the child’s existence be at being united to a man of villainous character to whom nothing is sacred, and who knows no restraint, since he does not believe in God?”¹⁷

Throughout the discussion, Maria Feodorovna referred to Anna as a child. When it had been Catherine with her head on the metaphorical chopping block, at least she’d been nineteen: an adult, capable of making her own decisions. Although Anna would turn fifteen in a few weeks, that was too young to understand these kinds of choices. It would be up to Maria Feodorovna, and at the moment, she didn’t know what to do. The only solution was for Alexander to do what he did best – burn the candle at both ends as long as possible.

Greed Is Good…Right?

To buy his mother time to make her decision, Alexander showed the French what they wanted to see and told them what they wanted to hear. In late December, two weeks after Napoleon’s divorce, he said to Caulaincourt, “I tell you frankly, my sister could not do better.”¹⁸ He was lying. But since it was extremely difficult to figure out when Alexander was lying, the French had no choice but to believe him.

And since they believed him, Alexander decided it was time to see just how much his sister’s hand might be worth to them. He asked Napoleon to sign an agreement that Russia’s traditional enemy, Poland, would never be re-established as a sovereign country.

Poland, at the time, barely existed on the map. Between 1772 and 1795, three greedy powers – Russia, Prussia, and Austria – had bitten off strips of Polish territory as if it were slow-cooked meat on a bone, gobbling it up until there was nothing left. The Poles had been looking for a way to get their country back ever since.

Then, in 1807, Napoleon’s forces pushed into Poland after defeating Prussia. And while in Warsaw, Napoleon fell in love with a beautiful Polish countess, Maria Walewska. Although she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, her husband and her countrymen encouraged her to get close to him. Maybe, they thought, if she slept with him, she could influence him in Poland’s favor.

Napoleon allowed her to think this, too, writing, “Your country will become more dear to me if you take compassion on my poor heart.”¹⁹ Maria Walewska gave him her – compassion – but he gave her country nothing in return.

After the Treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon took all of Prussia’s Polish territory and created the new duchy of Warsaw, which he gave not to the Poles but to his ally, the King of Saxony. He even allowed Alexander to keep his Polish territory. Then, in 1809, he told a Polish deputation, “The reestablishment of Poland is not, at this moment, within the power of France.”²⁰ But was that true? The Poles hoped anything might be possible for the great Napoleon. Some of his most devoted soldiers were Poles. That had to count for something, right?

But now, as the price of Anna’s hand in marriage, Alexander asked him to betray the Poles and destroy all their hopes with the scratch of his pen.

Napoleon agreed. His ambassador signed the treaty and Alexander ratified it immediately, but to his family he said, “Mother, my fears are coming true.”²¹

The Slow, Cruel Hands of Time

Meanwhile, the French ambassador began asking around the imperial court for details about Anna. If she was going to be the next French empress, he wanted to tell her future husband what she looked like and how she behaved. Here’s the description he provided of Anna:

…she has been formed [i.e., developed through puberty] for five months. Her waist, her chest, everything announces it, too. She is tall for her age, she has beautiful eyes, a gentle expression, an amiable and pleasant appearance, and, without being very beautiful, has a look of kindness. Her character is calm, she is said to be very gentle; her goodness is praised more than her wit…everything promises that she will have her [mother’s] bearing and her shape. We know that the Empress is still, despite her fifty years, a mold for children.²²

From this description, it’s easy to see what the French were after: a baby-making machine. Since her mother had given birth to ten children, they hoped Anna could do the same. On January 10, 1810, a week before Anna’s fifteenth birthday, Napoleon prodded his ambassador to get Alexander’s final approval for the marriage.²³

Anna’s future hung by a thread.

After a month of stalling, Alexander only had one card left to play. When Caulaincourt pressed him for an answer, he shocked the French ambassador by claiming the decision wasn’t his to make. According to one of his murdered father’s decrees, he said, his sisters weren’t allowed to marry without their mother’s consent – and at the moment, Maria Feodorovna wasn’t having it.

Alexander assured Caulaincourt he could convince his mother, but it would take a little time. He asked for ten days; it would take at least that long for couriers to travel between St. Petersburg and Tver, where his sister Catherine lived. Alexander hinted that, together, he and his sister could persuade their mother to agree.²⁴

It was a frustrating roadblock for the French, but what could they do? The French ambassador did his best to appear unconcerned. He went to see Maria Feodorovna at her home in Gatchina, where she lived with Anna and her two youngest sons. Courtiers watched his every move and hung on his every word.²⁵ If he gave Anna special attention, it must mean the marriage was on – and they would be even more closely tied to Napoleon. But the ambassador’s behavior gave nothing away, and the tension clouding the Russian court lingered like a fog.

For ten long days, the French ambassador waited for word from Alexander or his mother. None came. He couldn’t understand what was happening, and pressed Alexander to take a stand. Couldn’t he simply tell his mother and sister what would happen? Was the tsar or was he not? Was he really going to let his mother ruin “the greatest, most useful alliance that has ever existed”?²⁶

The question had a deeper resonance than the French ambassador understood. Yes, Alexander could tell his mother that Anna would marry Napoleon. But that violated their pact of blood and shame, made hours after his father’s murder. And at the moment, upholding that vow suited his own purposes. In a move that was inexplicable to both Caulaincourt and Napoleon, he told the ambassador that “his omnipotence expired on the threshold of Gatchina.”²⁷

Fault Lines

Letters sent between Paris and St. Petersburg took 15-20 days to arrive. When an impatient Napoleon dashed off a message to Caulaincourt, by the time his ambassador received it, his master’s mind had likely changed. But by now, even with that delay, it was obvious to Napoleon that Alexander was stalling.²⁸

After waiting weeks only to hear excuse after excuse, he realized that signing away his interest in Poland was too high a price to pay. Poland was a valuable bargaining chip and he intended to hold onto it. He refused to ratify his signed treaty with Alexander and took the tsar’s delays as an insult.²⁹

To solve the problem, Napoleon called a meeting at the Tuileries. In front of his family and counselors, he asked for their opinions on who he should marry. He gave them three options: a princess from Austria, Russia, or Saxony.

Joachim Murat, the brother-in-law Napoleon made king of Naples, voted for Anna. He remembered the Russians as fierce opponents on the battlefield, which meant they should do everything they could to keep them off the battlefield with a marriage alliance. Plus, Marie Antoinette, an Austrian, had brought nothing but bad luck to France.

Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, and the wily minister Talleyrand both preferred Austria as an ally.³⁰ Napoleon’s head of secret police, Fouché, and Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès both feared making an enemy of Russia, and voted for Anna. Napoleon’s uncle, Cardinal Fesch, didn’t like the idea of an empress with a different religion. This was a vote against Anna, whom the tsar insisted keep her Orthodox faith if she married Napoleon.³¹

When the meeting ended at 2 a.m., there was still no consensus. It didn’t matter, though, because it had all been for show. Napoleon had already made up his mind. Before the meeting started, he told his foreign minister to send a courier to Austria and offer them the same marriage contract that had been offered to Marie Antoinette.³² It wasn’t binding, but it proved Napoleon had lost his patience with the Romanovs.

But, like every other piece of information in this story, it only traveled as fast as a horse’s legs could carry it. In St. Petersburg, Alexander still believed Napoleon was eagerly awaiting his final answer. But just like Napoleon’s advisors, Alexander’s family was split over the issue. Catherine gave her approval, as long as it was necessary for the state, but Maria Feodorovna still hesitated.³³ The more she thought about it, the more her conscience as a mother cried out not to do it. Her two oldest daughters had both been married as teenagers, and both had died in childbirth not long afterward. She believed the girls hadn’t finished growing, and had been too young to start having children.

Besides, she argued, didn’t the Napoleonic Code forbid a divorced husband to remarry within two years? And could Napoleon even have children? What if the fault lay with him and he blamed Anna? What if he asked Anna to participate in some sort of fake-baby scheme, as it had been rumored King Gustav III of Sweden had done? She said, “My daughter has too many principles to ever lend herself to anything like that.”³⁴

What Maria Feodorovna didn’t know was that Napoleon’s Polish lover, Maria Walewska, was pregnant with his child at that very moment. It had been one of the deciding factors in his decision to proceed with the divorce. Still, without that knowledge, her question was a valid one. Napoleon had not been kind to the women in his life. What if Anna ended up betrayed and set aside, like Josephine?

The Russians weren’t the only ones using character attacks to back out of the marriage negotiations. Caulaincourt sensed the turning of the tide, and ensured his correspondence provided his boss with a way out. He wrote to his foreign minister in Paris, “Madame the Grand Duchess is of too mild a character, too submissive to effectively assist the Emperor and help him to overcome difficulties…Does the Emperor still want the wedding?”³⁵

Two weeks later, he wrote, “The Grand Duchess Anne…does not have the character of her sister…[she] will only be a submissive and virtuous woman. She may be annoying: if she displeases after a few years, won’t that be a disadvantage instead of an advantage for the alliance?”³⁶

The Franco-Russian alliance was crumbling, one letter and one excuse at a time.

Reversal of Fortune

On Napoleon’s desk lay a message from St. Petersburg. In it, he was informed that “Grand Duchess Anna, who is fifteen years old, is not yet ripened to womanhood. Inasmuch as, in young girls, two years elapse between the appearance of the first signs of womanhood and complete maturity, this will not suit the aims of the Emperor, who does not wish to be married for three years before he can have a child.”³⁷ Did you notice the language there? The Russian marriage “will not suit the aims of the Emperor.” Even in refusing Napoleon, Alexander and his mother had used the language of diplomacy to soften the blow. It was time that was to blame, a simple matter of birth year and biology. It was not the fault of Anna, Alexander, or Maria Feodorovna.

On the day Napoleon received this final answer, he sent instructions to the Austrian ambassador to propose to Archduchess Marie Louise on his behalf.³⁸ The groundwork had already been laid, as the Austrians had accepted the marriage contract.

When he heard Napoleon was engaged to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, Alexander pretended to be angry on Anna’s behalf. He accused Napoleon of pursuing both brides at once. Napoleon responded, “it was only when it became clear that the Emperor was not master in his own family…that we opened a negotiation with Austria…”³⁹ Napoleon couldn’t resist insulting Alexander. It was incomprehensible to him that any man would either let a woman influence his decisions, or hide behind that woman even when her decision was actually his own.

Alexander sent a special ambassador to Paris to try to salvage their negotiations on the issue of Poland, but Napoleon no longer cared what Alexander wanted. He told the special ambassador, “You resemble a hare that has received a bullet in the head and that turns and turns without knowing what direction to go.”⁴⁰ But Alexander had known all along which direction to go – away from Napoleon.

Both Anna and her mother must have breathed a sigh of relief when Napoleon married Marie Louise. And although Napoleon got his son and heir, his luck didn’t hold. In 1812, he retreated from a disastrous invasion of Russia. In 1813, a coalition of his enemies defeated him at Leipzig. In 1814, he abdicated and Alexander was celebrated in Paris as Europe’s savior.

In 1815, Napoleon lost his final battle at Waterloo and was sent into exile on the distant island of St. Helena. Three years earlier, Grand Duchess Catherine had predicted this reversal of fortune. She wrote, “Russia was the second power in Europe, now and forever it is the first, and soon kings will hurry here and ask for peace and protection. Be happy about this thought, it is not a dream but a truth.”⁴¹

Eight years later, all settled down as a happily married woman, Grand Duchess Anna wrote to thank her mother for giving her a say in the French marriage and agreeing not to sacrifice her to the needs of the state without her consent. Her gratitude, she said, would last as long as she lived.⁴²

The pact between her mother and her brother, forged in a moment of the deepest grief and shame, had become a weapon when they needed it most. By trusting it, and each other, they saved Catherine and Anna from a loveless marriage in a doomed empire. Catherine the Great would have approved.

The End

About the Author

Jenni Wiltz

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Hi, I’m Jenni Wiltz, an award-winning writer obsessed with little-known royal women. With three degrees, including a master’s in English, I’m using my love of research and storytelling to bring you the stories of fascinating royal women and their jewels. I have two decades of experience in marketing and writing, with awards for my short fiction, romantic suspense, and creative non-fiction.

Notes

1. Jena, 71
2. Johnston, ed., 298
3. Ludwig, 316-17
4. Ludwig, 317
5. Metternich, II, 298
6. Troyat, 123
7. Johnston, ed., 298
8. Mukhanova, Russky Arkhiv, 1878, 307
9. Mikhailowitch, II, 303
10. Johnston, ed., 321
11. Caulaincourt, 33-34
12. Caulaincourt, 33-34
13. Jena, 108
14. Johnston, ed., 327
15. Alexander, 297
16. Alexander, 48
17. Alexander, 300
18. Mowat, 252; Vandal, 226
19. Johnston, ed., 258
20. Bingham, ed., 318
21. Alexander, 301
22. Vandal, 224
23. Mowat, 252
24. Vandal, 230
25. Edling, 49
26. Martin, 278
27. Vandal, 230
28. Bingham, ed., vol III, 2
29. Roberts, 538
30. Ludwig, 349
31. Vandal, 241-6
32. Ludwig, 349; Las Cases, 129; Napoleon 328-9
33. Vandal, 254
34. Vandal, 255
35. Martin, 276
36. Martin, 277
37. Ludwig, 349-50
38. Vandal, 259
39.  Johnston, ed., 330-1
40. Rey, 210
41. Jena, 147
42. Jackman, ed., 65  

Sources

These are all my sources for Part I and Part II of this story. Any URL after the listing is a free, public domain copy you can read online. Yay! Any link in the title is my Amazon affiliate link.

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Bruce, Evangeline. Napoleon and Josephine: An Improbable Marriage. New York: Kensington Books, 1995. (Amazon affiliate link)

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Pachomova-Göres, Wasilissa. “‘…sie ist sehr klug, für alles begabt und wird eine weise Jungfer.’ Maria Pawlowna und Russland.” In “Ihre Kaiserliche Hoheit” Maria Pawlowna Zarentochter am Weimaraner Hof, 421–528. Weimar: Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, 2004.

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Additional Credits

• Header image: Anna Pavlovna by Jean Henri Benner, public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Maria Feodorovna by George Dawe, public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Napoleon by François Gérard, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
• Music in audio post licensed via Envato Elements.

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