Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010874, Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:21:42 -0800

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Fw: Marie Louise, Napoleon and Neipperg/second posting
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Carolyn Kunin
Cc: don barton johnson
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 10:05 PM
Subject: Fw: Marie Louise, Napoleon and Neipperg/second posting




Dear Carolyn,

You wrote, following the E.Brittannica, that "long before the news of
Napoleon's death reached her, she was living in intimate relations with
Neipperg at Parma, and bore a son to him not long after that event."

My sources are not as established and tradicional as the E.B, but were
gathered from a novel about Marie Louise´s sister Leopoldine, who moved to Brazil after she was married to King Pedro I. It informed the reader that Marie Louise bore Neipperg a daughter in Parma around August 1817.
Metternich kept the news from the Austrian Imperial family, as he also had kept secret Napoleon´s letters to Marie Louise. Napoleon died in 1821 while M.L was expecting another child from Neipperg ( Metternich´s protegé ). Because she´d become a widow, her son could now be officially acknowledged.
The two children were Albertine, Countess of Montenuovo (1817-1867, married Luigi, Count di Fontanellato) and Wilhelm Albrecht, Count of Montenuovo, later created Prince of Montenuovo (1819-1895, married Countess Juliana Batthyány von Némét-Ujvár).

That´s all I could learn about her and this is why I thought that Napoleon
could have been distraught or jealous because she didn´t answer his messages from Elba, nor did she obey his summons.Akiko seems to consider that Marie Louise has no importance in TT ( and I agree with her but I wanted to establish a motive for Napoleon´s jealousy or anger )
Jansy
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