#Louise Murat

[joachimnapoleon]

Dusting off a couple older posts from Louise Murat’s memoirs, featuring some scenes of Murat and his children, to hopefully inspire @credo--ergo-sum :)

Excerpt:

Quite often my brothers, while playing with the swords, pulled them out of the scabbard, and simulated fights, engaged in battles. I was the youngest, the slightest bit timid, and in this duel capacity, the punching bag for my elders; I was frightened, they attacked me, naked sword in hand; I became upset, I cried and ran to take refuge in the arms of my Father who, with a word, halted the assailants and, while scolding me kindly, sought to console me and to cure me of my childish frights. Poor Father! These familial scenes where he showed himself so good, so tender to us, are the last memories I conserve of him! These arms are, more or less, the only objects belonging to him that we have been able to save!

Excerpt:

My Mother also loved us, but she wasn’t effusive… we would sometimes remain for entire days without seeing her! He was our friend, I would almost say our playmate. He didn’t have a set time for his visits; sometimes he went up to our place barely awake… sometimes after a Council of Ministers; he came to relax, to unwind by making us jump upon his knees, and if a quarter of an hour interval separated an audience from his habitual walk, he took advantage of it to come embrace us before leaving. So what a welcome we gave him! What a celebration when we saw him open the door of the little staircase! How we ran into his arms!

[yaggy031910]

Letizia Murat's reaction to her father spoiling her little sister Louise:

[joachimnapoleon]

I love this!! I’m glad the excerpts helped inspire you. Looking forward to seeing the final version!

Took a while because i had to redo the sketch multiple times but here is the sketch of the upcoming murat painting. Thanks again @joachimnapoleon! Your excerpts of the Letters really helped a great amount and i hope youre content with this version ^^ the background will be added on the painting later on

[mvchiavelli]

Napoleonic magazine (fanservice release) BUT cover editions lulz 😴

Have this while I procrastinate on the magazine second edition 🗣️

(I wanted to do a Bimbo summit with Vienna (it was from an actual magazine headline) but it didn’t make it ehehe)

-also just a disclaimer this is satire and it’s purpose is to make it scandalous so some things may not be accurate ig soooo yep

[scourgiez]

Portrait of Joachim Murat by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1808)

[duchesssoflennox]

”In the Arms of Empires: The Tender Tableaux of Napoleonic Motherhood”✨️❤️🤍

Napoleon-Era Maternal Portraits That Stole Hearts💗💗💗

[yaggy031910]

PART 3 IT IS! Let's start this last round, shall we? 🥳✨

21. Aiaiaiaiai, this seems like a reaction of Caroline to the napoleonic bubble on tumblr, ahaha:

22. Not the toilet paper 🤡😬😭:

23. Omg, omg, omg, I imagine baby Louise like around 9 months old in this description like a sweet, adorable, tiny, yet quite awake potato with baby blue eyes just squeaking out of happiness and kicking its legs 🥺💕:

24. Wait, was Larrey the one who tried to save Lannes' life by amputating its leg?

25. OMG, omg, the Neys are here too!!!!! Ney giving chill uncle vibes by thanking Letizia. Aglaé answering with her typical graceful doe energy, Ney smiling and me melting away. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

26. Even Naps contributing to the adorable vibes:

27. I KNEW IT THAT HE WOULD GET ALONG FOR THE RIDE!!!! Lannes, ma boiiii :D

28. OF COURSE, HE WOULD SLAY A VOGUE COVER.

29. Caroline staying loyal to French brands while Joachim probably enjoys his gucci:

30. Imagine, Joachim's 4, Lannes' 5 and Ney's 4 children on the runway. It would be so chaotic with all these little ones. Achille and Ney's oldest boy would take the task quite seriously. Letizia would be the fabulous star. Ney's two middle boys would chill with Lucien and Lannes' older boys. And then you have a pile of the babies being just loud. 😭😬

I had one last screenshot left but I am not going to post a 4th reblog. It was Naps being happy about the shirt Joséphine had found and Joachim had made as a happy ending for everyone. 🥰

If only reality would have been so blissful. :(

We made it to the end, napoleonic besties, yeay! 🥳

I really enjoyed reading this!!!

Thank you, @joachimnapoleon and @histoireettralala for this nice story! c:

Imagine your favourite historical figure dealing with lockdown

[empirearchives]

Costumes of Napoleonic figures at the Devonshire House Ball of 1897

1. Aileen May (née Wyndham-Quin), Countess of Meath as Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland

2. Princess of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (née Countess Josephine Kinsky) as Princess Pauline Bonaparte Borghese

3. Thérèse (née Kinsky), Countess Clary-Aldringen as Caroline Bonaparte Murat, Queen of Naples

4. Florence Anne (née Cole), Lady Delamere as Hortense de Beauharnais

5. Sir Charles Edward Cradock-Hartopp, 5th Bt as Napoleon I; Millicent Florence Eleanor (née Wilson), Lady Cradock-Hartopp (later Countess Cowley and Mrs Duberly) as the Empress Josephine

6. Lord Arthur Vincent Hay; William George Montagu Hay, 11th Marquess of Tweeddale; Candida Louise, Marchioness of Tweeddale as the Empress Josephine

7. Kathleen (née Douglas-Pennant), Viscountess Falmouth as Madame Recamier

8. Maria Henrietta Sophia Chaine (née Phipps) as Madame Sans Gêne

9. Henry Chaplin, 1st Viscount Chaplin as Marshal Lefevre

10. Catherine Dorothea Mary Grosvenor (née Simeon) as Marie Louise

[yaggy031910]

About Aimée: It's so sweet how they call themselves while writing letters to one another. Aimée calls herself "ton Aimée" while Davout calls himself "ton Louis". 🥰

In addition to that, Davout calls Aimée "mon petite Aimée" which is so adorable, omg. 🌺🥺 I swear I would die for them. I hate that he died so young in comparison to her. 🥲

About Caroline: Didn't she like to call Murat "mon ami" (=my friend)? I suppose this doesn't change the fact that she liked to call him with his last name. It's a sweet nickname though.

I also remember Ney never calling his wife Aglaé. I think he called her Louise (which I don't understand because there are so many Louises but fine.) I have no idea though how Aglaé called Ney.

The marshals' wives: first or family name?

Title is deliberately misleading because I’ll be adding some husbands who were not marshals, simply because I do not have enough data (yet, I hope). This is something I’ve been wondering for some time: Some wives adressed their husbands in letters or private conversation by their first names, while others used the family name - which at least to me seems rather weird but apparently was far from uncommon. 

Can we put together a list of who did what? I wonder if there is a pattern.

In the “first name” camp, we find:

Aimée Davout (calling her marshal “Louis”)

Auguste von Bayern (though I’m not sure how much weight her testimony has because apparently everybody called Eugène de Beauharnais simply “Eugène”)

Hortense de Beauharnais (calling her husband “Louis”)

In the “family name” camp, we have:

Josephine Bonaparte (still calling her Napoleon “Bonaparte” even when the latter was emperor)

Caroline Murat (calling her Joachim “Murat” in letters, I believe?)

Louise Lannes (? I think? She writes something like “Lannes has killed two wolves, you bet he’s enjoying himself” to her mother from Portugal.)

Louise Soult-Berg (in her diary/itinerary, much to the astonishment of Soult’s biographer Nicole Gotteri)

Cathérine Lefèbvre-Hübscher (apparently, at least she says “this still smells of Lefèbvre” when sniffing at her late husband’s hat after his death, according to d’Agoult’s memoirs)

Does anybody have something to add to this list? How about Laure Junot? Julie Bonaparte? Désirée Bernadotte? Aglaé Ney? The wives of Larrey, Oudinot, Macdonald etc.? Are there letters from Madame Visconti to Marshal Berthier? Or from Elisabeth Berthier? Any letters or quotes by the wives of famous generals or other personalities of the era?

I would love to list as many examples as possible to see if people in both camps have something in common. Thanks to everybody who can help me out!

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

Friends, enemies, comrades, Jacobins, Monarchist, Bonapartists, gather round. We have an important announcement:

The continent is beset with war. A tenacious general from Corsica has ignited conflict from Madrid to Moscow and made ancient dynasties tremble. Depending on your particular political leanings, this is either the triumph of a great man out of the chaos of The Terror, a betrayal of the values of the French Revolution, or the rule of the greatest upstart tyrant since Caesar.

But, our grand tournament is here to ask the most important question: Now that the flower of European nobility is arrayed on the battlefield in the sexiest uniforms that European history has yet produced (or indeed, may ever produce), who is the most fuckable?

The bracket is here: full bracket and just quadrant I

Want to nominate someone from the Western Hemisphere who was involved in the ever so sexy dismantling of the Spanish empire? (or the Portuguese or French American colonies as well) You can do it here

The People have created this list of nominees:

France:

Jean Lannes

Josephine de Beauharnais

Thérésa Tallien

Jean-Andoche Junot

Joseph Fouché

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Joachim Murat

Michel Ney

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (Charles XIV of Sweden)

Louis-Francois Lejeune

Pierre Jacques Étienne Cambrinne

Napoleon I

Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet

Jacques de Trobriand

Jean de dieu soult.

François-Étienne-Christophe Kellermann

17.Louis Davout

Pauline Bonaparte, Duchess of Guastalla

Eugène de Beauharnais

Jean-Baptiste Bessières

Antoine-Jean Gros

Jérôme Bonaparte

Andrea Masséna

Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle

Germaine de Staël

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

René de Traviere (The Purple Mask)

Claude Victor Perrin

Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

François Joseph Lefebvre

Major Andre Cotard (Hornblower Series)

Edouard Mortier

Hippolyte Charles

Nicolas Charles Oudinot

Emmanuel de Grouchy

Pierre-Charles Villeneuve

Géraud Duroc

Georges Pontmercy (Les Mis)

Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont

Juliette Récamier

Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey

Louis-Alexandre Berthier

Étienne Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre Macdonald

Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier

Catherine Dominique de Pérignon

Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune

Jean-Baptiste Jourdan

Charles-Pierre Augereau

Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais

England:

Richard Sharpe (The Sharpe Series)

Tom Pullings (Master and Commander)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Jonathan Strange (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)

Captain Jack Aubrey (Aubrey/Maturin books)

Horatio Hornblower (the Hornblower Books)

William Laurence (The Temeraire Series)

Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey

Beau Brummell

Emma, Lady Hamilton

Benjamin Bathurst

Horatio Nelson

Admiral Edward Pellew

Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke

Sidney Smith

Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford

George IV

Capt. Anthony Trumbull (The Pride and the Passion)

Barbara Childe (An Infamous Army)

Doctor Maturin (Aubrey/Maturin books)

William Pitt the Younger

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh)

George Canning

Scotland:

Thomas Cochrane

Colquhoun Grant

Ireland:

Arthur O'Connor

Thomas Russell

Robert Emmet

Austria:

Klemens von Metternich

Friedrich Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza

Franz I/II

Archduke Karl

Marie Louise

Franz Grillparzer

Wilhelmine von Biron

Poland:

Wincenty Krasiński

Józef Antoni Poniatowski

Józef Zajączek

Maria Walewska

Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Antoni Amilkar Kosiński

Zofia Czartoryska-Zamoyska

Stanislaw Kurcyusz

Russia:

Alexander I Pavlovich

Alexander Andreevich Durov

Prince Andrei (War and Peace)

Pyotr Bagration

Mikhail Miloradovich

Levin August von Bennigsen

Pavel Stroganov

Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna

Karl Wilhelm von Toll

Dmitri Kuruta

Alexander Alexeevich Tuchkov

Barclay de Tolly

Fyodor Grigorevich Gogel

Ekaterina Pavlovna Bagration

Ippolit Kuragin (War and Peace)

Prussia:

Louise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Gebard von Blücher

Carl von Clausewitz

Frederick William III

Gerhard von Scharnhorst

Louis Ferdinand of Prussia

Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Alexander von Humboldt

Dorothea von Biron

The Netherlands:

Ida St Elme

Wiliam, Prince of Orange

The Papal States:

Pius VII

Portugal:

João Severiano Maciel da Costa

Spain:

Juan Martín Díez

José de Palafox

Inês Bilbatua (Goya's Ghosts)

Haiti:

Alexandre Pétion

Sardinia:

Vittorio Emanuele I

Lombardy:

Alessandro Manzoni

Denmark:

Frederik VI

Sweden:

Gustav IV Adolph

[empiredesimparte]

Live broadcast of ‘Le Sacre de Napoléon V’ on the national channel Francesim 2, hosted by Stéphane Bernard

(Another journalist) The procession ascends the cathedral and reaches the choir. (Stéphane Bernard) Indeed, at the head of the procession, you'll notice the palace usher. He's closely followed by the heralds-at-arms, the Master of Ceremonies, the Grand Marshal, and most notably, by Prince Murat, who carries the Empress's crown.

(Stéphane Bernard) Here comes the Empress's procession, following behind the crown. She is surrounded by the women of the imperial family: Madame Mère, Madame Hortense, and the daughters of Prince Imperial Henri. In addition to the imperial mantle, the Empress wears the crown of Marie-Louise of Austria. (Another journalist) Why is the Empress already wearing a crown? (Stéphane Bernard) It's truly unprecedented, yes. During the ceremony, there's a moment dedicated to what we call the "regalia"… In truth, I'll tell you, this term wasn't really used back then. We talked more about ornaments or royal insignia. Deciphering all these symbols live… It's not easy, but… I would say that the Empress seems to be indicating that it's through her marriage that she acquired imperial dignity. As a result, today, she receives another crown: that of Francesim.

(Stéphane Bernard) His Holiness, Pope Gregorius XIX, takes his place near the imperial canopy, facing Their Majesties.

(Stéphane Bernard) And here comes the imperial procession advancing to the majestic sound of trumpets! Leading the way is the Grand Chamberlain, accompanied by the marshals of Francesim. He bears the cruciferous orb.

(Stéphane Bernard) Behind the Orb, Emperor Napoleon V advances in his Grand Habit de Sacre: a purple coat adorned with ermine fur. The laurel wreath of the Roman emperors rests on his head. The Emperor holds in his hands the scepters of Justice and of Charles V, and at his waist, rests the sword of Charlemagne, known as Joyeuse.

(Stéphane Bernard) His Majesty is surrounded by Their Imperial Highnesses, Prince Imperial Henri, and his son, Prince Philippe of Francesim. The procession is closed by the State counselors and members of the government.

⚜ Le Sacre de Napoléon V | N°9 | Francesim, Paris, 28 Thermidor An 230

The coronation ceremony begins in the choir of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. It was broadcast live on television by Stéphane Bernard, the famous journalist for the crowned heads in Francesim.

Beginning ▬ Previous ▬ Next

⚜ Traduction française

(Autre journaliste) Le cortège de l'Empereur remonte la cathédrale et rejoint le chœur. (Stéphane Bernard) Effectivement, en tête de cortège, vous remarquez l'huissier du palais. Il est suivi de près par les hérauts d'armes, le Maître de Cérémonie, le Grand Maréchal, et surtout, par le prince Murat qui porte la couronne de l'Impératrice. Car il s'agit aussi du sacre de l'impératrice.

(Stéphane Bernard) Voici le cortège de l'Impératrice, qui marche derrière la couronne. Elle est entourée des femmes de la famille impériale : Madame Mère, Madame Hortense, et les filles du prince impérial Henri. En plus du manteau impérial, l'impératrice porte la couronne de Marie-Louise d'Autriche. (Autre journaliste) Pourquoi l'impératrice porte-t-elle déjà une couronne ? (Stéphane Bernard) C'est vraiment inédit oui. Pendant la cérémonie, il y a un moment dédié à ce qu'on appelle les "regalia"... En vérité, je vous le dis, ce terme n'était pas vraiment utilisé à l'époque. On parlait plutôt d'ornements ou d'insignes royaux. Décrypter tous ces symboles en direct... N'est pas facile, mais... Je dirais que l'impératrice semble signifier que c'est par son mariage qu'elle a acquis la dignité impériale. De ce fait, aujourd'hui, elle reçoit une autre couronne : celle de Francesim.

(Stéphane Bernard) Sa Sainteté, le Pape Gregorius XIX, prend place près du dais impérial, en face de Leurs Majestés.

(Stéphane Bernard) Et voici le cortège impérial qui avance au son majestueux des trompettes ! En tête, le Grand Chambellan, accompagné des maréchaux de Francesim. Il porte l'orbe crucigère. Derrière l'Orbe, l'Empereur Napoléon V avançant dans son Grand Habit de Sacre : un manteau pourpre orné de fourrure d'hermine. La couronne de lauriers des empereurs romains repose sur sa tête. L'Empereur tient dans ses mains les sceptres de la Justice et de Charles V, et à sa taille, repose l'épée de Charlemagne, nommée Joyeuse.

(Stéphane Bernard) Sa Majesté est entouré par Leurs Altesses Impériales, le prince impérial Henri, et son fils, le prince Philippe de Francesim. Le cortège est fermé par les conseillers d'Etat et les membres du gouvernement.

[gabrielferaud]

Catel & Farcy 1960s Napoleon Playing Cards

♣️: Napoleon and Josephine

♠️: Soult and (I presume?) his wife Louise

♥️: Lannes and Pauline

♦️: Murat and Caroline

All of the Jacks/Valets are just soldiers, not specific people; all of the numbered cards and aces are regular cards.

[josefavomjaaga]

Also true for many ladies at Napoleon’s court, though I suspect depressions also may have played a role in many cases.

Always so interesting to me when I come across a historical figure who was noted to be constantly "in poor health" or "of a weak constitution" or some other shorthand for "they were always falling ill, even when others weren't and there was no obvious trigger for it." it really makes me wonder--how many of those people had what we'd today consider a chronic illness, and how many of them were just suffering from subpar sanitation in the past? how many of them had what could reasonably be considered a disability as opposed to just living in a time without modern medicine, and the people around them just couldn't diagnose them because the diagnosis didn't exist yet? this is something that I think about constantly btw

[impetuous-impulse]

At What Point Did Ney and Soult's Relations Become So Embittered?

The more I find out how Ney and Soult are mentioned and perceived (in relation to each other) in the Napoleonic timeline, the more I am convinced that they were on decent terms up until the Empire was well-consolidated. This is mostly a response to this episode, which takes place four days before Napoleon's coronation. During that time, Soult was commandant-in-chief of the Camp of Boulogne and Ney was commandant-in-chief of the left wing of the army at the Camp of Montreuil. They mst have corresponded and cooperated well with each other on various matters, at least on a professional level. Attridge’s Ney biography has an episode about a hay bale conspiracy by the English that necessitated communication between both camps. Hayman, in his Soult biography, even hedges that they were willing to play court with each other through the unpublished correspondence of General Marchand (which he frustratingly paraphrases and does not give a date for).

[...] Marchand accompanied his own chief, Ney, to dinner with the Soults, indicating that these two rivals from the Sambre-et-Meuse were still on social terms. The dinner was followed by a magnificent ball given in honour of Louise Soult, who appeared in an elegant black dress covered with diamonds. The ball cost some six million francs to which senior officers were asked to contribute. Marchand hoped that a similar ball would not be given in honour of Madame Ney since he and his comrades just would not be able to afford it! (p. 50)

We can infer from this letter that around 1803-1805, Soult was still civil with Ney by inviting him to a dinner, and Ney still had some sense of being an equal to Soult despite being the Commander of Montreuil. I wonder if Ney himself contributed to Soult's ball (and if he was willing).

If the primary sources these biographies use are not all too reliable, at the very least, the first big rift in Ney and Soult's relationship that I found was in Saint-Chamans’ memoirs, quoted in Gotteri's Soult biography. This was after the battle of Eylau, 3 February 1807, when Napoleon held a meeting with his Marshals to discuss objectives. As I translate in approximation below:

Marshals Murat and Ney wanted to march onto Königsberg; marshal Soult held that it was necessary to retire behind the Passarge (a small river which was difficult to pass, fifteen miles behind Eylau), to fortify the points of passage, and wait in this position so that the troops can alleviate the fatigues they had accumulated, and so the reinforcements who, in our depots in France, were in route to come join us, would arrive; the discussion was lively, and the opinion of marshal Soult prevailed; marshal Ney was very offended by this [the original word is "piqué", lit. stung], and, from this moment, they were completely at odds [lit. they always made quarrels]. (p. 181)

And even then, Ney would make his remark about borrowing Soult's culottes to Soult himself just four months later, around 6 June 1807. They were evidently still able to joke around with each other after their military disagreements, which always happens on campaign, even between civil colleagues (examples I can think of include Lannes and Murat or Desaix and Saint-Cyr). Or maybe Soult did not reciprocate Ney's jokes by 1807; I have no way of knowing right now.

[maggiec70]

Maréchaux d'Empire: La gloire pour destin

Quelle horreur!

On the other hand, this book will keep me alternating between guffaws and serious eye-rolls for days.

The "replacement" for David Chandler's anthology, Napoleon's Marshals, published in 1987 with each of the 26 mini-bios written by for-real scholars [and not just Americans, either] is this November 2023 anthology edited by Francois Houdecek, who holds forth at the Sorbonne, claims to be a "disciple" of Jean Tulard [I believe M. Tulard has thousands of those!], and is involved in all sorts of activities and scribblings involving Naps. He is also responsible for gathering and organizing vast quantities of Napoleon's correspondence, so kudos for that.

However--and oh, my! what a huge "however" this is!--the 26 contributors range from the marginally average Pierre Branda to the apparent dregs of French scholarship whose names have never resonated outside the borders of Gallica. Each of these articles is depressingly cardboard, flimsy with details, utterly bereft of any attempt at analysis or understanding of the individual's character, talents--or lack thereof--and other useful and expected details, even in an anthology. These contributors apparently competed to see who could write the most drivel using the fewest sources. Naturally, I went straight to the entry about Lannes, and by the time I reached the end, I had permanently dislocated my eyebrows. The "author" of this travesty is Jacques-Olivier Boudon, whose credentials, on paper, are impressive but whose knowledge of Jean-Boy is worse than passing; it is non-existent. The reason for that is based on M. Boudon's sources:

He cites Lannes’ “official dossier” in the SHD, which I copied before I left, so I know every page and every sentence in it, and I know you won’t find squat that is useful unless, of course, you care how much putting on Mozart’s Requiem cost, and who sang the tenor solo.

High on the hit parade list is Regis de Crepy’s smarmy bio of the Lovely Louise, another book I can quote endlessly. Boudon used one letter from that.

Boudon also took bits and pieces from the three more recent French biographies by Dammame, Zins, and Willette—although the latest was published in 1994—and explained what I thought about them in a previous blog.

The absolutely most hysterical “source” is the 2002 historical fiction by a lovely 93-year-old woman, Penelope Le Fers-Dupac, who lives in Lectoure and who I know [I also know the biographer Jean-Claude Dammame, but that’s another story]. This novel is called “Le Mousquetaire de Napoleon: L’autre vie du marechal Lannes.” Make of this what you will, but it is the wonderfully entertaining, hilarious, and fictional tale of Jean-Boy’s first marriage.

I am appalled that this person didn’t do justice to Jean-Boy in an anthology where he would have shone at the top in capable hands. I know who's the real expert here, and I certainly don’t mind if someone also chooses to write about My Guy. But he or she had damn well better get it right, and this French morceau de merde massacred his subject.

BTW, joachimnapoleon, have you encountered Vincent Haegele? He did Murat no favors here, either. Thanks for reading the rant. I feel better.

[josefavomjaaga]

A what if...

From the memoirs of general de Ségur, volume 1:

At the same time, M. de Thiard, one of us, had been invited to a secret meeting by the Prince of Lichtenstein. There, either because this personage had a mission, or because he himself was inclined by the custom of his court to come, through marriages, to the aid of his arms, his insinuations were such that, on leaving him, Thiard immediately felt he had to be announced to the Emperor: Lichtenstein, he told him, had just questioned him on the rumour that a princess of Bavaria was being sought for Prince Eugène; on his reply the Austrian prince had added: ‘Why would you stop halfway down the road? Doesn't Vienna also have princesses available? And couldn't peace be sealed by another marriage?’

So, basically the idea was that Eugène's Bavarian marriage should be replaced with an Austrian marriage - four years before Napoleon himself married Marie Louise. Interestingly, this idea ties in with one that Talleyrand seems to have proposed to Napoleon earlier, who was equally eager to secure a lasting peace between France and Austria (that would also set some limits to Napoleon's desire to expand France's borders).

It's an interesting what if. So what if Eugène had married some archduchess`?

Bavarian princess Auguste would have been free to marry her cousin Karl von Baden whom she believed herself so smitten with. Which... well maybe she would have become happy anyway.

In this case, Josephine could have remained empress for some more time. There likely would have been no treaty of Tilsit, no "division of Europe" between France and Russia. Maybe no Spanish quagmire then? There surely wouldn't have been a Fifth coalition war.

Or, Napoleon could have gotten rid of Josephine some years earlier and married Auguste herself, as had been proposed to him by Caroline (possibly Murat) and most likely King Max. Which would have created an interesting South versus North situation in mid-Europe.

France occupying Naples would have become extremely unlikely.

Which begs the question: What princesses did Vienna have "available", as Liechtenstein had said? Unfortunately I don't know much about Vienna's court at the time. This probably cannot have referred to Marie Louise who was only 14 at the time and a little young to be called "prête" for a marriage. The only other archduchess at the court in Vienna I could think of is this one:

Maria Luigia of Austria-Este, future empress of Austria (Francis' third wife).

Other than that, there were two unmarried daughters of Maria Carolina of Naples, but I don't think they were in Vienna at the time. Or were they? In any case, as Maria Carolina seems to already have vehemently refused an earlier proposal to become related to that monster Bonaparte, negotiating her into such a marriage probably would not have been easy.

If anybody knows more about possible Habsburg brides at the time (end of 1805/beginning of 1806) I'd be very happy to learn!