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Marie Walewska
Marie Walewska, Countess Walewska (Polish: Maria Walewska; née Łączyńska; 7 December 1786 – 11 December 1817) was a Polish noblewoman in the court of Napoleon I who used her influence to sway the emperor towards the creation of an independent Polish state. In her later years she married count Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, an influential Napoleonic officer.
Walewska was born as first child into a wealthy noble family in Kiernozia, to Mathieu (Mateusz) Łączyński, a landowner and starosta of Gostyń; and Eva Zaborowska, whose family was wealthy as well. Walewska had six siblings: Benedykt Jozef, Hieronim, Teodor, Honorata, Katarzyna and Urszula-Teresa. She grew up in her ancestral home, Kiernozia palace, where she received an upper-class education. Nicholas Chopin, Frédéric Chopin's father, for instance, was one of her tutors.
In 1794 her father participated in the military struggle for Polish independence and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Maciejowice, leaving behind a widow, seven children (five of them surviving into adulthood), and a dwindling livelihood.
A year later Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy and the Russian Empire effectively ended the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's national sovereignty through the third partition of Poland, when the Łączyński lands were incorporated into Prussia.
As the eldest, with her brothers having debts, it was up to her to secure the future of her family. At the age of eighteen she was married by her mother to the sixty-eight-year-old Athanasius, Count Colonna-Walewski, a wealthy landowner, starosta of Warka district and a once-chamberlain to the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. During their marriage Walewska had two sons, Antoni Rudolf Bazyli, born 14 June 1805, and Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna-Walewski. Antoni was immediately seized by Marie’s sister-in-law and nieces (by marriage), who were a lot older than the young countess.
Historians have theorized that Alexandre was a natural son of Napoleon I, although Athanasius legally acknowledged him as his own son. In 2013, DNA research supported this belief, indicating Alexandre's membership in the genetic male-line of the imperial House of Bonaparte.
Maria Walewska met Napoleon for the first time in 1806 in Błonie, or in Jabłonna. According to Maria's own memoirs, she spoke briefly with the French emperor in an inn when his carriage was changing horses, but the meeting was inconclusive. However, Napoleon remembered her for her extraordinary conversation and requested to see her in Warsaw, intending to have regular meetings with her. The political context for Poland was complicated; the country had been wiped off the map at the end of the previous century and Polish nationalists were hoping Napoleon might bring the country back to life.
They met again at a ball hosted by count Stanislaw Potocki in his Warsaw residence. Walewska was being advised to work towards a position in the inner circle of Napoleon by the Emperor's aide, General Géraud Duroc (Grand Marshal of the Palace). A number of Polish aristocrats asked her the same, hoping that she could influence the emperor to support Poland in its struggle to regain independence from Prussia, the Habsburg Empire and the Russian Empire. In her memoirs, Walewska maintained that she forced herself to get intimately involved with Napoleon for purely patriotic reasons:
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Marie Walewska
Marie Walewska, Countess Walewska (Polish: Maria Walewska; née Łączyńska; 7 December 1786 – 11 December 1817) was a Polish noblewoman in the court of Napoleon I who used her influence to sway the emperor towards the creation of an independent Polish state. In her later years she married count Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, an influential Napoleonic officer.
Walewska was born as first child into a wealthy noble family in Kiernozia, to Mathieu (Mateusz) Łączyński, a landowner and starosta of Gostyń; and Eva Zaborowska, whose family was wealthy as well. Walewska had six siblings: Benedykt Jozef, Hieronim, Teodor, Honorata, Katarzyna and Urszula-Teresa. She grew up in her ancestral home, Kiernozia palace, where she received an upper-class education. Nicholas Chopin, Frédéric Chopin's father, for instance, was one of her tutors.
In 1794 her father participated in the military struggle for Polish independence and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Maciejowice, leaving behind a widow, seven children (five of them surviving into adulthood), and a dwindling livelihood.
A year later Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy and the Russian Empire effectively ended the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's national sovereignty through the third partition of Poland, when the Łączyński lands were incorporated into Prussia.
As the eldest, with her brothers having debts, it was up to her to secure the future of her family. At the age of eighteen she was married by her mother to the sixty-eight-year-old Athanasius, Count Colonna-Walewski, a wealthy landowner, starosta of Warka district and a once-chamberlain to the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. During their marriage Walewska had two sons, Antoni Rudolf Bazyli, born 14 June 1805, and Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna-Walewski. Antoni was immediately seized by Marie’s sister-in-law and nieces (by marriage), who were a lot older than the young countess.
Historians have theorized that Alexandre was a natural son of Napoleon I, although Athanasius legally acknowledged him as his own son. In 2013, DNA research supported this belief, indicating Alexandre's membership in the genetic male-line of the imperial House of Bonaparte.
Maria Walewska met Napoleon for the first time in 1806 in Błonie, or in Jabłonna. According to Maria's own memoirs, she spoke briefly with the French emperor in an inn when his carriage was changing horses, but the meeting was inconclusive. However, Napoleon remembered her for her extraordinary conversation and requested to see her in Warsaw, intending to have regular meetings with her. The political context for Poland was complicated; the country had been wiped off the map at the end of the previous century and Polish nationalists were hoping Napoleon might bring the country back to life.
They met again at a ball hosted by count Stanislaw Potocki in his Warsaw residence. Walewska was being advised to work towards a position in the inner circle of Napoleon by the Emperor's aide, General Géraud Duroc (Grand Marshal of the Palace). A number of Polish aristocrats asked her the same, hoping that she could influence the emperor to support Poland in its struggle to regain independence from Prussia, the Habsburg Empire and the Russian Empire. In her memoirs, Walewska maintained that she forced herself to get intimately involved with Napoleon for purely patriotic reasons: