Maria Walewska, Countess
Pronunciation:
Maria Laczynska, born on December 7, 1786 in Brodne near Kiernozia, west of Warsaw, was married at the age of sixteen to Count Athenase Colonna Walewski, a great Polish nobleman, almost in his seventies.
On January 1, 1807, she met Napoleon I near Warsaw, disguised as a peasant girl. She begged him to support Polish independence.
She became his mistress, and the couple had a romance at Finckenstein Castle [now Kamieniec]. In 1808, they met again in Paris, and the following year in Austria.
On May 4, 1810, she gave Napoleon a son, Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna Walewski.
After the Emperor's abdication, Maria Walewska remained loyal to him, even visiting him on Elba with her son in September 1814. She saw him again at Malmaison after Waterloo; he refused to let her follow him to St. Helena.
Remarried in 1816 to Count Philippe Antoine d'Ornano, Napoleon's cousin, she died of complications during childbirth on December 11, 1817.
Maria Walewska is buried in the crypt of the church of Kiernozia , Poland; however, her heart remains in France, in the tomb of the D'Ornano family, in the Parisian Père Lachaise cemetery (67th division).
"Maria Walewska" by Robert Jacques François Faust Lefèvre (Bayeux 1755 - Paris 1830).
In 1970, Poczta Polska issued a 2.50 Zlotys stamp bearing the effigy of Maria Walewska, based on the miniature by Marie-Victoire Jacquotot.
Other portraits
"Maria Walewska" by François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770-1837).
"Maria Walewska". 19th century anonymous.
"Maria Walewska". Enamel on porcelain painted in 1813 by Marie-Victoire Jacquotot (Paris 1772 - Toulouse 1855).