Napoleon married Marie Louise of Austria in 1810. Their civil wedding took place on 1 April at the Château de Saint-Cloud, followed by a religious ceremony in the Louvre on 2 April.
The marriage was arranged after Napoleon divorced Joséphine de Beauharnais, whose inability to provide an heir had become a dynastic concern. Marie Louise was the eldest daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria and belonged to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. The union also helped repair relations between France and Austria after years of war.
Marie Louise had first married Napoleon by proxy in Vienna on 11 March 1810, when her uncle Archduke Charles represented the absent French emperor. The couple had one child, Napoleon François, born on 20 March 1811 and titled King of Rome. Readers sometimes encounter several dates because the proxy, civil, and religious ceremonies were separate events; all belong to the same 1810 marriage.