Three years after starting restoration of the Chateau of Fontainebleau, Napoleon ordered work to start on another former royal residence at Compiègne.
Napoleon’s desire for an heir had caused the divorce from Josephine and subsequent marriage to the 18 year old daughter of the Austrian Emperor.
It appeared to be a grand design – renovating the former residences of the kings and now marrying Marie-Antoinette’s great niece.
Napoleon, who always had a great sense of history chose to meet his new bride at the Palace of Compiègne, as Louis XVI had done when Marie-Antoinette had arrived from Austria forty years earlier.
