Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma in the context of "Maria Leopoldina of Austria"

Francis II and I (German: Franz II.; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

The eldest son of future Emperor Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain, Francis was born in Florence, where his father ruled as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1790 but died two years later, and Francis succeeded him. His empire immediately became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars, the first of which ended in Austrian defeat and the loss of the left bank of the Rhine to France. After another French victory in the War of the Second Coalition, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. In response, Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria. He continued his leading role as Napoleon's adversary in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered successive defeats that greatly weakened Austria as a European power. In 1806, after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor, which in effect marked the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the defeat of the Fifth Coalition, Francis ceded more territory to France and was forced to wed his daughter Marie Louise to Napoleon.

Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein (15 May 1773 – 11 June 1859), known as Klemens von Metternich (/ˈmɛtərnɪx/ MET-ər-nikh, German: [ˈkleːmɛns fɔn ˈmɛtɐnɪç]) or Prince Metternich, was a German statesman and diplomat in the service of the Austrian Empire. A conservative, Metternich was at the center of the European balance of power known as the Concert of Europe for three decades as Austrian foreign minister from 1809 and chancellor from 1821 until the liberal Revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation.

Born into the House of Metternich in 1773 as the son of a diplomat, Metternich received a good education at the universities of Strasbourg and Mainz. Metternich rose through key diplomatic posts, including ambassadorial roles in the Kingdom of Saxony, the Kingdom of Prussia, and especially Napoleonic France. One of his first assignments as Foreign Minister was to engineer a détente with France that included the marriage of Napoleon to the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise. Soon after, he engineered Austria's entry into the War of the Sixth Coalition on the Allied side, signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau that sent Napoleon into exile and led the Austrian delegation at the Congress of Vienna that divided post-Napoleonic Europe amongst the major powers. For his service to the Austrian Empire, he was given the title of Prince in October 1813.

Napoleon II (Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte; 20 March 1811 – 22 July 1832) was the disputed Emperor of the French for 2 days in 1815. He was the son of Emperor Napoleon I and Empress Marie Louise, daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria.

Napoleon II had been Prince Imperial of France and King of Rome since birth. After the fall of his father, he lived the rest of his life in Vienna and was known in the Austrian court as Franz, Duke of Reichstadt for his adult life (from the German version of his second given name, along with a title his grandfather granted him in 1818). He was posthumously given the nickname L'Aiglon ("the Eaglet").

The "Marie-Louises" were the conscripts, mostly teenage French boys, who were conscripted into Napoleon's French Imperial Army between October 1813 and 1815. On 9 October 1813, Empress of the French Marie Louise issued a decree ordering the conscription of 200,000 men into the army; as there was a shortage of military-age males in France, recruiting regulations were changed to allow for those as young as 14 and as short as 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 m) to be conscripted. The majority of Marie-Louises served in the campaign in north-east France from January to March 1814, defending against an invasion by the Sixth Coalition. Though they received as little as two weeks of training and would be soundly defeated in the War, French historians lionized the Marie-Louises as courageous youths motivated by patriotic ideals instead of being forced into military service.

The conscription of so many men proved unable to prevent the Sixth Coalition from defeating the French and occupying Paris, resulting in Napoleon's abdication on 13 April 1814, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. Eventually, the term "Marie-Louises" was extended to anyone conscripted into the French Imperial army between 1813 and 1815, including when Napoleon briefly assumed power in France again during the Hundred Days. The Marie-Louises were featured in several works of art and literature, particularly after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 to bolster French nationalism and patriotism. In 1914, the term was revived to describe Frenchmen conscripted into the French army after the outbreak of World War I.

Interview Between Napoleon and Francis II after the Battle of Austerlitz (French: Entrevue de Napoléon Ier et de François II après la bataille d'Austerlitz) is an 1812 history painting by the French artist Antoine-Jean Gros. It portrays the meeting of Napoleon, Emperor of France, and Francis II of Austria in the aftermath of the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805. Francis requested an interview to discuss terms a day after Napoleon's crushing victory over Austria and its Russian allies. The meeting took place in the Moravian countryside about ten miles south of the battlefield and agreed an immediate armistice to be followed by the Treaty of Pressburg a few weeks later.

The Austrian emperor is accompanied by the Prince of Liechtenstein. It was part of a major commission from several artists depicting the glories of the Napoleonic era. The work was intended to be ready for the Paris Salon of 1808, but was not finally completed and exhibited until the 1812 Salon. By the time the work was exhibited Francis was Napoleon's father-in-law following the latter's marriage to Marie Louise. The following year, however Austria joined the alliance against Napoleon and declared war on France.