Opinions were divided in the emperor's circle between a Russian and an Austrian princess; but the marked coolness with which overtures for the hand of the tsar's sister were received at St Petersburg, and the skill with which Count Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, let it be known that a union with the archduchess, Marie Louise, would be welcomed at Schonbrunn, helped to decide the matter.
Maret accompanied Napoleon through most of his campaigns, including that of 1809; and at its close he expressed himself in favour of the marriage alliance with the archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, which took place in 181o.
Less reprehensible, though equally self-seeking, were his dealings with the emperor, which aimed at a family alliance between the Jagiellos and the Habsburgs on the basis of a double marriage between the son and daughter of Wladislaus, Louis and Anne, and an Austrian archduke and archduchess; this was concluded by the family congress at Vienna, July 22, 1515, to which Sigismund I.
On the death of John Zapolya, the Austro-Polish alliance was still further cemented by the marriage of Sigismund's son and heir, Sigismund Augustus, with the archduchess Elizabeth.
The death of Barbara, five days after her coronation (7th of December 1550), under very distressing circumstances which led to an unproven suspicion that she had been poisoned by Queen Bona,.compelled Sigismund to contract a third purely political union with the Austrian archduchess Catherine, the sister of Sigismund's first wife Elizabeth, who had died within a twelvemonth of her marriage with him, while he was still only crown prince.