At the time of Napoleon's first abdication (April 11, 1814), Joseph and Jerome Bonaparte tried to keep the empress under some measure of restraint at Blois; but she succeeded in reaching her father the emperor Francis while Napoleon was on his way to Elba. She, along with her son, was escorted into Austria by Count von Neipperg, and refused to comply with the entreaties and commands of Napoleon to proceed to Elba; and her alienation from him was completed when he ventured to threaten her with a forcible abduction if she did not obey. During the Hundred Days she remained in Austria and manifested no desire for the success of Napoleon in France. At the Congress of Vienna the Powers awarded to her and her son the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, in conformity with the terms of the treaty of Fontainebleau (March, 1814); in spite of the determined opposition of Louis XVIII. she gained this right for herself owing largely to the support of the emperor Alexander, but she failed to make good the claims of her son to the inheritance (see NAPOLEON II.). She proceeded alone to Parma, where she fell more and more under the influence of the count von Neipperg, and had to acquiesce in the title "duke of Reichstadt" accorded to her son. Long before the tidings of the death of Napoleon at St Helena reached her she was living in intimate relations with Neipperg at Parma, and bore a son to him not long after that event. Napoleon on the other hand spoke of her in his will with marked tenderness, and both excused and forgave her infidelity to him. Thereafter Neipperg became her morganatic husband; and they had other children. In 1832, at the time of the last illness of the duke of Reichstadt, she visited him at Vienna and was there at the time of his death; but in other respects she shook off all association with Napoleon. Her rule in Parma, conjointly with Neipperg, was characterized by a clemency and moderation which were lacking in the other Italian states in that time of reaction. She preserved some of the Napoleonic laws and institutions; in 1817 she established the equality of women in heritage, and ordered the compilation of a civil code which was promulgated in January 1820. The penal code of November 1821 abolished many odious customs and punishments of the old code, and allowed publicity in criminal trials. On the death of Neipperg in 1829 his place was taken by Baron Werklein, whose influence was hostile to popular liberty. During the popular movements of 1831 Marie Louise had to take refuge with the Austrian garrison at Piacenza; on the restoration of her rule by the Austrians its character deteriorated, Parma becoming an outwork of the Austrian empire. She died at Vienna on the 18th of December 1847.