Marie Walewska - Legacy

Legacy

Maria's eventful life immediately attracted attention of a number of Polish and French historians. As her memoirs remained unpublished until the late 19th century, she was a subject of much speculation. The first scholar to write a complete account of her life was a French biographer Frederic Masson, who was allowed by d'Ornano family to use her memoirs.

In the 1930s her adventures were once again described by her descendant, Antoine Philippe Rodolphe, 4th count d'Ornano in a book entitled 'Marie Walewska, "l'ėpouse polonaise de Napolėon"'. It was a belletristic biography that until mid-20th century was considered as a key source on Walewska, as Antoine d'Ornano claimed that it was based on never published documents remaining in the archives of La Branchoire, the family castle.

Count d'Ornano's account presented Maria as a devout patriot and an influential political figure. His book claimed that she was involved in taking major political decisions related to the development of Duchy of Warsaw and engaged herself in disputes with figures such as Józef Poniatowski or Joachim Lelewel. These allegations immediately spurred controversy among Polish historians, who noticed that both, the described events and the dates quoted by d'Ornano seemed unlikely.

Biographer Marian Brandys attempted to deal with some of these doubts in his book "The troubles with Lady Walewska" and he went as far as questioning the very existence of documents from La Branchoire. His main argument was that the facts presented in the book were unrealistic in light of broader historical knowledge about Napoleonic campaigns and the politics of the Duchy of Warsaw. He also noted the numerous discrepancies between the French and English editions of the book.

D'Ornano's book had an equally profound effect on the historian circles in France. In 1950s Jean Savant, a renowned historian and writer, wrote a book about Walewska in which he attempted to recreate a scientific biography of Maria Walewska. Before publishing the book, he printed certain extracts from it in Elle, a popular woman's magazine, which resulted in a famous lawsuit from count d'Ornano and his descendants.

The dispute revolved around copyright issues: Savant allowed the publication of extracts from his work, which included alleged excerpts from Maria's own accounts, taken from d'Ornano's book. However, he failed to appropriately reference them. Antoine d'Ornano sued him for illegally appropriating contents taken from "Marie Walewska, "l'ėpouse polonaise de Napolėon"", and when Antoine died, his descendants claimed that the aforementioned extracts were not historical source materials, as Savant claimed, but merely an invention of the author. The legal battle continued for a few years, and it was put to an end by Cour de Cassation which decided that Savant acted legally.

The d'Ornano family never allowed any historian to come into contact with the alleged Walewska archives. During the lawsuit they maintained that in fact, the documents never existed. However, Savant in his next book "l'Affaire Walewska" attempted to prove the contrary.