Anti-French nationalist fervor sweeps the German Habsburg area in the final years of the decade.

Austria, erroneously believing that similar nationalist fervor throughout Germany will produce a victory, declares war on France in April 1809.

In the Tirol, at this time under Bavarian rule, the peasants, led by Andreas Hofer, rebel and score surprising victories before being subdued by Napoleon's forces.

Elsewhere in Germany, however, nationalist feeling has little effect.

Austria's defeat is swift, and significant territorial losses follow.

In the wake of this defeat, Franz appoints a new foreign minister, Clemens von Metternich, who seeks reconciliation with France.

He accomplishes this by arranging a marriage between Franz's daughter, Marie Louise, and Napoleon, who is eager for the prestige of marriage into one of the principal dynasties of Europe and the creation of an heir.

The marriage takes place in the spring of 1810 but yields little immediate return for Austria.

France has not completely defeated Austria, but the Treaty of Schönbrunn, signed on October 14, 1809, nevertheless imposes a heavy political toll on the Austrians.

As a result of the treaty, France receives Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic ports, while Galicia is given to the Poles, the Salzburg area of the Tyrol goes to the Bavarians, and Russia is ceded the district of Tarnopol.

Austria loses over three million subjects, about twenty percent of her total population.

Emperor Francis also agrees to pay an indemnity equivalent to almost eighty-five million francs, gives recognition to Napoleon's brother Joseph as the King of Spain, and reaffirms the exclusion of British trade from his remaining dominions

The Austrian defeat paves the way for the marriage of Napoleon to the daughter of Emperor Francis, Marie Louise.

Dangerously, Napoleon assumes that his marriage to Marie Louise will eliminate Austria as a future threat, but the Habsburgs were not as driven by familial ties as Napoleon thought.

The impact of the conflict is not all positive from the French perspective.

The revolts in Tyrol and the Kingdom of Westphalia during the conflict had been an indication that there is much discontent over French rule among the German population.

Just a few days before the conclusion of the Treaty of Schönbrunn, an eighteen-year-old German named Friedrich Staps had approached Napoleon during an army review and attempted to stab the emperor, but he had been intercepted in the nick of time by General Rapp.

The emerging forces of German nationalism are too strongly rooted by this time, and the War of the Fifth Coalition plays an important role in nurturing their development.

By 1813, when the Sixth Coalition will be fighting the French for control of Central Europe, the German population will be fiercely opposed to French rule and will largely support  the Allies.

The war has also undermined French military superiority and the Napoleonic image.

The Battle of Aspern-Essling had been the first major defeat in Napoleon's career and had been warmly greeted by much of Europe.

The Austrians had also shown that strategic insight and tactical ability are no longer a French monopoly.

The French themselves are actually suffering from tactical shortcomings; the decline in tactical skill of the French infantry had led to increasingly heavy columns of foot soldiers eschewing all maneuver and relying on sheer weight of numbers to break through, a development best emphasized by MacDonald's attack at Wagram.

The Grande Armée has lost its qualitative edge partly because raw conscripts have replaced many of the veterans of Austerlitz and Jena, eroding tactical flexibility.

Additionally, Napoleon's armies are more and more composed of non-French contingents, undermining morale.

Although Napoleon had maneuvered with customary brilliance, as evidenced by overturning the awful initial French position, the growing size of his armies had stretched even his impressive mental faculties.

The scale of warfare has grown too large for even Napoleon to fully cope with, a lesson that will be brutally repeated during the invasion of Russia in 1812.

While still loving his wife, Napoleon had begun to think very seriously about the possibility of divorce when after a few years it became clear Empress Joséphine could not have a child.

The final die was cast when Joséphine's grandson Napoléon Charles Bonaparte, who had been declared Napoléon's heir, died of croup in 1807.

Napoleon had begun to create lists of eligible princesses.

At dinner on November 30, 1809, he let Joséphine know that—in the interest of France—he must find a wife who could produce an heir.

Joséphine had agreed to the divorce so the Emperor could remarry in the hope of having an heir.

The divorce ceremony takes place on January 10, 1810, and is a grand but solemn social occasion, and each reads a statement of devotion to the other.

Napoleon's wish to marry Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia, had caused alarm in Austria, who were afraid of being sandwiched between two great powers allied with each other.

At the persuasion of Count Metternich, a marriage between Napoleon and Marie Louise, the daughter of Emperor Francis I!, had been suggested by Francis himself to the Count of Narbonne but no official overture had been made by the Austrians.

Though officials in Paris and Austria were beginning to accept the possibility of the union, Marie Louise had been kept uninformed of developments.

Frustrated by the Russians delaying the marriage negotiations, Napoleon had rescinded his proposal in late January 1810 and began negotiations to marry Marie Louise with the Austrian ambassador,  Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg.

Schwarzenberg had signed the marriage contract on February 7.

Marie Louise had been informed of the pending marriage by Metternich.

When asked for consent, she had replied: "I wish only what my duty commands me to wish."

Marie Louise is married by proxy to Napoleon on March 11, 1810 at the Augustinian Church, Vienna.

Napoleon is represented by Archduke Charles, the bride's uncle.

The influence of Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Austria’s Minister of State, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been remarkable, and he has become not only the premier political leader in Europe but virtual ruler of the Austrian Empire.

The Empire had been founded by the Habsburg monarch Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (who became Emperor Francis I of Austria), as a state comprising his personal lands within the larger Empire, in reaction to Napoleon Bonaparte's proclamation of the First French Empire in 1804.

The latter period of the Napoleonic Wars had featured Metternich exerting a large degree of influence over foreign policy in the Austrian Empire, a matter nominally decided by the Emperor.

Metternich had initially supported an alliance with France, arranging the marriage between Napoleon and Francis II's daughter, Marie-Louise; however, by the 1812 campaign, he had realized the inevitability of Napoleon's downfall and taken Austria to war against France.

Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade) premieres at La Scala in Milan on February 11, 1843.

Verdi dedicates the score to Maria Luigia, the Habsburg Duchess of Parma, who will die a few weeks after the premiere.

An operatic dramma lirico in four acts to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, the opera will be significantly revised to become Verdi's first grand opera for performances in France at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera under the title of Jérusalem.