Marie-Louise (conscript)

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.