View of Mont Blanc

As a girl, Louise Cochelet was friends with Elisa and Caroline, the sisters of Napoleon, and with his stepdaughter Hortense de Beauharnais (1783-1837). When Hortense became Queen of Holland, Louise accompanied her as her companion and reader. After the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815, the women moved together to the Swiss castle of Arenenberg and in 1824 Louise married Denis-Charles Parquin (1786-1845), with whom she settled at the castle of Wolfsberg, overlooking Lake Constance. Her Mémoires sur la reine Hortense et la famille impériale were published after her death, in 1836.