Lucien Bonaparte

Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte
	1st Prince of Canino and Musignano
	Portrait of Lucien Bonaparte by François-Xavier Fabre (1800)
Prince of Canino
Reign	18 August 1814 – 29 June 1840
Successor	Charles Lucien Bonaparte
Prince of Musignano
Reign	21 March 1824 – 29 June 1840
Successor	Charles Lucien Bonaparte
Born	21 May 1775; Ajaccio, Corsica, France
Died	29 June 1840 (aged 65); Viterbo, Papal States
Spouse	Christine Boyer ; Alexandrine de Bleschamp
Issue	Charlotte Bonaparte, Princess Mario Gabrielli ; Victoire Bonaparte; Christine Bonaparte, Lady Stuart; Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano ; Letizia Bonaparte, Lady Thomas Wyse; Joseph Lucien Bonaparte; Jeanne Bonaparte, Marchessa Honorato Honorati; Paul Marie Bonaparte ; Louis Lucien Bonaparte ; Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte ; Antoine Bonaparte; Alexandrine Bonaparte, Countess di Laviano; Constance Bonaparte
House	Bonaparte
Father	Carlo Buonaparte
Mother	Letizia Ramolino
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature

Last updated April 20, 2019

Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano (born Luciano Buonaparte; 21 May 1775 – 29 June 1840), the third surviving son of Carlo Bonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino, was a French statesman, who served as the final President of the Council of Five Hundred at the end of the French Revolution.

Nob.Maria Letizia BuonapartenéeRamolino was an Italian noblewoman, mother of Napoleon I of France.

The Council of Five Hundred, or simply the Five Hundred, was the lower house of the legislature of France under the Constitution of the Year III. It existed during the period commonly known as the Directory (Directoire), from 26 October 1795 until 9 November 1799: roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the French Revolution.

The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history.

Lucien was a younger brother of Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte, and an older brother of Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jérôme Bonaparte. Lucien held genuinely revolutionary views, which led to an often abrasive relationship with his brother Napoleon, who seized control of the French government in 1799, when Lucien was 24.^[1]

Joseph Bonaparte elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte

Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte, born Giuseppe di Buonaparte was a French diplomat and nobleman, the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily, and later King of Spain. After the fall of Napoleon, Joseph styled himself Comte de Survilliers.

Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy, Princesse Française, was an Italian ruler, Princess of Lucca and Piombino (1805-1814), Princess of Lucca (1805-1814), Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1809-1814) and Countess of Compignano by appointment of her brother Napoleon Bonaparte.

Louis Napoléon Bonaparte was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland. In that capacity he was known as Louis I.

Life and career

Lucien Bonaparte's rise during the French Revolution, unlike Napoleon Bonaparte's other siblings, was not based on familial connections or nepotism. This was one of the issues that caused friction between Lucien and Napoleon in the early years of the 19th century, as their political differences deepened. Both Lucien and Napoleon had a very keen interest in historical antiquity as youngsters.

Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.

Youth

Lucien was born in Ajaccio, Corsica in 1775, and was educated in mainland France, at the College d'Autun, the military school in Brienne, and at seminary in Aix-en-Provence. In 1769 the Corsican Republic had been conquered by French forces and annexed into France. Lucien's father Carlo Bonaparte had been a strong supporter of Corsican patriots under Pasquale Paoli, but later switched to become a supporter of French rule.

Ajaccio Prefecture and commune in Corsica, France

Ajaccio is a French commune, prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud, and head office of the Collectivité territoriale de Corse. It is also the largest settlement on the island. Ajaccio is located on the west coast of the island of Corsica, 210 nautical miles (390 km) southeast of Marseille.

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is located southeast of the French mainland and west of the Italian Peninsula, with the nearest land mass being the Italian island of Sardinia to the immediate south. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island.

Brienne-le-Château Commune in Grand Est, France

Brienne-le-Château[bʁi.jɛn.lə.ʃa.to] is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France. It is located 1 mile (2 km) from the right bank of the Aube River and 26 miles northeast of Troyes.

Revolutionary activities

A 14-year-old Lucien returned to Corsica at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and became an outspoken speaker in the Jacobin Club at Ajaccio, where he renamed himself "Brutus". An ally of Maximilien Robespierre before and during the Reign of Terror, he was briefly imprisoned (at Aix-en-Provence) after the coup of 9 Thermidor on 27 July 1794, which deposed Robespierre and led to Robespierre's execution the following day.

Brutus is a cognomen of the Roman gens Junia, a prominent family of the Roman Republic. The plural of Brutus is Bruti, and the vocative form is Brute, as used in the quotation "Et tu, Brute?", from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.

Maximilien Robespierre French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and politician, as well as one of the best known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly, the Jacobin Club and National Convention, Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to petition. He campaigned for universal manhood suffrage, abolition of celibacy, religious tolerance and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. Robespierre played an important role after the Storming of the Tuileries, which led to the establishment of the First French Republic on 22 September 1792.

The Reign of Terror, or The Terror, refers to a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established.

President of the Council of Five Hundred

As president of the Council of Five Hundred — which he removed to the suburban security of Saint-Cloud — Lucien Bonaparte was crucial with a combination of bravado and disinformation to the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (date based on the French Revolutionary Calendar) in which Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the government of the Directory to replace it by the Consulate on 9 November 1799. Lucien mounted a horse and galvanized the grenadiers by pointing a sword at his brother and swearing to run him through if he ever betrayed the principles of Liberté, égalité, fraternité . The following day Lucien arranged for Napoleon's formal election as First Consul.

Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 9.6 kilometres from the centre of Paris. Like other communes of Hauts-de-Seine such as Marnes-la-Coquette, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Vaucresson, Saint-Cloud is one of the wealthiest towns in France, ranked second in average household income among communities with 10- to 50-thousand tax households. In 2006, it had a population of 29,981.

The Directory or Directorate was a five-member committee that governed France from 2 November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, and replaced by the French Consulate. It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.

Diplomacy

Napoleon made him Minister of the Interior under the Consulate, which enabled Lucien to falsify the results of the plebiscite but which brought him into competition with Joseph Fouché, the chief of police, who showed Napoleon a subversive pamphlet that was probably written by Lucien, and effected a breach between the brothers. Lucien was sent as ambassador to the court of Charles IV of Spain, (November, 1800), where his diplomatic talents won over the Bourbon royal family and, perhaps as importantly, the minister Manuel de Godoy.^[1]

Falling out with the Emperor

Though he was a member of the Tribunat in 1802 and was made a senator of the First French Empire, Lucien came to oppose many of Napoleon's ideas. In 1804, with Lucien disliking Napoleon's intention to declare himself as Emperor of the French and to marry Lucien off to a Bourbon Spanish princess, the Queen of Etruria, Lucien spurned all imperial honours and went into self-imposed exile, living initially in Rome, where he bought the Villa Rufinella in Frascati.

Later years

Portrait by Robert Lefevre in the Palace of Versailles. Robert Lefevre - Lucien Bonaparte, Prince de Canino (1755-1840).jpg — Portrait by Robert Lefèvre in the Palace of Versailles.

In 1809, Napoleon increased pressure on Lucien to divorce his wife and return to France, even having their mother write a letter encouraging him to abandon her and return. With the whole of the Papal States annexed to France and the Pope imprisoned, Lucien was a virtual prisoner in his Italian estates, requiring permission of the Military Governor to venture off his property. He attempted to sail to the United States to escape his situation but was captured by the British. When he disembarked in Britain, he was greeted with cheers and applause by the crowd, many of whom saw him as anti-Napoleon.

The government permitted Lucien to settle comfortably with his family at Ludlow, and later at Thorngrove House in Grimley, Worcestershire, where he worked on a heroic poem on Charlemagne. Napoleon, believing Lucien had deliberately gone to Britain and thus a traitor, had Lucien omitted from the Imperial almanacs of the Bonapartes from 1811 until his 1814 abdication.

Lucien returned to France following his brother's abdication in April 1814. Lucien continued to Rome where on 18 August 1814 he was made Prince of Canino, Count of Apollino, and Lord of Nemori by Pope Pius VII and Prince of Musignano on 21 March 1824 by Pope Leo XII.^[2]

In the Hundred Days after Napoleon's return to France from exile in Elba, Lucien rallied to his brother's cause, and they joined forces once again during Napoleon's brief return to power. His brother made him a French Prince and included his children into the Imperial Family, but this was not recognized by the Bourbons after Napoleon's second abdication. Subsequently, Lucien was proscribed at the Restoration and deprived of his fauteuil at the Académie française. In 1836 he wrote his Mémoires. He died in Viterbo, Italy, on 29 June 1840, of stomach cancer, the same disease that claimed his father, his sister Pauline and his brother Napoleon.^[2]

Academic activities

Lucien Bonaparte was the inspiration behind the Napoleonic reconstitution of the dispersed Académie française in 1803, where he took a seat. He collected paintings in la maison de campagne at Brienne, was a member of Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier's salon and wrote a novel, La Tribu indienne. He was an amateur archeologist, establishing excavations at his property in Frascati which produced a complete statue of Tiberius, and at Musignano which rendered a bust of Juno. Bonaparte owned a parcel which had once formed part of Cicero's estate called Tusculum, and was much given to commenting on the fact. In 1825, Bonaparte excavated the so-called Tusculum portrait of Julius Caesar at the Tusculum's forum.^[3]

Marriages and children

His first wife was his landlord's daughter, Christine Boyer (3 July 1771 – 14 May 1800),^[4] the illiterate sister of an innkeeper of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, and by her he had four children:

Filistine Charlotte (28 November 1795 – 6 May 1865), married Prince Mario Gabrielli.
Stillborn son (13 March 1796).
Victoire Gertrude (born and died 9 July 1797).
Christine Egypte (18 October 1798 – 1847), married firstly Count Arvid Posse (divorced) and secondly Lord Dudley Stuart.

His second wife was Alexandrine de Bleschamp (23 February 1778 – 12 July 1855), widow of Hippolyte Jouberthon, known as "Madame Jouberthon",^[5] and by her he had ten children:

Charles Lucien Bonaparte (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857), the naturalist and ornithologist.
Letizia (1 December 1804 – 15 March 1871), married Sir Thomas Wyse.
Joseph (14 June 1806 – 15 August 1807).
Jeanne (22 July 1807 – 22 September 1829), married Marquis Honoré Honorati.
Paul Marie (3 November 1809 – 7 September 1827).
Louis Lucien (4 January 1813 – 3 November 1891). A philologist and politician, expert on the Basque language.
Pierre Napoleon (11 October 1815 – 7 April 1881).
Antoine (31 October 1816 – 28 March 1877), married Marie-Anne Cardinali, without issue.
Marie Alexandrine (10 October 1818 – 20 August 1874), married Vincenzo Valentini, Count di Laviano.
Constance (30 January 1823 – 5 September 1876), a nun.

Coat of arms

Coat of arms of the Bonaparte family
Coat of arms as Prince of Canino and Musignano
Coat of arms as a French prince during the Hundred Days

Ancestry

Ancestors of Lucien Bonaparte

16. Giuseppe Maria Buonaparte
(1663–1703)

8. Sebastiano Nicola Buonaparte
(1683–1720/60)

17. Maria Colonna Bozzi
(1668–1704)

4. Giuseppe Maria Buonaparte
(1713–1763)

18. Carlo Tusoli

9. Maria Anna Tusoli
(1690–1760)

19. Isabella

2. Carlo Maria Buonaparte
(1746–1785)

10. Giuseppe Maria Paravicini

5. Maria Saveria Paravicini
(1715–bef. 1750)

22. Angelo Agostino Salineri

11. Maria Angela Salineri

23. Francetta Merezano

1. Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino and Musignano
(1775–1840)

24. Giovanni Girolamo Ramolino
(1645–?)

12. Giovanni Agostino Ramolino

25. Maria Laetitia Boggiano

6. Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino (1723–1755)

26. Andrea Peri
(1669–?)

13. Angela Maria Peri

27. Maria Maddalena Colonna d'Istria

3. Maria Letizia Ramolino
(1750–1836)

28. Giovanni Antonio Pietrasanta

14. Giuseppe Maria Pietrasanta

29. Paola Brigida Sorba

7. Angela Maria Pietrasanta (1725–1790)

15. Maria Giuseppa Malerba

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References

1 2 Schom, Alan, Napoleon Bonaparte, (HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), pp 237, 238.
1 2 Stroud, Patricia Tyson, The Emperor of Nature: Charles-Lucien Bonaparte and his world, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), pp.21; 160.
↑ The J. Paul Getty Museum (1987). Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum: Volume 1. Getty Publications. p. 24. ISBN 0892360712.
↑ de Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet and Ramsay Weston Phipps, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol.1, (Charles Scribner's Sons:New York, 1895), 100.
↑ Atteridge, Andrew Hilliard and Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's brothers, (Methuen and Co.:London, 1909), 98.

External links

Académie Francaise: Les Immortels: (in French)
Lucien Bonaparte

Titles of nobility
Lucien Bonaparte House of Bonaparte Born: 21 May 1775 Died: 29 June 1840
New title	Prince of Canino 1814–1840	Succeeded by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
New title	Prince of Musignano 1824–1840	Succeeded by Charles Lucien Bonaparte