Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte | |
---|---|
Minister of the Interior | |
In office 25 December 1799 – 7 November 1800 | |
Preceded by | Pierre-Simon Laplace |
Succeeded by | Jean-Antoine Chaptal |
President of the Council of Five Hundred | |
In office 23 October 1799 – 12 November 1799 | |
Preceded by | Jean-Pierre Chazal |
Succeeded by | Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe |
Member of the Council of Five Hundred for Liamone | |
In office 12 April 1798 – 26 December 1799 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 21 May 1775 Ajaccio, Corsica, France |
Died | 29 June 1840 Viterbo, Papal States | (aged 65)
Spouses | |
Parents |
|
Signature | |
Lucien Bonaparte, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano (born Luciano Buonaparte; 21 May 1775 – 29 June 1840), was a French politician and diplomat of the French Revolution and the Consulate. He served as Minister of the Interior from 1799 to 1800 and as the president of the Council of Five Hundred in 1799.
The third surviving son of
Early life
Lucien was born in Ajaccio, Corsica on 21 May 1775. He was educated in mainland France, initially studying at the military schools of Autun and Brienne. After his father's death, he attended the seminary of Aix-en-Provence, from which he dropped out in 1789.[1]
Revolutionary activities
Lucien became a staunch supporter of the
After returning to mainland France, Lucien held a number of minor administrative posts from 1793 until 1795, when he was briefly jailed for his Jacobin activity, during the Thermidorian Reaction.[1] He was released thanks to Napoleon's intervention, who then found him an administrative assignment in the Army of the North.[1]
Political career
In 1798, Lucien was
On 23 October 1799, Lucien was elected president of the Council of Five Hundred. On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire Year VIII on the
Under the Consulate, Lucien was appointed
Following his resignation, Lucien was sent as ambassador to the court of King
Disputes with Napoleon
Though he was a member of the
Later years
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.[1] When he disembarked in Britain, he was greeted with cheers and applause by the crowd, many of whom saw him as anti-Napoleonic.
The government permitted Lucien to settle comfortably with his family at
Lucien returned to France following his brother's abdication in April 1814.
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.[1] 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. He was made Prince of Musignano on 21 March 1824 by Pope Leo XII.[5] 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 and, reportedly, his brother Napoleon.[5]
Academic activities
Lucien Bonaparte was the inspiration behind the Napoleonic reconstitution of the dispersed
In 1823, Bonaparte was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.[7]
Marriages and children
His first wife was his landlord's daughter, Christine Boyer (3 July 1771 – 14 May 1800),[8] the illiterate sister of an innkeeper of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, and by her he had four children:
- Gabrielli.
- Stillborn son (13 March 1796).
- Victoire Gertrude (born and died 9 July 1797).
- Christine Charlotte Alexandrine 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",[9] 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 Carolina Maria Anna 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
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Lucien Bonaparte (Prince of Canino), 1775-1840, Minister". napoleon.org. Fondation Napoléon.
- ^ a b c Harrison W. Mark (14 July 2022). "Napoleon Bonaparte During the Early French Revolution (1789-1794)". World History Encyclopedia.
- ^ Scurr, Ruth, Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows, (Liveright, 2021), pp 119.
- ^ Schom, Alan, Napoleon Bonaparte, (HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), pp 237, 238.
- ^ a b c Stroud, Patricia Tyson, The Emperor of Nature: Charles-Lucien Bonaparte and his world, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), pp.21; 160.
- ISBN 0892360712.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
- ^ 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.
Further reading
- Marcello Simonetta & Noga Arikha, Napoleon and the Rebel: A Story of Brotherhood, Passion, and Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) ISBN 978-0-23011-156-1
External links
- Académie Francaise: Les Immortels: (in French)
- Lucien Bonaparte