discipline of the place, and on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he eagerly espoused the democratic and anti-clerical movement then sweeping over France. On returning to Corsica he became the leading speaker in the Jacobin club at Ajaccio. Pushing even Napoleon to more decided action, Lucien urged his brothers to break with Paoli, the leader of the more conservative party, which sought to ally itself with England as against the regicide republic of France. He headed a Corsican deputation which went to France in order to denounce Paoli and to solicit aid for the democrats; but, on the Paolists gaining the upper hand, the Bonapartes left the island and joined Lucien at Toulon. In the south of France he worked hard for the Jacobinical cause, and figured as “Brutus” in the Jacobin club of the small town of St Maximin (then renamed Marathon). There on the 4th of May 1794 he married Mlle Catherine Boyer, though he was a minor and had not the consent of his family—an act which brought him into a state almost approaching disgrace and penury. The coup d’état of Thermidor (July 28, 1794) compelled the young disciple of Robespierre hurriedly to leave St Maximin, and to accept a small post at St Chamans. There he was arrested and imprisoned for a time until Napoleon’s influence procured his release, and further gained for him a post as commissioner in the French army campaigning in Germany. Lucien soon conceived a dislike for a duty which opened up no vista for his powers of oratory and political intrigue, and repaired to Corsica. In the hope of being elected a deputy of the island, he refused an appointment offered by Napoleon in the army of Egypt in 1798. His hopes were fulfilled, and in 1798 he entered the Council of Five Hundred at Paris. There his vivacious eloquence brought him into prominence, and he was president of that body on the eventful day of the 19th of Brumaire (November 10) 1799, when Napoleon overthrew the national councils of France at the palace of St Cloud. The refusal of Lucien to put the vote of outlawry, for which the majority of the council clamoured, his opportune closing of the sitting, and his appeal to the soldiers outside to disperse les représentants du poignard, turned the scale in favour of his brother.
By a strange irony this event, the chief event of Lucien’s life, was fatal to the cause of democracy of which he had been the most eager exponent. In one of his earlier letters to his brother Joseph, Lucien stated that he had detected in Napoleon “an ambition not altogether egotistic but which surpassed his love for the general weal; ... in case of a counter-revolution he would try to ride on the crest of events.” Napoleon having by his help triumphed over parliamentary institutions in France, Lucien’s suspicion of his brother became a dominant feeling; and the relations between them became strained during the period of the consulate (1799–1804). He accepted office as minister of the interior, but was soon deprived of it owing to political and personal differences with the First Consul. In order to soften the blow, Napoleon appointed him ambassador to the court of Madrid (November 1800). There again Lucien displeased his brother. France and Spain were then about to partition Portugal, and the Spanish forces were beginning to invade that land, when the court of Lisbon succeeded, owing (it is said) to the free use of bribes, in inducing Godoy, the Spanish minister, and Lucien Bonaparte to sign the preliminaries of peace on the 6th of June 1801 at Badajoz. The First Consul, finding his plans of seizing Lisbon frustrated, remonstrated with his brother, who thereupon resigned his post, and returned to Paris, there taking part in the opposition which the Tribunate offered to some of Napoleon’s schemes. Lucien’s next proceeding completed the breach between the two brothers. His wife had died in 1800; he became enamoured of a Mme Jouberthou in the early summer of 1802, made her his mistress, and finally, despite the express prohibition of the First Consul, secretly married her at his residence of Plessis (on October 23, 1803). At that time Napoleon was pressing Lucien for important reasons of state to marry the widow of the king of Etruria, and on hearing of his brother’s action he ordered him to leave French territory. Lucien departed for Italy with his wife and infant son, after annoying Napoleon by bestowing on her publicly the name of Bonaparte. He also charged Joseph never to try to reconcile Napoleon to him.
For some years he lived in Italy, chiefly at Rome, showing marked hostility to the emperor. In December 1807 the latter sought to come to an arrangement by which Lucien would take his place as a French prince, provided that he would annul his marriage. This step Lucien refused to take; and after residing for some time at his estate of Canino, from which he took the papal title of prince of Canino, he left for America. Captured by a British ship, he was taken to Malta and thence to England, where he resided under some measure of surveillance up to the peace of 1814. Returning to Rome, he offered Napoleon his help during the Hundred Days (1815), stood by his side at the “Champ de Mai” at Paris, and was the last to defend his prerogatives at the time of his second abdication. He spent the rest of his life in Italy, and died at Rome on the 29th of June 1840. His family comprised four sons and six daughters. He wrote an epic, Charlemagne, ou l’Église délivreé (2 vols., 1814), also La Vérité sur les Cent Jours and Memoirs, which were not completed.
For sources see T. Jung, Lucien Bonaparte et ses mémoires (3 vols., Paris, 1882–1883); an anonymous work, Le Prince Lucien Bonaparte et sa famille (Paris, 1888); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897–1900), and H. Houssaye, ”1815” (3 vols., Paris, 1899–1905).
III. Marianne Elisa (1777–1820) was born at Ajaccio on the 3rd of January 1777. Owing to the efforts of her brothers she entered the establishment of St Cyr near Paris as a “king’s scholar.” On its disruption by the revolutionists in 1792 Napoleon took charge of her and 3. Elisa. brought her back to Ajaccio. She shared the fortunes of the family in the south of France, and on the 5th of May 1797 married Felix Bacciochi, a well-connected Corsican. In 1805, after the foundation of the French empire, Napoleon bestowed upon her the principality of Piombino and shortly afterwards Lucca; in 1808 her importunities gained for her the grand duchy of Tuscany. Bacciochi being almost a nullity, her pride and ability had a great influence on the administration and on Italian affairs in general. Her relations with Napoleon were frequently strained; and in 1813–1814 she abetted Murat in his enterprises (see Murat). After her brother’s fall she retired, with the title of countess of Compignano, first to Bologna and afterwards to Santo Andrea near Trieste, where she died on the 6th of August 1820.
See J. Turquan, Les Sœurs de Napoléon (Paris, 1896); P. Marmothan, Élisa Bonaparte (Paris, 1898); E. Rodocanachi, Élisa Bonaparte en Italie (Paris, 1900); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897–1900).
IV. Louis (1778–1846) was born at Ajaccio on the 2nd of September 1778. His elder brother Napoleon supervised his education with much care, gaining for him scholarships to the royal military schools of France, and during the time when the elder brother was a lieutenant in 4. Louis Bonaparte. garrison at Auxonne Louis shared his scanty fare. In 1795 Napoleon procured for him admission to the military school at Châlons, and wrote thus of the boy:—“I am very pleased with Louis; he fulfils my hopes; intelligence, warmth, good health, talent, good address, kindness—he possesses all these qualities.” Louis went through the Italian campaign of 1796–97 with Napoleon and acted as his aide-de-camp in Egypt in 1798–99. In 1802 the First Consul married him to Hortense Beauharnais, a forced union which led to most deplorable results. In 1804 Louis was raised to the rank of general, and entered the council of state in order to perfect his knowledge of administrative affairs. In the next year he became governor of Paris and undertook various military and administrative duties.
After the victory of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) Napoleon began to plan the formation of a ring of states surrounding, and in close alliance with, the French empire. He destined Louis for the throne of Holland, and proclaimed him king of that country on the 6th of June 1806. From the first the emperor reproached him with being too easy with his subjects and with courting popularity too much. The increasing rigour of the continental
