Joseph Bonaparte

King of Naples, later King of Spain

Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother, was born on January 7, 1768 at the family home  in Corte , Corsica, the son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino.

Benefiting from one of the scholarships obtained by his father from Louis XVI, he was sent to mainland France for his studies. He spent four years at the Collège d'Autun [now the Lycée Joseph Bonaparte], where he excelled mainly in literary subjects.

The intention was to steer him towards the ecclesiastical state, to please Monseigneur Yves Alexandre de Marbeuf, nephew of Louis Charles René de Marbeuf, Charles Bonaparte's protector, and a great benefactor. However, during a visit to the Collège by the Prince de Condé, who asked him about his aspirations, Joseph replied: I want to serve the King...

His father's death in Montpellier in 1785, which he attended, made him the head of a large family (after Napoleon, the only brother with whom he had spent his childhood, three brothers and three sisters came into the world) that was not very wealthy due to his father's poor management of its affairs.

After completing a doctorate in law at the University of Pisa, Joseph took part in the early days of the French Revolution in Corsica. In the struggle pitting the supporters of Antoine Christophe Saliceti against those of Charles-André Pozzo di Borgo, he joined the former. He was elected to the Ajaccio municipal council in 1790, then became President of the department's Directoire in 1791.

In April 1792, after Napoleon, then a second lieutenant, fired on the crowd, Joseph's authority over his younger son was such that he asked him to leave the island.

In 1793, the Bonapartes, hunted by the Paolists, settled in Marseille. Thanks to Joseph, they benefited from the help of Saliceti and Pozzo di Borgo in exile, no doubt due to their distant cousinship. Joseph, appointed Commissaire de Guerre, benefited from the income linked to this activity in these tumultuous times.

Attracted by the young Désirée Clary, daughter of a wealthy Marseille merchant, he was nevertheless granted the hand of the eldest daughter, Marie-Julie. The marriage took place on August 1, 1794, in Cuges-les-Pins. The couple had three daughters: Julie (who died in the cradle), Zénaïde and Charlotte.

As the Clary family had set up a branch in Genoa to escape the currency turbulence, Joseph and Julie settled there and showed great aptitude for commercial activities, including privateering.

From 1796 onwards, the relationship of authority with Napoleon shifted in favor of the younger son, and it was the latter's influence that governed Joseph's career.

He became secretary to Christophe Salicetti, the representative on mission, and then commissioner of war for the Army of Italy. Charged with fetching Josephine from Paris, he fulfilled this task, but a hatred of his sister-in-law set in that would never cease.

Elected deputy for Corsica to the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (23 germinal an V), Joseph was appointed by the Directoire as ambassador to Parma and Rome in 1797.

His policy in this post consisted of discreet support for the Roman republicans, whose dream was to shake off the papal yoke, although this did not prevent him from establishing relations of trust with the Holy See, in particular with the future Cardinal Ettore Consalvi.

However, the reaction of the Vatican authorities to this policy led to disorder, during which General Léonard Duphot, then engaged to Joseph's sister-in-law Désirée Clary, was killed on December 28, 1797. The ambassador himself had to leave the city in secret in early January 1798 to avoid the same fate as his military attaché.

Returning to the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, where he sat as deputy for Liamone [now South Corsica], Joseph's role during the Brumaire coup was to neutralize for two days his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte (who had married Désirée Clary on August 17, 1798), leader of the Jacobins.

Having acquired the Château de Mortefontaine  and its 750-hectare park in the Oise region in October 1798, Joseph entertained many guests there, including his brother's adversaries such as Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, the Marquis de La Fayette and François-René de Chateaubriand.

From the start of the Consulate, Joseph Bonaparte was a member of the Corps Législatif and the Conseil d'État. His personal qualities − he was calm, level-headed and methodical − made him an excellent negotiator, and his brother entrusted him with essentially diplomatic tasks. Thus, Joseph, after having been the main architect of the trade treaty signed in 1800 with the United States, at his estate in Mortefontaine, also played a leading role in the signing of the Treaties of Lunéville (1801) with Austria and Amiens with England (1802).

A senator in 1802 as a member of the Grand Council of the Legion of Honor, Joseph Bonaparte became a French prince on the accession of Napoleon I, then Grand Elector in 1805. That same year, he was invested with the government of the Empire during the German campaign, and exercised it with such gentleness that the Emperor, on his return, reproached him for his demagoguery. Shortly afterwards, Joseph was offered the Italian crown. To his brother's great surprise, he set conditions for accepting it that Napoleon saw as tantamount to a refusal.

A year later, more conciliatory, Joseph took the crown of Naples [Napoli]  (March 30, 1806). Although he surrounded himself with a highly competent team (Christophe Salicetti, André-François Miot de Mélito, Pierre-Louis Roederer...), Joseph once again incurred Napoleon's reproaches for his government's lack of vigor and excessive kindness. Nevertheless, he carried out a number of useful reforms.

In April 1808, Joseph was called to replace Charles IV and Ferdinand VII on the Spanish throne. He reluctantly obeyed his brother's wishes and relinquished his Italian kingdom to Joachim Murat. His new subjects were not so obedient. They didn't want him, and neither his kindness nor the measures to modernize the country (abolition of the Inquisition) could change their minds.

Driven out of his capital several times, he returned each time only surrounded by French soldiers. He was finally forced to leave Madrid and Spain for good after losing the battle of Vitoria (June 21, 1813).

Early the following year, on January 28 1814, Napoleon appointed his eldest son Lieutenant General of the Empire. Charged with defending the capital, Joseph, lacking the means to do so, abandoned Paris on March 30 with the Regency Council, but not without authorizing Marshal Marmont to sign a ceasefire.

The Hundred Days drew him out of his Swiss exile. When hostilities resumed, Napoleon entrusted him with the presidency of the Council of Ministers during his absence. After Waterloo, Joseph fled to the United States, taking with him a fortune estimated at twenty million francs.

Joseph Bonaparte settled there, first in New York and Philadelphia, where his house became a rallying point for French expatriates, then in a property called Point Breeze in Bordentown, New Jersey; he stayed there until 1832 under the name of Comte de Survilliers, receiving numerous intellectuals and politicians.

In the name of his nephew Napoleon II's rights, Joseph protested against the accession of Louis-Philippe I after the revolution of 1830. Two years later, he settled in London, and after a further stay in the United States in 1837-1839, he returned to Europe for good on the death of his daughter Charlotte. In 1844, he settled in [Firenze], where he died on July 28.

His tomb , is in the Dome Church in the Hôtel des Invalides  located in Paris' seventh arrondissement.