Napoleon bonaparte death
Letizia Bonaparte
Mother of Napoleon I
"Maria-Letizia Bonaparte" redirects here. For the Duchess of Aosta, see Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Duchess of Aosta.
| Letizia Bonaparte | |
|---|---|
Letizia Bonaparte (Madame Mère) | |
| Born | Maria-Letizia Ramolino 24 August (or [a]) Ajaccio, Corsica, Republic of Genoa |
| Died | ()2 February (aged 85 or 86) Rome, Papal States |
| Burial | Imperial Chapel, Ajaccio, France |
| Spouse | Carlo Buonaparte &#; &#; (m.&#;; died&#;)&#; |
| Issue Detail | |
| House | Bonaparte |
| Father | Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino |
| Mother | Angela Maria Pietrasanta |
Maria-Letizia Bonaparte[b] (néeRamolino;[c] 24 August or [a] – 2 February ), known as Letizia Bonaparte, was a Corsican noblewoman and the mother of Napoleon I of France.
She received the title "Madame Mère" (French for "Madame Mother") due to her status as the Emperor's mother.
In , she married Carlo Buonaparte, and the couple had eight children. Following her husband's death in , she moved to mainland France, where her son Napoleon would later rise to prominence during the French Revolution. A steadfast source of support for her son, Letizia held a prominent and influential position in French society during the First French Empire.
Known for her strong character, she exerted considerable influence on her son's life and career.
After the end of the Empire, she spent her later years in seclusion in Rome, under the protection of Pope Pius VII, until her death in February
Early life
Maria-Letizia Ramolino was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, then part of the Republic of Genoa.
Her parents were Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino and Angela Maria Pietra-Santa. Giovanni, an army officer specializing in civil engineering, commanded the Ajaccio garrison. The Ramolino family, a manor Italian nobility from Lombardy, had been established in Corsica for years.
Letizia received her education at home, primarily focused on domestic skills, as was typical for Corsican women of that era.
At the age of six, following her father's death, her mother married Franz Fesch, a Swiss officer in the Genoese navy in Ajaccio in The union resulted in two children, including Letizia's half-brother, the future Cardinal Joseph Fesch.
Marriage and children
On 2 June , at the age of 14, Letizia married Carlo Buonaparte, an year-old law student from Ajaccio.
The Buonapartes, belonging to the Corsican nobility, traced their roots to Tuscany in the early sixteenth century. Carlo, initially studying law at University of Pisa, chose to forgo completing his degree and instead married Letizia.
Letizia became pregnant, giving birth to thirteen children in total, with eight surviving. Her firstborn, a son named Napoleon, was born in but passed away shortly after birth.
Following this, a baby girl was born but did not survive. Subsequently, Carlo traveled to Rome, where he spent the next two years. Upon his return, he aligned himself with the republican leader Pasquale Paoli, taking on the role of his part-time secretary. During this period, Letizia became pregnant again, eventually giving birth to Joseph, originally named Giuseppe, on 7 January
In , when Genoa formally ceded the island to France, a Corsican guerrilla movement led by Paoli rose in revolt against the Genoese Republic.[d] Carlo and Letizia, then year-old and pregnant with the future Napoleon, joined Paoli and fled with the insurgents into the mountains near Corte.
She would fight beside her husband in the struggle for independence. With Paoli's defeat in May , the couple returned to Ajaccio.[9]
On the feast of the Assumption, 15 August , while attending Mass at Ajaccio Cathedral, a minute's walk from Casa Buonaparte, Letizia went into labor. Legend has it that she gave birth at home on a carpet in the living room, depicting battles from the Iliad and Odyssey.[e] The newborn boy was named Napoleon, in honor of an uncle who had passed away the previous year.
For the first time, Letizia faced difficulties producing milk, leading her to hire a wet nurse named Camilla Llati as a surrogate mother. Letizia retained only one servant, a woman named Mammuccia Caterina, who lived with the family without wages and served as the midwife during Napoleon's birth. During this period, Letizia handled all household chores while Mammuccia looked after the children.
Letizia and her husband Carlo befriended the new island's military governor, Charles Réné, Comte de Marbeuf and the intendant, Claude-François Bertrand de Boucheporn, whose wife was the godmother of their son Louis.
In Marbeuf secured Carlo's election as a deputy to represent Corsica at Versailles. At the end of , Carlo took Joseph and Napoleon to the continent to study at the Collège d'Autun. The following year in May , possibly because of Carlo and Letizia's friendship with the governor, and after Carlo was accorded a certificate of nobility, 9-year-old Napoleon was admitted to the Brienne cadet school under a scholarship.
Letizia remained in Ajaccio, bearing six more children, Lucien in , Elisa in , Louis in , Pauline in , Caroline in and in Jérôme.
Letizia managed to visit Napoleon at Brienne in , even though no boy could leave the school grounds for six years and visits by parents were restricted. The same year, he was promoted to the École militaire in Paris.
Napoleon bonaparte biography Egodocuments and History Series. From that moment, I gave up everything for ever. Louis and I have done all we could during the past two years to eradicate the effects of this sorceress, but all to no purpose. Bonavia, Ferruccio.Two years later, he graduated as a second lieutenant and joined the 4th artillery regiment of la Fère based in Valence[clarification needed].
–
On 24 February , Carlo died of stomach cancer, and Letizia became a widow with eight children at the age of Joseph, as the eldest son, was now the head of the family and returned to Corsica after finishing his studies at Collège d'Autun.
In September , Napoleon returned to Ajaccio, after eight years away, as a lieutenant in the Royal Army and stayed until September. The family financial situation worsened, and Letizia had four children dependent on her as well as school fees to pay for Jérôme and Joseph. Napoleon returned at the beginning of on a leave until June as the only breadwinner and as such the new head of the family.
He returned again in September entering Corsican politics with Joseph.
In , after Napoleon turned against Paoli, Letizia and her other children fled to France on 31 May, while the partisans of Paoli pillaged and burned her house. The family resettled in Toulon when the Terror was at its peak.
Letizia and her daughters, to avoid being recognised as aristocrats, were described as "dressmakers" in the passports provided to them by Napoleon. After the Royal Navy took possession of the port of Toulon a month later the family moved to Marseilles. Penniless, Letizia had to queue for food at the soup kitchen. Her only income came from Napoleon's salary as an officer.
In the Spring of , after winning his first major battle as artillery commander during the siege of Toulon, Napoleon became General de Brigade. With his new income, he was able to move his mother and siblings to the Château Salé in Antibes. While Letizia was proud of Napoleon, she disapproved of his marriage to the widow Joséphine de Beauharnais, on 9 March , on which she was not consulted.
When Joseph became ambassador to the Papacy on 14 May , Letizia personally accompanied him to Italy. On 1 June , after Napoleon's triumphant First Italian Campaign, she visited him in Milan with Caroline and Jérôme, then moved back to Casa Buonaparte in Ajaccio, which had been rebuilt, renovated and redecorated for the occasion. Napoleon allowed his mother and uncle to exercise some supervision over the affairs of Corsica.
As such, the prefect of the island received orders not to make an appointment without consulting Letizia or Fesch. On 28 September , Napoleon, returning from his successful campaign in Egypt, stopped in Ajaccio and stayed with Letizia.[24]
On 7 October he left for Fréjus about to seize power in the bloodless coup of 18 Brumaire, the beginning of his rise to power, and Letizia moved to Paris.
Even as the mother of the First Consul, she was known to live in relative simplicity, receiving a monthly pension of 25, francs. On the evening of 10 November , while she was with her daughters at the Theatre, the play was interrupted and it was announced that an attack against Napoleon had just been foiled, but she famously kept her composure and only left at the end of the performance.
When her son Lucien clandestinely married Alexandrine de Bleschamp, known as Madame Jouberthon, against Napoleon's wishes, the brothers fell out. Letizia sided with Lucien and left Paris for Rome, where Pauline already lived as Princess Borghese, and where Letizia stayed with her half-brother, now Cardinal Fesch. Lucien and his family soon followed her.
Mother of the Emperor
While Napoleon had made his brothers and sisters imperial highnesses, except Lucien and Jérôme, Letizia did not have an official title yet.
In July , Cardinal Fesch wrote to Napoleon, suggesting that a title be found for her. By decree, she was given the title "Madame" but since this was also how the daughters of the king used to be called, "Mother of his Majesty the Emperor" was added to the end. She became referred to as "Madame Mère" (Madame Mother). On 2 December , when Napoleon was crowned emperor, despite being depicted in the famous painting of his coronation by David, she did not attend the coronation.
When she was congratulated on her son's successes, she famously replied: Pourvu que ça dure! (Let's hope it lasts!).
On 19 December , Letizia left Rome and took up residence at the Hôtel de Brienne, 92 rue Saint Dominique in Paris, a house that she purchased from Lucien for , francs.
Letizia bonaparte biography samples wikipedia: April 25, at am. Bonatti, Walter. Citations [ edit ]. This lined the elder Bonaparte brothers' pockets with considerable riches and caused the Paolista's to be expelled from Corsica; Letizia was thus able to return to the Casa Buonaparte , which she renovated with a massive compensatory grant from the French government.
Napoleon gave her an appanage of , a year. She did not attend the Imperial court and lived from to at the Chateau de Pont-sur-Seine, a castle that Napoleon gifted her. On the occasions when she visited Paris, she resided at her Hôtel de Brienne.[31]
Later life and death
In , Letizia shared Napoleon's exile on the island of Elba with Pauline.
In February , Letizia followed him to Paris during the Hundred Days. They met for the last time at the Château de Malmaison on 29 June After saying goodbye to her son, she travelled from Paris to Rome to be under the protection of Pope Pius VII. She purchased the former Palazzo Rinuccini, renamed Palazzo Bonaparte (now Palazzo Misciatelli) on the corner of piazza Venezia and Via del Corso, where she lived with Joseph.[33] During her years in Rome, she lived in seclusion with very few visitors except for her half-brother, who rarely left her.
Letizia's great wealth acquired from selling her own jewellery and shrewd investments allowed her to live comfortably for the rest of her life. For a time, the painter Anna Barbara Bansi served as her companion.
Letizia died in , aged 85, three weeks before the 51st anniversary of her husband's death.
By then, she was nearly blind and had outlived Napoleon by 15 years. In her body was transferred to the Imperial Chapel specially built for it in her native Ajaccio. In , Carlo's body was brought in a hundred years later, to rest next to her.
Issue
Letizia gave birth to thirteen children between and ; five of them died, two at birth and three in their infancy.
- Napoleone Buonaparte (born and died 17 August )
- Maria Anna Buonaparte (3 January – 1 January )
- Joseph Bonaparte (7 January – 28 July ) King of Naples (–) and King of Spain (–); married Julie Clary on 1 August
- Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August – 5 May ), Emperor of the French ( – ; ); married VicomtesseJoséphine de Beauharnais in (marriage annulled ) and re-married to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria on 1 April
- Maria Anna Buonaparte (14 July – 23 November )
- A stillborn child ()[38][39][40]
- Lucien Bonaparte (21 March – 29 June ), Prince of Canino and Musignano; married Christine Boyer on 5 May and re-married to Alexandrine de Bleschamp on 26 October
- Maria Anna (Elisa) Bonaparte (3 January – 7 August ), Grand Duchess of Tuscany (–); married Felice Pasquale Baciocchi on 5 May
- Louis Bonaparte (2 September – 25 July ), King of Holland (–); married Hortense de Beauharnais on 4 January
- A stillborn son ()
- Pauline Bonaparte (20 October – 9 June ), Sovereign Princess and Duchess of Guastalla; married General Charles Leclerc on 5 May (died ) and re-married to Prince Camillo Borghese on 28 August
- Caroline Bonaparte (25 March – 18 May ), Queen consort of Naples (–) and Grand Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg; married Joachim MuratKing of Naples in
- Jérôme Bonaparte (15 November – 24 June ), King of Westphalia (–), Prince of Montfort; married Elizabeth Patterson on 24 December (marriage annulled ), re-married to princess Catharina of Württemberg on 22 August , and married thirdly to Justine Bartolini-Baldelli in (religious) and 19 February (civil).
Cultural depictions
Letizia Bonaparte was portrayed by Dame May Whitty in the film Conquet; by Jane Lapotaire in the film Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story; by Anouk Aimée in the miniseries Napoléon and by Sinéad Cusack in the film Napoleon.[42][43][44]
Arms
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Notes
- ^ abAccording to Jean Tulard, a note from the first volume of the Memoirs of Lucien Bonaparte indicates that she was born on 24 August This date is confirmed by the act of marriage of Joseph Bonaparte to Maria–Julie Clary, on 1 August , which says that Madame Mère was forty-five years old on that date.
Tulard states that the date of , the most frequently found, seems to be a consensus without tangible proof.
- ^Before the annexation of Corsica to France in , the family used both spelling Bonaparte and Buonaparte After the family fled to France in , they started using exclusively the French spelling of their names
- ^sometimes spelled Romolini in italian
- ^In November , Pasquale Paoli had proclaimed Corsica a sovereign nation independent from the Republic of Genoa
- ^she would later deny the story of the carpet
References
Citations
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Portraits – Editions Excelsior (in French). Excelsior. p.&#;
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