Jerome Bonaparte

“ About this time—it must have been in the summer of 1804—I remember Jerome Bonaparte coming up to Keeler's tavern with a coach and four, attended by his young wife, Miss Patterson of Baltimore. It was a gay establishment, and the honeymoon sat happily on the tall, sallow stripling and his young bride. You must remember that Napoleon was then filling the world with his fame: at this moment his feet were on the threshold of the empire. The arrival of his brother in the United States of course made a sensation. ”

“ Jerome Bonaparte, the son, refused to sue for the hand of a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, as his mother desired, and married Miss Williams, of Roxbury, Mass. Alienated by her proud and ambitious temper both from her son and her father, Madame Bonaparte passed much of her time in Europe, where her unfortunate position attracted sympathy and attention. She inherited a part of her father's wealth in the form of real property in Baltimore, which rose in value and made her a millionaire. ”

“ Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon I, was born at Ajaccio, November, 1784, and died at Villegenis (Seine el Oise) , 24th June, i860. He came to France at an early age, and, after a very little school- ing had been wasted upon him, was given a commission in the Consular Guards. A quarrel and a duel, with the son of General Davout, caused him to quit the army and join the navy. In 1803 he visited the United States, where he married Miss Patterson, but the marriage was declared null and void by the Emperor. ”

“ Why do you persist in living in Ireland?"
King Jerome afterward allowed his son one hundred dollars per month for seven years, but with malignant cruelty ignored him in his will, which wrong at once to her son and her own wifely fame Mme. Bonaparte contested in Paris with a spirit that elicited the sympathy of Europe; but Napoleon III., for reasons of policy, permitted her defeat, and also at this time discontinued the annuity of fourteen thousand dollars allowed to her son, Jerome Bonaparte, although recognizing him at court as his cousin ”

“ To the Emperor himself the kingdom of Italy was not alone a bastion of political power, but a treasure house: it was to pay fourteen million francs a year, and the kingdom of Naples one million. Later the same system was extended to Germany and Poland. What could be plainer than the meaning of this?
The Pope, returning empty-handed from the coronation, had firmly refused to grant a divorce for Jerome Bonaparte, who had pusillanimously expressed repentance for his American marriage. ”

“ His elder son, also called Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1832–1893) , entered the French army, with which he served in the Crimea and in Italy.
Charles Joseph Bonaparte (b. 1851) , younger son of the first Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, and a grandson of Jerome, king of Westphalia, attained a distinguished place in American politics. Born at Baltimore on the 9th of June 1851 and educated at Harvard University, he became a lawyer in 1874 and has been president of the National Municipal League and has filled other public positions. ”

“ Miss Chantry responded in a tone which slighted Thomas Williams. "Well! I will tell you facts. Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the worst and most dangerous men that ever lived. He sets the world by the ears, and carries war into every country of Europe. That is his youngest brother yonder—that superfine gallant, in the long-tailed white silk coat down to his heels, and white small-clothes, with diamond buckles in his shoes, and grand lace stock and ruffles. Jerome Bonaparte spent last winter in Baltimore ”

“ I was one day in his sleeping-room, at the usual hour for his toilet, and was performing that day the duties of chief valet, Hambard being temporarily absent or indisposed, there being in the room, besides the body servants, only the brave and modest Colonel Gerard Lacuee, one of the aides-de-camp of the First Consul. Jerome Bonaparte, then hardly seventeen years of age, was introduced. This young man gave his family frequent cause of complaint, and feared no one except his brother Napoleon, who reprimanded, lectured, and scolded him as if he had been his own son. ”

“ Louis Bonaparte's horse was a head before Jérôme's horse. Louis Bonaparte was gloomy, Jérôme attentive, Flahaut beaming. Flahaut had his hat on one side. There was a strong escort of Lancers. Edgar Ney followed. Bonaparte intended to go as far as the Hôtel de Ville. Georges Biscarrat was there. The street was unpaved, the road was being macadamized; he mounted on a heap of stones, and shouted, "Down with the Dictator! Down with the Praetorians!" The soldiers looked at him with bewilderment, and the crowd with astonishment. ”

“ Madame Bonaparte was well received in Florence and in Rome. Returning to the United States, she mad- her home in Baltimore. She lived economically and amassed a fortune. Her son, Jerome Bonaparte, was graduated from Harvard College in 1826. He studied law, but never practiced. He was married in early life to Susan Mary Williams, a wealthy lady of Roxbury, Mass. He visited France and was on intimate terms with his father. He was never naturalized, and always called himself a citizen of France, although the French courts never recognized his legitimacy He died in Baltimore 17th June, 1870. ”

“ He soon rendered himself popular by his advanced democratic ideas, which he expressed on all possible occasions. After the French revolution of 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of Corsica, and (his elder brother, Jerome Napoleon Charles, dying in 1847) assumed the name of Jerome. Notwithstanding his ostensible opposition to the coup d’état of 1851, he was designated, upon the establishment of the Empire, as successor to the throne if Napoleon III. should die childless, and received a liberal dotation, but was allowed no share in public affairs. ”

“ His wife by every law human and divine, she could better have guarded her son's interests, and even maintained her own rightful position, by ignoring Jerome's alliance with the princess, which was regarded by Catholic Christendom as illegal, the pope stoutly refusing to nullify the previous marriage.
Mme. Bonaparte always expresses enthusiasm for the emperor, despite the despotism that shivered the fair fabric of her life, seeking its excuse in the exigencies of his anomalous position. ”

“ Joseph and Lucien advised Jerome to become an American citizen, and took steps to procure him a provision enabling him to live there in accordance with his rank. From first to last Napoleon remained obdurate. Jerome received a message from his brother to the effect that if he left the “young person” in America, his youthful indiscretion would be forgiven; if he brought her with him, she should not put a foot on French territory. Capt. Bonaparte and his wife sailed in March, 1805, on one of Mr. ”

“ Bonaparte. "The emperor," he said, "had spoken of her talent with admiration tinged with regret for the shadow he had cast over her life, for he had heard of her generous sentiments toward him, alluding to which he one day said, 'Those whom I so wronged have forgiven me: those I overwhelmed with my bounty have forsaken me.'"
Mme. Bonaparte bore no malice to Jerome, whose nature was not of heroic mould; and yet what touching professions of fidelity he sent her!—letters unsurpassed in manly tenderness. A few months after their separation a gentleman writes of him: "He is always saying, 'My wife! ”

“ Every king feels himself a born general: whatever else they cannot do, war is an art which comes with the crown, and Jerome, unwilling to serve under a mere Marshal, withdrew in disgust. In 1813 he had the good feeling and the good sense to refuse the treacherous offer of the Allies to allow him to retain his kingdom if he joined them against his brother, a snare his sister Caroline fell into at Naples.
On the downfall of Napoleon, Jerome, as the Count of Gratz, went to Switzerland, and then to Gratz and Trieste. ”

“ Draw your conclusions from two features of the great founder of equality: he ordered his brother Jerome's marriage with Miss Patterson [380] to be annulled, because the brother of Napoleon could ally himself only with the blood of Princes; later, after returning from the isle of Elba, he invested the new "democratic" constitution with a peerage and crowned it with the "Additional Act."
That Bonaparte, following up the successes of the Revolution, everywhere disseminated principles of independence ”

“ There were present MM. de Rémusat, de Tocqueville, Girardin, Leon Faucher, a member of the English Parliament and his wife, who is ugly but witty and has beautiful teeth, Mme. Odilon Barrot and her mother.
Towards the middle of the dinner Louis Bonaparte arrived with his cousin, the son of Jerome, and M. Abbatucci, Representative.
Louis Bonaparte is distinguished, cold, gentle, intelligent, with a certain measure of deference and dignity, a German air and black moustache; he bears no resemblance whatever to the Emperor. ”

“ Jerome's career was a farce, in marriage, in statesmanship, in everything: it is relieved only by the high character of the consort Napoleon selected for him. Of the women in the family, not much can be said which indicates (p. 346) a sense of gratitude to their imperial brother for his prodigal favors. Caroline, the spouse of Murat, was a woman of force, and was more loyal to her benefactor than any of his blood, unless it were the giddy, light, beautiful, fascinating Pauline, who, though a child of the sixteenth rather than the nineteenth century, had a heart and showed it in great crises. ”

“ This is arrived at New York by a ship from Cork. The particulars differ from the West India account. We are therefore only to believe that a revolution of some kind has taken place, and that Bonaparte is at the head of it, but what are the particulars and what the object, we must wait with patience to learn. In the meantime we may speak hypothetically. If Bonaparte declares for Royalty, either in his own person, or of Louis XVIII., he has but a few days to live. In a nation of so much enthusiasm, there must be a million of Brutuses who will devote themselves to death to destroy him. ”

“ The Republic has given us liberty, the Republic will not suffer it to be taken from us!" The letter to Toussaint was even more curious, when considered as a supplement to that which had been written to the British government only five days before. "We have conceived esteem for you," wrote Bonaparte to the man he meant to destroy, [17] "and we take pleasure in recognizing and proclaiming the great services you have rendered to the French people. If their flag floats over St. Domingo, it is to you and to the brave blacks that they owe it." ”

“ The politician and the counsellor are frequently applauded or censured for transactions which the intrigues of antechambers conceived, and which cupidity and favour gave power to promulgate.
It is very generally imagined, but falsely, that Napoleon Bonaparte governs, or rather tyrannizes, by himself, according to his own capacity, caprices, or interest; that all his acts, all his changes, are the sole consequence of his own exclusive, unprejudiced will, as well as unlimited authority; that both his greatness and his littleness, his successes and his crimes, originate entirely with himself ”

“ To him, everything the Revolution produced was the best; the murder of thousands and the ruin of millions were, with him, nothing compared with the benefit the universe would one day derive from the principles and instruction of our armed and unarmed philosophers. In recompense for so much complacency, and such great patriotism, Bonaparte appointed him, in 1797, a plenipotentiary from the Cisalpine Republic to the Congress at Rastadt; and, in 1802, a vice-president of the Italian Republic. ”

“ But Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life, a cold-blooded, calculating, unprincipled usurper, without a virtue; no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption. ”

“ They took the man who was already the head of a monarchy to be simply the consul of a Republic, and, in their stupid ignorance, they made war against him, instead of incarcerating his energies in a general peace.
Thus Bonaparte gave way to Napoleon with his double-edged instinct for despotic rule and warfare, his two-sided nature, democratic and aristocratic, behind-hand, according to French notions, but in advance of European ideas; conservative in home policy, but a creature of progress in foreign affairs. ”

“ As long as the Bourbons sat on the throne of France, the compact was a safe and a sure one. The Revolution, however, has broken up the sacred league, and none can tell now what people are next ripe for revolt. As Bonaparte for the moment represents power in France, every effort has been made by the sovereign to draw him into this alliance,—not, of course, to found a dynasty, but to serve the cause of the rightful one. ”

“ Too honest to be seduced, and too brave to be intimidated, he is said to have incurred Bonaparte’s hatred by resisting both his offers and his threats, and declining to sell his own liberty as well as to betray the liberty of his fellow subjects. When, in 1800, Bonaparte proposed to him the presidency and consulate of the United States, for life, on condition that he should sign a treaty, which made him a vassal of France, he refused, with dignity and with firmness, and preferred retirement to a supremacy so dishonestly acquired, and so dishonourably occupied. ”