Lucien Bonaparte



French politician and writer

formerly Luciano Buonaparte

Born: May 21, 1775 Ajaccio, Corsica Died: June 29, 1840 Viterbo, Italy

Younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was responsible for his election as consul on 19 Brumaire (Nov. 10, 1799). Lucien was made Prince of Canino in 1814 and Prince of Musignano in 1824. During the Hundred Days of Napoleon, he and his children were included in the imperial family.

Political Career
Luciano Buonaparte was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, and educated in mainland France. He returned to Corsica at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and became an outspoken speaker in the Jacobin Club at Ajaccio, where he renamed himself "Brutus". An ally of Maximilien Robespierre during the Reign of Terror, he was briefly imprisoned at Aix-en-Provence after the coup of 9 Thermidor (date based on the French Revolutionary Calendar).

The Directory
After his released in prison, he became the president of the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud which he removed to the suburban security of Saint-Cloud. Lucien Bonaparte's combination of courage and disinformation was crucial to the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in which his brother, Napoleon overthrew the government of the Directory to replace it by the Consulate. Lucien mounted a horse and galvanized the grenadiers by pointing a sword at his brother’s chest and swearing to run him through if he ever betrayed the principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The following day Lucien arranged for Napoleon's formal election as First Consul.

The Consulate
Napoleon made him Minister of the Interior under the Consulate, which enabled Lucien to falsify the results of the plebiscite but which brought him into competition with Joseph Fouché, the chief of police, who showed Napoleon a subversive pamphlet that was probably written by Lucien, and effected a break between the brothers. In November, 1800, Lucien was sent as ambassador to the court of Charles IV of Spain, where his diplomatic talents won over the Bourbon royal family and perhaps as important as minister Manuel de Godoy. Lucien Bonaparte was the inspiration behind the Napoleonic reconstitution of the dispersed Académie française in 1803, where he took a seat. He collected paintings in his maison de campagne at Brienne, and wrote a novel, La Tribu indienne.

Later Years
Lucien was made senator of the First French Empire, but came to oppose many of Napoleon’s imperial ideas, particularly the marriage of convenience planned to him. In 1804, spurning imperial honors, he went into self-imposed exile, living initially in Rome. In 1810, he attempted to sail to the United States to escape his situation but was captured by the British and spent the almost 4 years under house arrest in Great Britain. Lucien returned to France following his brother's abdication in April 1814.He then went to Rome, where on August 18, 1814 he was made Prince of Canino by Pope Pius VII.

Lucien offered Napoleon his help during the Hundred Days (1815), stood by his side in Paris, and was the last to defend Napoleon’s prerogatives at the time of his second abdication. His brother made him a French Prince and included his children into the Imperial Family, this was however not recognized by the Bourbons after Napoleon's second abdication. In March 21, 1824, he was made Prince of Musignano by Pope Leo XII. In 1836 he wrote his Mémoires. He died in Viterbo, Italy, on June 29, 1840, of stomach cancer, as did his father Carlo, his sister Pauline and Napoleon as well.