Bonaparte Family - Imperial House of France

Imperial House of France

Napoleon I is the most prominent name associated with the Bonaparte family because he conquered much of the Western world during the early part of the 19th century. He was elected as First Consul of France on 10 November 1799 with the help of his brother, Lucien Bonaparte, and president of the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud. He was crowned Emperor of the French and ruled from 1804–1814, 1815.

Following his conquest of most of Western Europe, the first Napoleon made his elder brother Joseph (1768–1844) king first of Naples (1806–1808) and then of Spain (1808–1813), his third brother Louis (1778–1846) King of Holland (1806–1810) (subsequently forcing his abdication after his failure to subordinate Dutch interests to those of France) and his youngest brother Jérôme Bonaparte (1784–1860) King of Westphalia, the short-lived realm created from some of the states of northwestern Germany (1807–1813).

Napoleon's son Napoleon François Charles Joseph (1811–1832) was created King of Rome (1811–1814) and was later styled Napoleon II by loyalists of the dynasty, though he only ruled for two weeks after his father's abdication. Charles Louis Napoléon (1808–1873), son of Louis Napoléon, was president of France in 1848–1852 and emperor in 1852–1870, reigning as Napoléon III; his son, Eugène Bonaparte (1856–1879), styled the Prince Imperial, died fighting the Zulus in Natal, South Africa. With his death, the family lost much of its remaining political appeal, though claimants continue to assert their right to the imperial title. A political movement for Corsican independence surfaced in the 1990s which included a Bonapartist restoration in its programme.