Carlo Buonaparte

Carlo Maria Buonaparte or Charles-Marie Bonaparte (27 March 1746 – 24 February 1785) was a Corsican lawyer and diplomat, best known as the father of Napoleon Bonaparte and grandfather of Napoleon III.

Buonaparte served briefly as a personal assistant to revolutionary leader Pasquale Paoli, fighting with the Corsican forces during the French conquest of Corsica. With the island conquered and the resistance defeated, Buonaparte eventually rose to become Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI. Twenty years after his death, his second surviving son, Napoleon, became Emperor of the French; subsequently, several of Buonaparte's other children received royal titles from their brother, and married into royalty.

Early life

Carlo Buonaparte was born in 1746 in Ajaccio, Corsica, at the time part of the Republic of Genoa; he already had a sister Maria Gertrude, born in 1741, and a brother Sebastiano, born in 1743. His father, Giuseppe Maria Buonaparte, had represented Ajaccio at the Council of Corte in 1749. The Corsican Buonapartes were of Tuscan origin. Carlo's ancestor, Guglielmo di Buonaparte, had been a member of the Ghibelline-controlled municipal council of Florence in the thirteenth century, when the Guelphs faction took over Florence, Guglielmo and his family fled to Sarzana. His descendant Francesco di Buonaparte, sailed from Liguria to Corsica in the 16th century for a new life.

Carlo initially followed in his father's footsteps and studied to be a lawyer at Pisa University, but following a substantial inheritance from the death of his father, he left before earning his degree to tend to his inheritance and take charge of family responsibilities. On 2 June 1764, he married fourteen year old Maria Letizia Ramolino: the Ramolinos descended from noble Lombard antecedents and were established in Corsica for 250 years. Their marriage was arranged by their families, economic convenience was one of several factors considered while arranging the match, the main considerations being of cultural compatibility in matters such as speech dialect, church habits, food habits, attire and other family traditions. Buonaparte's new wife brought with her a dowry of thirty-one acres of land, including a mill and bakery which yielded an annual income of roughly £10,000.

French takeover

For a period after his marriage at Ajaccio on 2/7 June 1764, he worked as a secretary and personal assistant to Pasquale Paoli. He had a son, Napoleone, who died in infancy in 1765 as did a daughter. Paoli sent him to Rome to negotiate with Pope Clement XIII in 1766. He had apparently enjoyed his time in Rome up until being forced for reasons unknown back to Corsica in 1768 - though he had possibly enjoyed an affair with a married woman during his stay which led to his departure. At the time of his return, the Republic of Genoa had offered Corsica to Louis XV as payment for a debt. The French were eager to obtain the strategically placed island for the protection of their own coasts, and Genoa equally keen to relinquish control given their inability to resist growing independence movements. Buonaparte was noted for a fervent speech against the French "invasion". Political upheaval followed as France gained ownership of Corsica, and many of Paoli's supporters had to flee to the mountains. Buonaparte and his family, now boasting newborn Giuseppe, who was the first child to survive infancy, were included. The family eventually returned to the town, where Buonaparte's wife gave birth to a third son, Napoleone.

Soon after the French acquisition of the island, Carlo Buonaparte embraced the new government. He was appointed Assessor of the Royal Jurisdiction of Ajaccio and the neighbouring districts on 20 September 1769. Shortly after that, he became a Doctor of Law at the University of Pisa on 27 November 1769.

Rise to prominence

In April 1770, the French administration created a Corsican Order of Nobility. He became an advocate of the Superior Council of Corsica on 11 December 1769 and a Substitute Procurator of the King of France in Ajaccio in October 1770. Carlo already possessed the title of a "Noble Patrician of Tuscany" (''Nobile Patrizio di Toscana'') since 1769 by permission of the Archbishop of Pisa due to his ancestry, and had his nobility confirmed on 13 September 1771. He then became the Assessor (law)">assessor