"The American Bonaparte" Topic

"Among the 83 secretaries of the Navy, the 37th, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, has the most unusual back story. Secretary Bonaparte was the grandson of the youngest of Napoleon Bonaparte's four brothers, Jérôme. This lineage made the new secretary a grandnephew of the late French emperor who'd shaken the world barely a century earlier.

Napoleon died in exile on remote St. Helena Island 30 years before his grandnephew, Charles, was born in Baltimore. Had they overlapped in life and met, any conversation would have been at the very least awkward. Following Jérôme's Christmas Eve 1803 marriage to Elizabeth Patterson, a Baltimore native, an outraged Napoleon forced an annulment and ordered his brother to return to France. The pregnant Elizabeth traveled to France with Jérôme but was not allowed to disembark. Jérôme united with the Bonapartes and was appropriately remarried to a suitable European royal and installed on the just-invented (and temporary) throne of German Westphalia. For her part, Elizabeth returned to America and received from Napoleon a payment reported to be 60,000 gold francs per year. Only later did the emperor recognize his half-American nephew, who in 1851 would become Charles' father, as legitimate.

In the United States, most granted the Bonaparte from Baltimore special status as an authentic member of continental royalty, the only such in American politics, but were willing to overlook his aristocratic lineage. Bonaparte's appointment in mid-1905 to President Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet was greeted with relatively little public grumbling about the grandnephew of the "Little Corporal" taking over the U.S. Navy. Skeptics looked hard: Following the announcement at the end of June, Harper's Weekly sought the usual "French gestures and grimaces" to criticize but could find none in this portly second-generation American, elsewhere described as having "the cannon-ball head of a warrior, with room for two sets of brains," and a signature that proudly swept a full six inches across the page…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Tango, I've run out of positive adjectives for you and your posts here!

All I can write here is…

THANKS!

Charlie Redmond

What an amazing story !

Tango 01 is THE man!!!

How on earth do you find these things? Thanks very much for the interesting tale.

I really like these historical tidbits. Many thanks.

Thank you for posting this story.

Tony

So happy you enjoyed it boys!!!! (big smile).
It's quite interesting, yes.

Amicalement
Armand

Most amazing!

Glad you like it too my good friend!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Tango01: Rescently found out that Jerome and his American Wife, Betsey, spent their honeymoon in the house on the farm where my family buys it's Christmas trees. Makes you post even more interesting to me than your usual excellent topics.

Thanks, John Miller

Quite interesting my friend John!.
Glad you enjoyed the article and many thanks for your kindly words. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand