Napoleon Bonaparte Still Hiding Out in Corsica?
Apparently, the French census bureau thought so!
Corsica
Napoleon Bonaparte, A True Corsican?
A belated happy birthday to Napoleon Bonaparte who was born 246 years ago, on August 15, 1769, in this house on the island of Corsica. That lightly-populated island’s strategic position in the Mediterranean led to its repeated conquest and colonization, starting with the Phoenicians in 565 BCE. Over the next two millennia, Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths, …
Napoleon Bonaparte’s School Days
As schools begin their fall sessions, Napoleon Bonaparte’s educational experience comes to mind. At nine years old, little Nabulio Buonaparte traveled a thousand kilometers from Ajaccio, Corsica, the only home he’d known, to a military school in Brienne, France. Along the way, he spent four months in Autun, France, long enough for the Italian-speaking child …
Napoleon on Camelback in the Musée Fesch
After seeing the photo of me riding an elephant, one of this blog’s readers asked if Napoleon had ridden a camel during his Egyptian Campaign (1798). Yes, Melanie! Here’s a photo I took of a small bronze statue of the Man himself on camelback. It’s displayed in the Musée Fesch in Ajaccio, Corsica, Napoleon’s hometown. …
Bonaparte or Buonaparte?
As far back as Corsican records go, Napoleon’s family signed their name “Bonaparte.” In 1759, Napoleon’s father, Carlo, in his quest to establish hereditary links to Tuscan nobility, changed to the Italian “Buonoparte” form. Ten years later, his second son, Napoleon, was born under that surname. Because Carlo had succeeded in establishing the family’s noble …
Bonapartes banished from Corsica and France
As I wrote in an earlier post, the Corsican assembly, in 1793, voted unanimously “to inflict on the individuals making up [the family] Bonaparte an eternal brand that renders their name and their memory detestable to [all Corsican] patriots.” Six years later, however, during a stopover on Napoleon’s return from the Egyptian campaign, the Corsicans …
Happy Birthday, Emperor Napoleon
On August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, Corsica, the Archdeacon Lucien Buonaparte celebrated the festival of the Virgin Mary, the town’s patron saint. Young Letizia Buonaparte, interrupting her devotions, hurried home to give birth to her second son. The boy was named Napoleon after an uncle who had died several months earlier while fighting in vain …