Talk:Carlo Buonaparte

Cause of death for one of his sons

I find it entirely plausible that Carlo died from stomach cancer. However, his son Napoleone did not. His symptoms where incompatible with cancer and the professional pathologist who led the autopsy did not find a single tumour. I have written a summary of the present-day state of knowledge on the issue. It can be found here. I am not an expert just an ordinary sceptic with a reluctant fascination for Napoleone. As long as you refrain from ad hominem attacks on me questioners will be answered to the best of my ability.

2014-01-11 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Two more deceased children

I added two other children who did not survive.

- Arsaces.

Life in France

This article should give much more depth to Carlo's life in France. The article misses too many facts - very important ones - related to how his decisions created his son's destiny as Napoleon, Emperor of France. First of all, the Bonaparte family was not penniless per se. They had a spartan lifestyle but in Corsica they were getting supported by their Corsican archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte. Carlo went to France with strong distinguished support in getting that assignment - one being Gen. de Marbeuf (some suspect him of being Napoleon's real father through a supposed affair with Napoleon's mother Letitia Ramolini/Bonaparte). Most importantly, it was Carlo who took his sons Napoleon and Joseph to France to get them educated. Carlo struggled to make ends meet while in Paris. His sons started off in Autun prep school; Joesph was put on the path to religious clergy education after, while Napoleon was brought to the distinguished Brienne military school in 1779. While Carlo financially struggled in Paris, Archdeacon Lucien in Corsica supported Napoleon's mother and his 6 other siblings at their home. While at Versailles, enduring begging, borrowing and scrimping, Carlo finally managed to get the state to pay for Napoleon's education at Brienne. Carlo as a father supported his children and Napoleon studied exceptionally hard knowing both of his parents' sacrifices for him and his siblings. This article should mention these important facts because the impression one gets is that Carlo was a wholly blundering loser, when in fact he set the path to his families ultimate fortunes through his early shaping of Napoleon's destiny.--Joey123xz (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit-warring

User:RandomCanadian appears to be edit-warring on this article. Could he please explain himself? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 19:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Mathsci is unambiguously stalking me around and adding parent/child category duplicates despite probably knowing quite well that is not an ideal solution, seemingly in an attempt to spite me or to get me to do something unreasonable. I have muted you, to prevent any further excess. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

This article and a second page were on my watchist because of this edit by me[1] where I mentioned the family of Bonaparte. I was the first editor to point that out. I have muted you, to prevent any further excess. What does that mean? Mathsci (talk) 20:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Mathsci:, RandomCanadian is right Category:People from Ajaccio takes over from Category:People from Corsica like I have explained on Talk:Letizia_Bonaparte. Regarding Category:Italian Roman Catholics it's different, I would re-add it as the Republic of Genoa, of which Corsica was part of when Carlo Buonaparte was born, was an Italian city-state and the Buonaparte descended from Italian nobility of Tuscan origin. Regards Aeengath (talk) 11:07, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Aeengath: Dorothy Carrington should also be moved. I haven't checked any others. [I almost confused her with the Bloomsbury Carrington! A French friend showed me a copy of the death register of Angelica Garnett from the Hotel de Ville in Aix; exiled to Forcalquier, Angelica retired to Aix.] I haven't made any edits related to Genoa, apart for edits some time back related to the Great Plague of Marseille, where quarantine was broken by a boat from Livorno (?). Regards, Mathsci (talk) 12:45, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

CB "was a Corsican lawyer and diplomat of Italian origin, best known as the father of Napoleon Bonaparte."

1) If he is best known as the father of Napoleon Bonaparte, why is his partial, centuries old ancestry inserted before that "best known" piece of information?

2) @Aeengath:'s edit summary for his/her revert of my edit reads "That information is sourced in the body please read MOS:CITELEAD his ancestry has its own section so it is definitely notable". First, have you read the sources? Do you know what they say, or imply, about his claims to such ancient nobility? His reasons for obtaining it? The great lengths he went to? And Secondly, no, his "Italian ancestry" is not listed in the article. It doesn't go back that far (250 years). Only his Corsican ancestors are listed, Carlo couldn't trace a direct geanological line back to his supposed "Patrician" ancestors in Tuscany, so he made a series of visits to two particular individuals to sign off on his claims, before he presented them to the French court.

"The earliest unimpeachable record shows a member of the Buonaparte family, a lawyer, as a member of the Council of Ancients in Ajaccio in 1616; several more Buonaparte lawyers served on this council in the eighteenth century. The Buonapartes like the Ramolinos were part of the Corsican nobility, but it must be remembered that Corsican ‘nobles’ were as common as ‘princes’ in Czarist Russia." (McLynn, p. 3)

"The Ramolinos were a cadet branch of the distinguished Collalto family, well entrenched in Lombardy since the fourteenth century; the Ramolinos themselves had been established in Corsica for 250 years. Where the Buonapartes were a family of lawyers, with the Ramolinos the tradition was military... (Ibid., p. 3)

... not only did Carlo not go with them but he immediately threw in his lot with the new French overlords. In February 1771 he was appointed assessor of the Royal Jurisdiction of Ajaccio, one of eleven on the island. Certainly not coincidentally, in the same year, on 13 September 1771, Carlo obtained patents from the authorities declaring the Buonaparte family noble. Corsican nobility did not confer many advantages: there were no feudal privileges, no exemption from taxes, not even any particular deference from other classes; but the advantages of the declaration of nobility for the Buonapartes were significant in the long term. (Ibid., p. 16)

Marbeuf repaid Letizia in an eminently practical and concrete way. Knowing of Carlo’s parlous finances, he alerted him to a little-known procedure whereby the children of distressed French nobility could receive a free education. In theory, Joseph could be trained for the priesthood at the seminary at Aix, Napoleon could be sent to military school, while the eldest girl might secure a place at Madame de Maintenon’s school at St-Cyr. There was just one snag: parental applicants had to submit both a certificate of nobility and of indigence, and competition for the free places was ferocious, only 600 being available in the whole of France. Nevertheless, with his contacts and patronage Marbeuf was confident of success. In 1778, while Carlo was still out of Corsica, Marbeuf solicited the Minister of War, Prince de Montbarrey for free places for Joseph and Napoleon, enclosing the certificates of poverty and of four generations of nobility. Montbarrey replied provisionally on 19 July 1778, granting Napoleon a place at the military academy at Brienne and Joseph his indentures at the Aix seminary. However, there were conditions: the two Buonaparte sons had to be clear that they could not both be trained for the same profession; they had to pass the entrance examinations; and final confirmation had to await a new certificate of nobility from the royal heraldist in Versailles. Final confirmation of Napoleon’s place at a military school was not received from the Minister of War until 31 December 1778. Marbeuf again pulled strings. The preliminary education, so necessary after the fragmentary instruction in Corsica, would be given at the school at Autun, run by his nephew the Bishop; Marbeuf guaranteed payment of Napoleon and Joseph’s fees. Carlo gushed with gratitude and wrote a sonnet in praise of his benefactor, who does not seem to have reciprocated by ending the affair with Letizia. Such was the complex family situation as Napoleon, at the age of nine, prepared to depart for Autun.

Zamoyski gives more detail: Placing Napoleone would be more difficult. In 1776 Carlo applied for a place at one of the royal military academies, but the boy would require a royal bursary to pay for his studies. These were awarded to sons of officers and indigent nobles, so Carlo had to prove his noble credentials and provide evidence of his lack of means. The recognition of nobility he had gained in 1771 was based on proofs dating back only 200 years, which was not sufficient. In 1777 Carlo was chosen as one of the deputies to represent the nobility of Corsica at the court of Louis XVI, but he would not be presented to the king unless he could provide proofs of more ancient lineage. When he had gone to Pisa, Italy, to obtain his doctorate, Carlo had obtained from the city’s Archbishop a document attesting that his birth entitled him to the status of a ‘noble patrician of Tuscany’. He now returned to Tuscany and located a canon by the name of Filipo Buonaparte, who provided him with documents purportedly relating him to his own family, which could trace noble status back to the fourteenth century. Armed with these, Carlo hoped to be able to gain recognition in France, and with it the right to a bursary for Napoleone. - Zamoyski, A. (2018). Napoleon: The Man Behind the Myth. United Kingdom: HarperCollins Publishers. quoting: " Larrey, Madame Mère, 529; see also: Vergé-Franceschi, Napoléon, 294–5; Paoli, 45, 50; Chuquet, I/78; Defranceschi, 79–80".

In other words, Carlo's claim to be a "Noble Patrician of Tuscany" was likely bogus. It's never been demonstrated independently of the scheming machinations of Carlo in Pisa, and Carlo's benefactor the Comte de Marbeuf, Corsica's military governor at the time, own personal relationship with the Minister of War, the Prince de Montbarrey.

Avner Falk writes that "most of Carlo's documents were fake" (Napoleon Against Himself: A Psychobiography, 2015) and French historian Frédéric Masson in his Napoléon dans sa jeunesse: 1769-1793 (2016), agrees.

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 20:14, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Another source: "Carlo was astute enough not to resist the French once they occupied the island. On the contrary, he did his best to ingratiate himself with them and especially with Marbeuf. We do not know when exactly the relationship was formed, but we do know that they were close enough for Carlo to invite Marbeuf to be Napoleone’s godfather in July 1771... Marbeuf nevertheless visited the Buonaparte household on 15 August (Napoleone’s second birthday) of that same year, where he met Letizia for the first time. He was, by all accounts, taken with her.... but perhaps the most important gain [for Carlo] was accession to the French aristocracy (after supplying somewhat dubious documents proving four generations of nobility), which, in turn, opened up the possibility of educating his children at the expense of the French state... The certificate was not enough, however. It had to be supported by an influential member of the French court. This is, undoubtedly, why Carlo’s initial demands for scholarships were unsuccessful. It was only after subsequent demands were made through the intermediary of Marbeuf that Carlo finally succeeded in securing places in French schools for his children." - Dwyer, P. (2014). Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769 - 1799. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing. (p. 32) EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 20:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I can't get a copy of Carrington, who, as far as I can tell, was the first to publish convincing circumstantial evidence of both Marbeuf's affair with Letizia, and the to put forward the strongest case for "the fallacy of his [Carlo's] claims to have descended from the Patrician Bonapartes of Tuscany". There are plenty of reviews in academic journals that make mention of this. For example, Godechot Jacques writing in Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°275, 1989. (p. 82): "The newest and most interesting passages concern Letizia, the mother of Napoleon, and Marbeuf, the military governor of Corsica. While most writers have painted Letizia as a prudish, self-effacing woman, the "Mamma" par excellence. Dorothy Carrington gives us a completely different picture. As a youth, she was flirtatious and even fickle. Was she the mistress of Marbeuf? The author believes so. Without doubt Marbeuf is not the father of Napoleon, but perhaps that of Louis or Jerome. This explains the relative ease with which the Bonaparte children obtained scholarships to the most prestigious French schools, when the number of scholarships awarded to Corsican was so very limited." - https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1989_num_275_1_4603_t1_0082_0000_3

Carrington, Dorothy. Napoleon and His Parents: on the Threshold of History. London, Penguin Books Lid., 1988. ISBN#0-525-24833-1. 289 pages. Hardcover. Out of Print.

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 21:32, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@EnlightenmentNow1792: I just edited the article Dorothy Carrington today (see also above). Here is a copy of the book by her that you wanted [2]. Hope I got it right. Regards, Mathsci (talk) 23:07, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi @EnlightenmentNow1792: Thanks for all that, it may be interesting to mention his effort to prove four generations of nobility just to get a royal bursary for his sons. After checking with the French wiki I am removing the mention of his Italian origin from the lead and updating the rest of the article accordingly. Regards Aeengath (talk) 09:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Portrait

I thought the Portrait of Carlo was a posthumous portrait commissioned by Napoleon. Orson12345 (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2022 (UTC)