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Louis Bonaparte

Copy by Jean Baptiste Wicar, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, dressed as a general. Ajaccio, Maison Bonaparte
Copy by Jean Baptiste Wicar, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, dressed as a general. Ajaccio, Maison Bonaparte

Louis Bonaparte (Ajaccio, 5 September 1778–Livorno, 25 July 1846) was at the same time Napoleon’s brother and the son–in–law of the Emperor’s first wife, Joséphine, having married, on his brother’s insistence, Joséphine’s daughter from her first marriage, Hortense de Beauharnais. Napoleon was for that matter a kind of putative father to Louis. Older by eleven years, he had compelled him to stay with him in Paris and was directly in charge of his education.
In 1806 Napoleon, having become Emperor, assigned him the kingdom of Holland, but from this moment the roads of the two brothers began to diverge. Louis demonstrated too much independence in administering the affairs of the small kingdom, which had launched a process of modernization. And so in 1810, Holland was annexed to France and Louis became a king without a kingdom. Moving to Italy, he dedicated himself to literature.
Three children resulted from his marriage to Hortense. Of these, Napoléon Louis married his cousin, Carlotta, the daughter of his uncle Giuseppe, while the third, Charles Louis Napoléon, would become Emperor Napoleon III.