Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.

We have an esteemed guest back on the line, the great author John Kuhn, joining us on SCAN.

How are you, John?

Doing great.

Thanks, John.

Yeah, yeah.

John and I are actually going to talk about an interesting subject that I've been wanting to get to for months.

We're going to talk about Carlo and Letizia Bonaparte.

Those are Napoleon's parents, and I really want to get deep down into that.

John, do you have any disclaimers I have to read before we get into it?

So, so these are my opinions as a result of, you know, my work.

They're not the opinions of the US Army, the US Navy or the Department of Defense.

OK, so with that said, John is actually working on a book that he actually has completed.

It's called The Bonaparte of Corsicana, really relates to what we're talking about today.

John, could you give my audience A brief overview of what that is and any publishers that may be looking to publish?

Yeah, the name of it is the Bonaparte's of Corsica, and I've completed book 1, so it's meant to be a series and it's called Carlo.

So it's all about Carlo Bonaparte when he was young.

And actually the book book ends with the birth of two people, Napoleon and Wellington.

Yeah, that is 1769, so that's a good time.

Book ends in 1769.

Yeah, OK.

Well.

Any would be publishers that are looking for a great book, I recommend you get in touch with John Kuhn.

OK, so my first kind of bullet point of what I want to talk to you about is they say most people are products of their early childhood experience.

And looking at both personalities that are Carlo and Letizia, it seems Napoleon was a mix of both.

He had the big dreams of Carlo and the practical get it done, stick to itiveness of Letizia.

Does that sound accurate to you?

Yeah, it does.

I'd say the big dreams of Carlo really come in the DNA package that he gets from his dad, not so much from sort of Carlo's Carlo's impact on him when he gets shipped off and and he really never sees his father again.

So, so, so he's, you know, he hasn't even really gone into teenage rebellion against his father when he, when they ship him off to Brienne.

So, so the mother, on the other hand, I think is huge.

I think Letizia's impact on him is huge.

He, so Napoli's got this idealized view of his father.

You know, he's a freedom fighter and everything, but he's also, he also, you know, has these, these ideas that that the Bonaparte family is going to be a big deal in Corsica.

And we'll talk about that because, because, because Carlo was on a fast track to be a big deal in Corsica until events overtook him.

But Letizia is fascinating.

I mean, you know, you mentioned it later.

I mean, she has a zillion kids and, you know, and eight of them, you know, turn into adults.

So they're quite a brood.

I mean, I'm surprised somebody hasn't done more on on the Bonaparte as a clan because they, I think they've got everything on the Corleones and then some.

And she is an amazing woman.

Biographers look at this, you know, did so and so get mostly the dad, mostly the mom.

Is he a mix of the two, right?

And Ron Cherno, in his biography of Alexander Hamilton, said it's clearly the mother where he gets his intelligence and his brilliance.

And I think if we're going to give one of the two parents most of it, we're going to give it to Letizia.

We're going to give Letizia 60 to 70% of Napoleons character comes from this slip of a girl who's got a will of iron.

Right.

And I totally agree with that, but I also don't want to minimize the impact on his upbringing on the tough mountainous train of Corsica and his siblings, who also had mixes of their parents.

And I would say Lucy and Pauline and Jerome were the dreamers, while Caroline, Louie and Eliza and Joseph were the the doers.

Your thoughts on the siblings and how they affected Napoleon's early years?

Well, the one who has the most effect on him is is Joseph.

So Joseph is his older brother and the and the relationship between Joseph and Napoleon, right until Napoleon comes into prominence, which really doesn't occur until after the whiff of grave shot.

Joseph is a huge influence on his life.

So.

So I agree.

You know, Joseph is a doer.

Although there's a little dreaminess to Joseph.

There's a lazy side to Joseph.

Yeah, there's the same is true of Elisa.

Elisa, who's his sister is quite a strong independent kind of a personality, you know, And of course Lewis and Carolyn are too, you know, so these are the very, you know, practical minded.

I would say Lucian is an interesting combination of both dreamer and practical, but he's so independent.

I mean, Lucian is that guy who, you know, I mean, I'm still amazed Lucian, when he comes to America, he just doesn't become president, you know, because because he's, he's so much of, of what we would think of as sort of the American approach to democracy and republicanism.

But he's independent.

He forges his own path.

Pauline and Jerome, they're just spoiled brats.

Let's just face it and, and maybe we'll talk about, there's one person that's not on your list and that's Luciano since the Carlo's uncle, who has a huge impact on Carlo, but he also has a big impact on Napoleon.

And so Luciano is a huge impact too.

We we kind of forget about him in many ways after after Carlo dies.

Luciano Arch Arch Archdeacon of Corsica is is a huge impact and we we always forget about him.

There's some other impacts too we're going to talk about but but I'd throw him on there.

But as far as stiblings go, yeah, I think your take is pretty correct.

OK, well let's discuss the parents.

Carla Bonaparte was born in March 1746.

Much has been made of Napoleon's quote minor aristocracy and quote upbringing.

What was Carlos family and upbringing like?

So the Bonaparts of Corsica and I'm going to show a book here, Steve England, Napoleon of political life.

He really goes into the Bonaparts of of a Jacio.

They are an established major family in that part of Corsica.

In fact, they're one of the major families of Corsica.

There are these clans, there's the Paoli's, there's the Salacetti's, there's the Bonaparte's, there's the Butafucos.

And so they are an established clan.

We'll get into why that is here in a second, but his upbringing is already, before they become French, minor aristocracy.

They are already considered minor aristocracy by the standards of Corsica.

Yeah, and I think though, some people get confused like they weren't rich.

I mean, they had a nice house, but I wouldn't call the Bonaparte's rich growing up.

So compared to most Corsicans, they're rich.

OK, are they among the wealthiest of the Corsicans?

No, but they are definitely in the top 10% because they're a family of lawyers.

They come from money.

They have a way to generate money, but they also have land and the family is an extended family.

So the extended family has money.

Luciano, who is Carlo's father's brother, has money.

He's a churchman, he's got money.

So there is there is money there that doesn't come directly from Carlo or Carlo's father, who is also a lawyer.

But essentially, the Bonaparte's are lawyers, and they live in a Jack CEO.

So Carlo initially follow follows his father's footsteps and studies to be a lawyer.

But what is going on in Corsica politically at this time?

Because I know the island had long been a possession of Genoa.

Yeah, so.

This is a period of, for the Corsicans of benign neglect.

Yes, they're, they become a Genoese possession, but the Genoese never really implement ironclad control over Corsica.

All they wanted was the ports, particularly the ones in the North, Bastia and Calvi.

So, but they don't, they're not interested in the interior.

And so they have this very relaxed rule of Corsica where there's only a couple major towns where they keep garrisons.

So the Seven Years War is the tipping point.

When the Seven Years War occurs, most part of the settlement at the Treaty of Paris is to give Genoa a sort of a compensation to the French.

You know, France loses the Seven Years War, but she gets Corsica as sort of a SOP for the other things that she's lost, particularly the New World.

Her, her empire in North America is lost, but she gets this possession in the Mediterranean.

And so so Genoa basically goes, yeah, we don't really control the place anyway yet.

So you can have it fine.

Louis the 15th and duck to Chosul, it's yours.

Good luck bringing it under control.

And so that's what's going on at the time that Carlo is a young man and he's studying in Italy to be a lawyer.

We think he's going to school at the university in Pisa.

Yeah, but he gets called back to Corsica because of this impending crisis, with the French asserting control over Corsica.

OK, let's discuss Napoleon's mother now.

Maria Letizia Bonaparte was born in August 1750.

She's the daughter of an army officer, and her family was recognized as part of the Italian nobility.

What was her early life like?

So, so her early life is just like Napoleon's.

I mean, she's a child for this period that we're talking about.

Her family are the Ramolinos.

And this is where we can talk about all these families.

The one of the reasons the Bonaparte's and the Ramolinos, the Botafucos, all of them are important is they all come to Corsica in the 17th, in the 18th century.

And all of them are sort of these Italian mercenaries, Swiss mercenaries who set up residence in Corsica.

And they basically become the leadership of Corsica.

So they're all from the Italian nobility, but they initially weren't, They were mercenaries.

And they're basically kind of given a place to go and reward for their services.

So the Ramolinos come from mercenaries and the Bonaparte come from Tuscan, Tuscan mercenaries, but actually they were from further north in Italy, Lombardi.

And then they move South.

So she's the daughter of the Ramolino.

Ramolino dies and leaves her mother Minama widowed.

Minama is still very young and beautiful herself.

I mean, you know, she's very young when she gives birth to Letizia, who's her, who's her oldest daughter.

And so so she remarries and she remarries the Swiss mercenary, a guy named Joseph Fesch, who will have a son with Minama, who will be Leticia's stepbrother, Joseph Fesch, who will later become importantly, Cardinal Fesch.

So that's her background.

But she's very young, very Catholic, going to a Catholic school, being being essentially educated by nuns.

But she's very, very intelligent.

She's literate.

So both, both of these families come from the class that is literate.

And that's how you know, they're important.

They, they're literate.

OK, Now they're literate in Italian, Latin and maybe French.

The 1st 2 languages of Corsica are really Italian and Latin.

All right, So it depends on whether you're in the church or not, whether you know Latin, but so so she's and she's very young.

She's 14 years old and you're going to get.

Into that, Yeah.

In June 1764, there is a marriage between 14 year old Letizia, an 18 year old Carlo.

How would you describe their marriage?

Was it a happy one?

Because it sounds arranged, sorta.

I don't know if they.

Actually, it's absolutely an arranged marriage.

By this point.

The payer familias of the Bonaparte family is no longer Carlo's father, who's died right of stomach cancer.

All right.

But it's it's Luciano, his brother.

Luciano says, all right, you know, he tells Carlo's mother Sevaria, you need to get married.

You need to come back from Pisa and take control of the family because things are going to change and we need you back here.

We need all the talent we can get.

So they set up this marriage with the Ramolino clan.

So Carlo fellow and and Letizia are promised to each other without ever seeing each other sort of standard procedure here.

And and he doesn't want to get married.

He's having, you know, a good old time in a college town being a college Playboy.

And so he he he's so upset about the marriage, he refuses to get married in the church.

So, so they're married in a civil marriage, right?

Because Corsica is self ruled by the Paoli's and so they're getting a civil marriage.

Very a few nations in Europe do this.

I mean, you know, of course, it's almost like the United States.

It's this oddball Republic that the Genoese are glad to exist.

So.

But Carlo expresses his distaste for the marriage by saying I refuse to get married in the church.

I'm a man of the Enlightenment.

I'm a man of reason.

I don't believe in religious nonsense.

And if you're going to make me get married.

So they get a civil marriage.

And Letizia is horrified.

She's a good little Catholic girl.

I mean, she's 14 years old, for God's sake.

I mean, you can't make this stuff, so it's not a happy marriage.

But they do get pregnant right away.

And Carlo goes on to become Paoli's secretary.

Yeah.

And I want to get into that there's a couple things to this question.

The couple go on to have 13 children of whom mate survived.

Napoleon is a second born child as you mentioned after Joseph and around the time of Joseph's birth.

Genoa formally seeds course go to France.

The freedom fighter Pasqual Paoli leads an armed resistance against the French, and Paolo serves as secretary to Paoli.

This is an important position, correct?

So I remember Alexander Hamilton is a secretary to George Washington.

It's not like how we think of secretaries now.

Yeah, the analogy is extremely well made.

So, so Paola.

So they're married.

Leticia gets pregnant.

Paoli sends Carlo off back to Italy where he has an affair and wastes money.

But his whole idea is to get loans for Corsica from the Florentine bankers, which he does.

He does.

He does that correctly, but he has an affair, very public 1 it gets back and then on top of it, Leticia has a miscarriage.

So her first pregnancy is a miscarriage.

And Carla comes back and he everybody sort of says, you know, you're a you're an idiot.

But they give him a second chance and he gets Letizia pregnant and and now she does have a baby, but it's right in the middle of this war for independence.

And he gives a famous speech in Corte.

Some people say the speech was really given by Paoli.

But when you read the speech, it's this rousing, you know, call to liberty and defend the freedom, of course, like against the French invaders.

So, so he's one of Paoli's right hand men in the revolution, in the war of independence that takes place against the French.

You know, it goes poorly.

But initially it doesn't.

Initially the French have some setbacks and they have to send down, they have to send down the first string.

Initially they send down the second string with the what they call the Corsican Legion.

Carlo becomes a soldier, a captain in one of and Paoli's army, and is with Paoli at the Battle of Novoponta.

Yeah, and I know Paoli's one of Napoleon's biggest, I guess, role models, but we'll we'll come back to that.

Paoli and his supporters are eventually defeated by the French, and Carlo decides to ingratiate himself with the French conquerors of Corsica.

How does he do that?

OK, so you know, there's a couple things going on here.

So the, the war goes poorly.

They, they send a, a, a French, a new French general down a guy named the Marquis de Voe.

He's got orders from the Doctor Schwa Seoul to kind of to, to, to make Corsica come to heel.

He sends this guy the Comptomar Boeuf down as his political adviser.

So after this big defeat outside Corte at the battle of of Newbridge or Ponte Novo, everybody heads to the hills.

Salacetti's flea and Carlo flees back to to Ajaxio.

And he's hiding in the hills of Ajaxio with his young son, his teenage wife, who's pregnant with another baby.

Who is you know who right, Napoleon, right.

And Marbuf offers the the noble, the franchise of French nobility to all of all of the people.

So Luciano, Napoleon's uncle, says, hey, you really need to accept the franchise.

And so so Carlo comes out of the hills, meets with Marbouf, and he accepts the franchise.

So it's it's not that he's ingratiating himself.

He's only doing what's practical.

And so this is the practical side of the Bonaparte.

Well, that's sort of coming through.

That's what I think would happen either.

Latizi had to talk with him and said.

Look, we're not running around the hills anymore.

I'm pregnant.

You need to get in good with these new French conquerors and and maybe get into the aristocracy there and our lives will be more settled.

Yeah, so just about every family in Corsica accepts the amnesty, and as a reward, Marbuf gives them all titles of nobility.

Now the first clan gets the biggest title of nobility.

That'll be the Buddhafookos.

They basically become barons.

But but Carlo comes in and he's made a Chevalier, a minor nobility.

I think Fesh is also awarded A Chevalier.

So the Ramolino's also come into the clan.

Luciano, because he's a churchman, gets to retain his rights and responsibilities in the church.

Except now you know he's working for the French branch of the Catholic Church, not the Corsican branch.

Right, like in April 1770, the French create the Corsican order of nobility and Carlo is included.

And although Carlo has many titles, he isn't satisfied and embarks on what I would call get rich quick schemes.

How do these turn out?

Because I know he's also gambling a great deal at this time.

After one trip to Paris, Carlo noted quote.

In Paris I received 4000 francs from the king and a fee of 1000 crowns to the government, but I came back without a penny.

End Quote.

Yeah, unfortunately for Carlo, he's probably a pretty good lawyer, or at least a good enough lawyer.

He, he does get an income, he's granted A bequest, the 4000 francs from the, from the king, you know, but the biggest advantage of being a noble is that his children qualify for all of the benefits that come with being part of the French nobility.

Now they're minor nobility, so there's only kind of two places they can go.

They can go into the army or they can go into the church.

And but that means free education, which is absolutely huge.

And the first one to benefit from this of Carlos children will be Joseph.

You know, he'll get to go and study at Oxfam province.

He goes to Oxfam Province and studies there initially in the church, and then he'll switch to being a lawyer, decides the church isn't for him.

So, so he, they, they get this.

But yeah, Carlo is a spendthrift.

He doesn't know to handle money.

Now, Carlo isn't the only source of income.

All right, Remember, she's got an income.

The Rambolinos have an income.

Luciano has an income.

But yeah, Carlo is not very good with money, and he kind of spends it as quickly as he gets it.

And he's that guy who just can't seem to to hang on to a dollar bill, or a franc in this case.

Well, Carlo's able to get his two oldest boys, as we mentioned, in the state-run schools on paid scholarships.

And I think at the age of 9, Napoleon has dropped off at military school in France by his father.

I mean, this must have been really hard for a young Napoleon, very Spartan accommodations, not knowing anyone, not being able to speak French fluently.

But at the same time.

I'm often amazed that a dad and course code decided to take his nine year old to a military college would affect the whole world.

It's such a butterfly effect decision that seems minor at the time, but I mean it turned into an emperor.

It it's almost over determined.

The historians have different words they use and one of them is over determined.

The first son goes into the church, you know, or inherits, you know, everything and and Joseph decides he wants to be the painter familia.

So he drops out of the church and and and goes to become a lawyer to basically follow his father's footsteps.

And the second son goes into the army.

The same thing happens to Wellington.

You know, Wellington is born the same year and he's not going to be the guy to become Ford Mornington.

He's going to he's going to be the guy that goes into the army, right.

And he's dropped off too, you know, at a public school, just like Klausowitz is dropped off at the regiment, you know, when he's 11.

So, you know, all of these famous men that we're talking about this period, John, they all have the same pattern.

They're all dropped off at a private school somewhere, usually a military school.

And so Napoleon is just this Italian misfit who gets dropped off.

I mean, he's an adolescent.

So he's he's he's got his hormones kicking in.

He doesn't know the French language.

He's got this idealized vision of Paoli as the father of his country.

And so, you know, even though his father has abandoned the Paolis, you know, dream of an independent Corsican Republic, Napoleon never lets go of that dream.

And then he gets dropped off with a bunch of Snooty strangers at Brienne in the far north.

I mean, he's coming from the land of warmth and in Italy, and now he's going to this cold, inhospitable northern wasteland as far as he's concerned.

So he's a real odd, he's a real duck out of water up there in Brienne.

But this will sort of lead to everything that happens.

I would say it shapes his character a little bit though, that he had to survive in that steer environment.

No.

And so he becomes very, very self reliant.

And this is Letizia, right?

So Letizia, the same way she's abandoned by her husband, she's pregnant, you know, her husband's off in Corte, she's in a Jack CEO And so she's very self reliant.

And so Napoleon kind of follows in her mold of being very self reliant.

And he's he's insular, he's introvert.

He's an extreme introvert.

There's a Billy Joel song.

I wrote this down when I was looking at your question.

It's called the Angry young man, and that's Napoleon.

He's the angry young man.

You know, he's passionate, he's introverted, but he's boring as hell, right?

You know, at least around women he is.

And so that's Napoleon.

He's this introverted, intense, you know, guy, you know, that people, you know, like, you know, they don't want to be around him.

Anyway, we go back to Carlo.

Well, in 1782 Carlo grows weaker and suffer suffers constantly pain.

He seeks medical attention for years but dies in February 1785.

It is believed to be stomach cancer, the same disease that also kills Napoleon and Caroline later on.

How are the finances of the family when he does?

OK, let a word on the cancer.

It's congenital and it's a, it's what we call a gastric sarcoma.

And I'm a big believer that for the Bonaparte, this is something that occurs to them in a relatively young age.

They'll get this, this, this type of sarcoma.

There's two type of stomach sarcomas.

There's one that you can get when you're old, and then there's one that you can get when you're young.

If you get the young one, the only solution is surgery.

Well, the medical science hasn't reached a point where you can go in and cut one of these things out of a stomach.

The surgery will probably kill you.

Now you might go, why would you know so much about gastric sarcoma?

My own son had it.

He developed it in his early 30s and he had to have surgery to get it removed.

So I always tell my son, I said you had the same thing that killed Napoleon, but you survived it, so look what you're going to be able to do, right?

So, so let's go back to the question, you know, so the finances.

I was thinking about the question, you know, how desperate it is when Carlo dies, you know, but it's not that desperate.

You know, he's got two people that could be sucking the money down who are on the benefices of the French state, Joseph in Oxen Provence and Napoleon and Brienne.

And then later Napoleon goes to the artillery school and then he goes to the Nicole military so you don't have to pay for them.

And now who inherits the families finances?

Well, good old self reliant, frugal letizia.

And she's not all by herself.

She's not a widow with no means.

She's got the Ramolinos who can still support her because she's a Ramolino, right?

So she's friends with the fascist and Luciano.

Luciano has money.

And so, yeah, she's got all these kids.

Bonaparte leaves her with seven more children.

So, yeah, she's got this brood of kids that she's got to worry about.

And what's the biggest reason that the Bonaparte's are having money problems, Carlo?

Carlo, well, he's.

Dead.

So the guy who's the biggest problem for the Bonaparte finances is gone.

So, you know, part of what I'm going to try to get across to your listeners here is, yeah, the financial circumstances are tight, bordering on desperate because of all these young children.

However, she's got a pretty good safety net there in Corsica.

And it's only going to be when Joseph and and Napoleon come back and, and try to sort of create this, this, this, this league with Paoli and then have the break with Paoli and the whole French Revolution and the British come come to Corsica that things are really going to get tight.

So it's not until that happens that things get really tight when the Bonaparte sort of have to flee Corsica for southern France.

Right.

And I think that's where Let's Easier learns her frugality is during this time.

Yeah, it's when she gets to France and she really has to be tight fisted.

But now she's got two more benefactors and she lets them know.

She lets Giuseppe and Napoleon.

No, you 2 have got to provide the money for the family.

We don't have our family safety net in in a jaxio anymore to help us.

We're we're now we really are totally on our own widths to make our money because we don't have the family lands and we don't have the family house and everything in a jaxio.

Well, in 1786, Napoleon returns home after eight years away.

He's now serving as a Lieutenant in the French artillery, so he has a little bit of money.

But things get worse.

In 1793, Napoleon and his brothers break relations from Paoli and Paoli's supporters, ransack and burn the Bonaparte family home, and Napoleon and his mother and the siblings get away with just the clothes on their backs.

Letizia, now destitute, arrives in France and relies on soup kitchens and Napoleon's salary to get by.

I mean, this is probably the lowest point for the whole family I would think.

Yeah, and this is the impact of the French Revolution.

OK, The the the whole idea of liberty, equality and and fraternity, you know, it just doesn't work out.

All right.

And and and Napoleon and his brothers efforts to sort of lead the charge for Corsican independence.

You know, runs the foul of Paoli when Paoli kind of it makes common cause with the British, who are the biggest enemies of the French Revolution.

And so now they're Republicans.

They're not nobility.

They can't, you know, oh, we're nobility.

We, we deserve all of the largest of the state.

No, well, now it's the Republic and it's, you know, career of talents, right.

Well, the only careers going on here are Napoleon's and Joseph's.

And so Napoleon and Joseph and and Leticia now have to come up with the means.

And so when they're living in Marseille, this circumstances are very, very tight.

You know, they're, they're, they become all of a sudden at a stroke, they become part of the lower middle class.

And when they're citizens and this idea that they deserve anything because of their bloodline is complete nonsense.

And they become Jacobins.

They go, Yep, we're Jacobins.

You know, the working man's, you know, intelligentsia elite or the Republican intelligentsia.

And so who do they make common cause with?

Well, they make common cause with the ropes, Piers, you know, and, and, and so Letizia sees her sons become these radical Republicans.

And all of the children follow suit except the youngest, who still, you know, you know, they're still in the nursery being taken care of by Letizia.

And they're faithful Nurse Camilla.

So she she flees there.

So, you know, so Letizia is like, hey, I need some money, guys.

You need some promotions, right?

And those of law practice isn't bringing in a lot of money.

And all of a sudden Napoleon becomes the man.

You gotta you gotta get promoted.

And so Napoleon goes, OK, I'll line up with the with the roast beers if that's the way that I can get patronage so that I can advance in the ranks.

Well, it's interesting to me.

And the older ones knew how dire it was.

Like Napoleon.

Joseph.

Wasn't that frugal, Lucian?

But the younger ones seem to be the most spoiled, maybe just because they never experienced that, that that hard time, like Jerome, Caroline, you know, to Pauline, you know, they were more spoiled, the younger ones than the older ones.

Yeah, they are.

You know, in this period between 1793 and 1795 is the period where where Leticia is probably the most desperate in terms of money, but she's confident that Napoleon and Joseph can deliver.

And of course, the one who's going to deliver is going to be Napoleon, the one who's most like her, you know, did.

Hard worker.

Yeah, she knows.

Yeah.

Well, circumstances improve when Napoleon becomes famous after the Victoria siege of Toulon and suppressing the Paris revolt in 1795.

Napoleon gets promoted, has a more sizeable income to take care of his family.

However, a new problem arises in the form of Josephine.

Why did Letizia and the rest of the family disapprove of Josephine?

Yeah, it's just like just when the family's got everything together and Napoleon becomes a general as a reward, you know, for his loyalty to the very corrupt government that also is rapacious and rewards, you know, people who support it with lots of money.

S Napoleon hits the jackpot with the whiff of grape shot.

He falls in love with Bara's mistress, which is intentional.

Bara wants to get rid of his mistress because she spends money like it's going out of style so he fobs her off on Napoleon and that's why nobody supports this marriage.

Josephine is notorious in her ability to spend money and create debt so that's why the family doesn't approve.

They want Napoleon to marry a a more sensible girl like Letizia.

Yeah, and and, you know, you jump forward a few years when Napoleon wants his brothers and sisters to marry nobility.

But they make the very good point.

Like you didn't marry nobility.

You married some lady who's older than you who had two kids, a divorcee.

So I could see the friction between the family.

Like, well, you're you're telling us one thing.

But then you went and married Josephine.

Yeah, and that's kind of the answer to your next question.

Yeah, which is, you know, that's why Letizia doesn't come to the coronation.

She detests Josephine.

They almost get Josephine.

Anyway, Napoleon comes home and, and, and she's having an affair with that Hippolyte guy and, and Napoleon is furious, you know, and, and Eugen and Hortens have to beg Napoleon to forgive their mother and Letizia and Joseph and the whole clan are like, great, he's going to divorce her, right?

Because this is the Republic, you know, you can get rid of her, right?

And they come over to the house and Napoleon's back in bed with Josephine and they're like rats, right?

You know, So they, they detest Josephine.

None of them like her, all right?

Not not A1, not a one of them like Sir.

It's fascinating, though, that in the famous artwork by Jacques Louis David, you know, he paints let's easy in there even though she wasn't there.

Yeah, and, and Napoleon knows that.

I mean, he could have given his mother a big grand title.

She didn't want one.

She was just happy to be as you say, you know who she was.

Yeah, well, Napoleon still granted her an annual statement of 500,000 francs.

And Madame Marie, as she's now known, famously saved the money saying about the opulence that Napoleon and his siblings lived in.

You know, so long as it lasts, why does she remain distant from the imperial court?

Is it Josephine?

Is it she didn't want to be around all that opulence?

Why didn't she want to be around all that?

Well.

That's one of those questions that's hard to answer.

We can only speculate, right?

And I think one, she didn't want to be around Josephine.

She didn't want to be around a court dominated by Josephine.

Now, Napoleon sisters will and they'll fight with Josephine and try to become the dominant influence at French court.

But, you know, as long as Josephine around, she's kind of snapping the whip, you know, and because she's the master of Paris Salon society.

But Leticia goes, you know, I'm not even going to try.

And so she goes back to her homeland, Italy, and and kind of kind of maintains her distance.

Yeah, well, in 1814 she accompanies Napoleon to his exile and Elba, and she later encourages him to return to France to reclaim his throne.

Do you think she was his biggest supporter?

No, but I think she's kind of his second biggest supporter.

I I think Napoleon's biggest supporter is Maria Volanska, his his Polish mistress when all the chips are down.

Napoleon's biggest supporters are Joseph and Maria.

Even though Joseph mishandles the ball in 1814 and again sort of in 1815, he he still loves his brother and supports him.

Just Joseph has got to be one of the best older brothers of all time.

Although Lucian I think spoke truth to Napoleon and he loved Napoleon too, but he wasn't willing to compromise his values.

But Letizia does support him.

She does see the mess that France is in.

She sees it as low hanging fruit.

She thinks, well, he's learned his lesson.

She just doesn't understand the animosity the rest of Europe has towards her genius, brilliant son.

You know, and, and and that they just don't trust him.

Well, it's interesting.

Like, you know, all children think they're special in their mom's eyes.

And, and in Napoleon's case, he was.

But then she had these other seven siblings who she loved.

But, you know, like, famously.

After Napoleon's downfall in 1815, Letizia retires to Rome and she never speaks to Caroline Bonaparte ever again for betraying her brother Napoleon, right?

Oh, right, right.

Yeah.

The Carolyn is the is the Fredo of the family.

She you know she's dead to Letizia after she does that.

Yeah, yeah, because her and Mura, you know, joined the Allies and and the.

Right.

And then Mura, you know, could never make up his mind completely.

And then he he switches sides again.

And, and that tragedy is just incredible, right?

So, yeah, Letizia retires to Rome.

She's protected by the Pope.

She had been very, she'd always been very kind and generous to the Pope.

And he remembered that.

And Pius, so Pius said, hey, Letizia is a good Catholic girl.

You know, one of the reasons the concordant happens is Letizia's influence on her son.

And so she's under my protection and she goes back to her homeland, Italy.

We, you know, we kind of keep remembering the Bonaparte's are as much Italian as they are French and Napoleon sisters, totally Italian.

Elisa is Italian and that's where her lands are and where she spends the bulk of her life is in.

So it's no accident that, you know, that they all end up back either in Italy or in America.

It's it's fascinating what happens in the Bonaparte.

Well, Letizia dies in 1836 at the old age of 85.

The legacy of Letizia, Napoleon once said.

Quote.

The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.

End Quote.

So I guess it's a two-part question.

What is Leticia's legacy and Carlos legacy?

So I'm going to use some classical illusions here.

Carlos is pretty easy.

You know, he's he's the father.

You know, he's the man married to the woman, right?

So there there's all these great leaders in history.

We know about their mothers.

OK?

We know about Caesar's mother.

She's dynamic.

She's a pusher, a social climber.

We know about Churchill's mother, Jenny, Jenny Randolph.

She's a climber, she's a pusher.

We know about Cornelia, mother of the crack eye, She's a pusher.

We don't know about the father.

So Carlo's legacy is sort of hidden, you know, from history.

It's there.

There should be more there, but but again, you know, the Carlo's biggest legacy to the Bonaparte says he marries well, well and and and give.

Him Credit for dropping Napoleon off at Brianna, Yeah.

The decision to take advantage of, of what the French court and the French king are offering.

When you think about the generosity of Louis the 15th and the Doctor Schwa Sul and Marbouf towards the Corsicans, you have to go.

You know, the French behaved well in that circumstance.

They could have been much, much worse than they were.

But Letizia's legacy is she's the mother of the crack eye, you know, But it's the crack eye on steroids, you know.

And I mean, all of Napoleon's, you know, brothers become kings, all right?

And Letizia's a mother of kings and an emperor.

So, you know, when we think about her legacy, her legacy is absolutely this family who will continue to dominate Europe long after Napoleon's dead with, with, with her grandnephew, Louis Louis Napoleon, Napoleon the 3rd, and even in in the United States with the Secretary of the Navy, Charles Bonaparte.

So I mean, she's got an incredible legacy.

Give her full credit, though, she didn't let the opulence and the money go to her head like some part of her her children.

She kind of stayed, you know, austere and and and and frugal throughout.

Yeah, and her, she's one of these people.

She's constrained by the mores of society on what she can do, how much power she could wield.

Certainly Carolyn didn't want to be constrained by those mores.

Pauline just wanted to be a pretty face on the arm of a handsome man.

But.

But not Carolyn.

And but Letizia shows you what could be accomplished back then by a woman who had a good head on her shoulders and a will of iron.

And you know, we talked about the Iron Marshall Davu.

Leticia is the Iron Mother.

That's a good ending right there.

I love that.

Well, thank you for that, John.

Once again, John has a really interesting book called The Bonaparts of Corsica that hopefully is coming out soon one day.

If somebody wants to share it, then you know, I'm willing to share it.

You know, I shared it with a couple people already, my brother.

You know, I like the Bonaparts.

I've been sharing my stuff with my family but.

Yeah, you can also find John on Twitter.

What's the tag again?

It's J Kuhn, 50 at JQ and 50.

I'm also in Blue Sky at JQ and 50, so you can find me at either Blue Sky or Twitter.

OK.

Yeah.

So please give John a follow there.

And yeah, as always, we thank you for coming on.

Thanks, John.

Great, John.

Thanks for having me on.