Jérôme Bonaparte

Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860), youngest brother of Napoleon, born in Ajaccio, Corsica. He served with the French navy in the West Indies but left ship and went to the United States, where, in 1803, he married Elizabeth Patterson: a grandson from this union was the American public official Charles Joseph Bonaparte. Napoleon, however, refused to recognize this marriage and in 1807 arranged for a second one, to Princess Catherine of Württemberg. That same year Napoleon created the kingdom of Westphalia in northern Germany and put Jérôme on the throne. In 1813, when Napoleon's power was declining, Jérôme went into exile, but he returned to command a division in support of his brother at Waterloo in 1815. After the final defeat of Napoleon, Jérôme moved around Europe, living most of the time in Italy. There, he married (1840) Giustina Pecori, the widow of an Italian nobleman. In 1849, Louis Napoleon, Jérôme's nephew, became president of France (and later its emperor), and Jérôme was made a marshal and president of the Senate. Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, Jérôme's son by Catherine of Württemberg, was known as Prince Napoleon.