Elisa Bonaparte
Encyclopedia
Maria Anna Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi Levoy, Princesse Française, Duchess of Lucca
and Princess of Piombino
, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
, Countess of Compignano
(3 January 1777 – 7 August 1820) was the fourth surviving child and eldest surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte
and Letizia Ramolino
, making her the younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. Her other elder siblings were Joseph
and Lucien
, whilst her younger siblings were Louis
, Pauline
, Caroline
and Jerome
.
As princess of Piombino and Lucca, then grand duchess of Tuscany, she was his only sister to possess real political power, though her sharp tongue often caused troubles in her relations with him. Highly interested in the arts, particularly the theatre, she encouraged them in the territories over which she ruled.
, Corsica
. She was christened Maria-Anna but later adopted the nickname Élisa as her official name (it was originally given to her as a nickname by her brother Lucien, to whom she became very close in childhood). In June 1784, a bursary allowed her to attend the Maison royale de Saint-Louis
at Saint-Cyr, where she was frequently visited by her brother Napoleon during her studies. The Legislative Assembly
decreed the Maison's closure on 16 August 1792 and Élisa left on 1 September to be taken back to Ajaccio by Napoleon.
Around 1795, the Bonaparte family set up home in Marseille
, where Élisa got to know Pasquale Baciocchi Levoy, who later changed his name to Félix Baciocchi Levoy (1762–1841). A Corsican nobleman who had formerly been a captain in the Royal Corse, he had been dismissed from his rank upon the French Revolution
. He and Élisa married in a civil ceremony in Marseille on 1 August 1797 then in a religious ceremony in Mombello
, where Napoleon had a villa and to which he had moved his family in June 1797. The religious ceremony went ahead, on the same day as her sister Pauline
's marriage to general Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, despite Napoleon's initial reservations as to Élisa's choice, since Félix had a reputation as a poor captain.
In July Félix was promoted to chef de bataillon, with the command of the citadel at Ajaccio. In 1799, the Bonaparte family moved to Paris, with Élisa setting up home at 125 rue de Miromesnil
, in the quartier du Roule
, where she held receptions and put on plays. On the rise of the Consulate, she and her brother Lucien held an artistic and literary salon at the hôtel de Brissac, at which she met the journalist Louis de Fontanes, with whom she had a deep friendship for several years. On 14 May 1800, on the death of Lucien's first wife, Christine Boyer
, Élisa took Lucien's two daughters under her protection, placing the eldest, Charlotte, in Madame Campan's boarding school for young women at Saint-Germain-en-Laye
. At the start of November 1800, Lucien had to leave his job as minister of the interior and was sent to Madrid
as French ambassador to the court of the king of Spain, with Élisa's husband Felice Baciochi as his secretary. Élisa remained in Paris, but kept up a regular correspondence with her brother.
On 18 May, the French Senate voted in favour of setting up the First French Empire
, and Élisa and Napoleon's other sisters were established as members of the Imperial family, taking the title "Altesse impériale" ("Imperial Highness"), with Felice Baciocchi being promoted to général de brigade and then made a senator.
, which had been French property for some years and was of major strategic interest to Napoleon due to its proximity to Elba
and Corsica
. Felice and Élisa took the titles of prince and princess of Piombino. In June 1805 the oligarchic republic of Lucca (occupied by France since late 1799) was turned into a principality and added to Felice and Élisa's domain, with their entry into Lucca and investiture ceremony following on 14 July 1805.
Napoleon had contemptously called Lucca the "dwarf Republic", due to its small size in terms of territory, but despite this it was a bulwark of political, religious and commercial independence. Most of the power over Lucca and Piombino was exercised by Élisa, with Félix taking only a minor role and contenting himself with only taking military decisions. The inhabitants of Lucca, under French occupation and grudging the loss of their independence, knew Elisa ironically as "la Madame" and had little sympathy for Napoleon, Elisa or their attempts to "Frenchify" the republic.
Very active and concerned with administering the area, she was surrounded at Lucca by ministers who largely remained in place right to the end of her reign. These ministers included her minister of justice Luigi Matteucci, her minister of the interior and foreign affairs Francesco Belluomini (replaced in October 1807 by his son Giuseppe), her finance ministers Jean-Baptiste Froussard (head of the cabinet) and later Pierre d'Hautmesnil (with the budget portfolio). She also set up a court and court étiquette inspired by those at the Tuileries.
On 31 March 1806 Napoleon withdrew Massa and Carrara from the kingdom of Italy to add to Élisa's possessions. Carrara was one of the biggest white marble suppliers in Europe and Élisa bolstered her prestige by establishing an Académie des Beaux-Arts designed to host the greatest sculptors and thus make Carrara an exporter of marble statues, which had a greater value than the raw marble. She also set up the Banque Élisienne to give financial aid to sculptors and workers on marble taxes. She reformed the clergy at Lucca and Piombino from May 1806, during which reforms she nationalised their goods and lands and closed down convents which did not also function as hotels or schools. She also carried out legislative reform in Lucca, producing laws inspired by the Code Napoleon (such as the notable "Codice rurale del Principato di Piombino", issued on 24 March 1808) and producing a new penal code which was promulgated in 1807 and first reformed in 1810.
In 1807 she set up the Committee of Public Charity for distributing charity funds, made up of clergy and lay-people, and also instituted free medical consultations for the poor so as to eradicate the diseases then ravaging Lucca's population. She demolished Piombino's hospital to build a new one in the former monastery of San Anastasia, with the new building opening in 1810, and also set up the Casa Sanitaria, a dispensary in the town's port. On 5 May 1807 decreed the established of the Committee for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce to encourage and finance the invention of new machines and new techniques to increase the territories' agricultural production and experimental plantations such as those of mulberries at Massa, where an École Normale de la Soie (Silk School) was created on 16 August 1808.
Élisa also set up many teaching establishments in Lucca and, in 1809, a Direction Générale de l'Instruction Publique (General Department of Public Education). On 1 December 1807 she set up the Collège Félix, the only boys' secondary school in the principality. For girls, she began by fixing set curricula for convents that also operated as schools, then set up a body of "dames d'inspection" to verify that these curricula were being adhered to. Teaching of girls aged 5 to 8 was made compulsory, though the laws were not always well applied. On 2 July 1807 Élisa founded the Institut Élisa within the limits of a former convent for noble-born girls, to produce well-educated and cultivated future wives. On 29 July 1812 Élisa set up an establishment for young poor girls, the Congregazione San Felice, though this did not long outlive Élisa's fall.
As with Napoleon, Élisa set up city improvement works in her territories, mainly to expand the princely palaces. These works were hotly contested, especially in Lucca, where the expansion of the princely palaces necessitated the demolition of the church of San Pietro in March 1807. She also razed an entire block in Lucca to build a piazza in the French style in front of her city residence (now the seat of the province and the prefecture). That block had included the church of San Paolo with the venerated image of the Madonna
dei miracoli and so its demolition seriously affected the city's medieval architecture and almost sparked a revolt.
At Massa, she demolished a cathedral on 30 April 1807. The palace at Lucca was fully redecorated and the gardens improved, with the creation of a botanical garden with a menagerie and aviary in 1811. She also began road construction, notably the "route Friedland" to link Massa and Carrara, with work beginning on 15 August 1807 but becoming delayed and only completed in 1820. Lucca's status as a spa town was also bolstered by her improvement of the architecture and decor of the town's baths. She began construction of an aqueduct into Lucca in 1811, but this too was only completed after her fall.
, which restored Louisiana
to France and in exchange established the kingdom of Etruria
by dividing Tuscany
. The new kingdom was initially put in the charge of the infante Maria Louisa and her husband Louis
, but he rapidly proved to be a poor ruler and was also soon widowed. Thus, on 29 October 1807, Napoleon signed the treaty of Fontainebleau with the Spanish court. This transferred Tuscany to France and in November that year Marie-Louise left the kingdom. From 12 May 1808 Tuscany was entrusted to an intermediary governor Abdallah Jacques Menou, a French soldier who had converted to Islam during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, but his way of life and lack of interest in the territory's affairs forced Napoleon to recall him on 5 April 1809. From 1808 Élisa has wished to become governor of Tuscany, but at the end of that year an illness temporarily prevented her from taking part in state affairs. She recovered in February 1809 and on 2 and 3 March that year a decree officially created the grand duchy of Tuscany and made Florence
its capital and Élisa its grand duchess, with Félix being promoted to général de division. However, unlike her relative autonomy in Lucca and Piomobino, in Tuscany Élisa was ordered to enforce the decisions of Napoleon and his ministers with no power to modify those decisions.
On 2 April 1809 Élisa arrived in Florence, where she was coldly received by the nobility, the more so since her arrival coincided with a revolt against compulsory conscription, in the course of which a mayor and a judge were assassinated. That conscription and the many new taxes imposed on Tuscany by Napoleon both proved the source of many conflicts in the region. As at Lucca, Élisa tried to nationalise the goods of the clergy and closed many convents. The first two volumes of the "Annali del Museo Imperiale di Fisica e Storia Naturale" of Florence were dedicated to her, in 1808 and 1809 - the observatory at that museum of physics and natural history was the ancestor of Florence's present-day Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri.
Élisa also got caught up in Napoleon's removal of pope Pius VII
. Pius had opposed the Empire's annexation of the Papal States, refused to renounce his temporal powers and excommunicated Napoleon in the bull Quum memoranda on 10 June 1809, and so Napoleon put general Étienne Radet
in charge of removing the pope and thus the opposition he was arousing against Napoleon. The removal occurred on the night of 6 July 1809 and in the following days took the pope towards Savona
, passing by Florence, where Élisa not only did not welcome the pope in person but also asked his kidnappers to get out of the area as soon as possible, so as not to displease her brother by welcoming his enemy too comfortably or too long.
Élisa's relations with Napoleon were already becoming more and more strained, with Napoleon frequently recalling her for any irregularity in her execution of his orders in Tuscany. On 17 March 1810, Élisa arrived in Paris for Napoleon's marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria, but Napoleon took advantage of this to reclaim the payments from his grants of Massa and Carrara. Returning to Tuscany, she found Napoleon still claiming these payments via his envoys but refused to pay them, arguing that the territories had too few resources to pay (Napoleon was claiming 200,000 lira). He thus threatened to take Carrara back from her and in May 1811 also demanded conscription in Lucca, which had previously been spared this. On returning to Lucca from Florence did not find herself welcome. Back in Lucca, she restored the villa now known as the Villa Reale di Marlia.
, Caroline Bonaparte
's husband Joachim Murat
, king of Naples, put the defence of his subjects over support for his brother in law and split from him to join the Austrian forces. The Neapolitans marched on Rome and on 1 February 1814 Élisa had to abdicate her title as Grand Duchess on the restoration of Grand Duke Ferdinand III
and leave Tuscany for Lucca. In March, the Neapolitans captured Massa
and Carrara
and the Anglo-Austrian forces under Lord William Bentinck
captured Lucca
, forcing the pregnant Élisa to flee on the night of 13 March 1814. She made several short stays in Italy and France, notably seeking support in Marseille for her to be able to return to Italy as a private individual. Those requests were denied and she was able to stay in Austria for a time thanks to her brother Jérôme Bonaparte
before moving to the Villa Caprara in Trieste
.
Napoleon was exiled to Elba on 1 March 1815 and Élisa was arrested on 25 March before being interned in the fortress of Brünn in Austria. At the end of August, she was freed and authorised to stay in Trieste with the title of countess of Compignano. She then acquired a country house at Villa Vicentina
near Cervignano and began financing archaeological digs in the region. In June 1820 she contracted a fatal illness, probably on an excavation site, and died on 7 August aged 43, becoming the only adult sibling
of Napoleon Bonaparte who did not survive him. She was buried in the San Petronio Basilica
of Bologna
.
, on 1 May 1797, created Prince Français, Duke of Lucca and Prince of Piombino and Prince of Massa-Carrara and La Garfagnana. They were parents of four children:
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
and Princess of Piombino
Piombino
Piombino is an Italian town and comune of circa 35,000 inhabitants in the province of Livorno . It lies on the border between the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea, in front of Elba Island and at the northern side of Maremma.-Overview:...
, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, Countess of Compignano
Compignano
Compignano is a village in Italy. It has 175 inhabitants according to the 2001 ISTAT data, who are known as compignanesi. Though a more recent estimate puts the population closer to 177. It is a frazione of the comune of Marsciano, a larger town 12 km away, along strada statale 317 then...
(3 January 1777 – 7 August 1820) was the fourth surviving child and eldest surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte
Carlo Buonaparte
Carlo Maria Buonaparte was a Corsican lawyer and politician who briefly served as a personal assistant of the revolutionary leader Pasquale Paoli and eventually rose to become Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI...
and Letizia Ramolino
Letizia Ramolino
Nobile Maria Letizia Buonaparte née Ramolino was the mother of Napoleon I of France....
, making her the younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. Her other elder siblings were Joseph
Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily , and later King of Spain...
and Lucien
Lucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano , born Luciano Buonaparte, was the third surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino....
, whilst her younger siblings were Louis
Louis Bonaparte
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
, Pauline
Pauline Bonaparte
Pauline Bonaparte was the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, an imperial French Princess and the Princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano. She was the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte, Corsica's representative to the court of King Louis XVI of France. Her elder brother,...
, Caroline
Caroline Bonaparte
Maria Annunziata Carolina Murat , better known as Caroline Bonaparte, was the seventh surviving child and third surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino and a younger sister of Napoleon I of France...
and Jerome
Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte, French Prince, King of Westphalia, 1st Prince of Montfort was the youngest brother of Napoleon, who made him king of Westphalia...
.
As princess of Piombino and Lucca, then grand duchess of Tuscany, she was his only sister to possess real political power, though her sharp tongue often caused troubles in her relations with him. Highly interested in the arts, particularly the theatre, she encouraged them in the territories over which she ruled.
Youth
Élisa was born in AjaccioAjaccio
Ajaccio , is a commune on the island of Corsica in France. It is the capital and largest city of the region of Corsica and the prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud....
, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
. She was christened Maria-Anna but later adopted the nickname Élisa as her official name (it was originally given to her as a nickname by her brother Lucien, to whom she became very close in childhood). In June 1784, a bursary allowed her to attend the Maison royale de Saint-Louis
Maison royale de Saint-Louis
The Maison Royale de Saint-Louis was a 'pensionnat' or boarding school for girls set up in 1684 at Saint-Cyr in France by king Louis XIV at the request of his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, who wanted a school for girls from impoverished noble families...
at Saint-Cyr, where she was frequently visited by her brother Napoleon during her studies. The Legislative Assembly
Legislative Assembly (France)
During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.The Legislative...
decreed the Maison's closure on 16 August 1792 and Élisa left on 1 September to be taken back to Ajaccio by Napoleon.
Around 1795, the Bonaparte family set up home in Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, where Élisa got to know Pasquale Baciocchi Levoy, who later changed his name to Félix Baciocchi Levoy (1762–1841). A Corsican nobleman who had formerly been a captain in the Royal Corse, he had been dismissed from his rank upon the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. He and Élisa married in a civil ceremony in Marseille on 1 August 1797 then in a religious ceremony in Mombello
Laveno-Mombello
Laveno-Mombello is a comune in the Province of Varese in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 60 km northwest of Milan and about 20 km northwest of Varese...
, where Napoleon had a villa and to which he had moved his family in June 1797. The religious ceremony went ahead, on the same day as her sister Pauline
Pauline Bonaparte
Pauline Bonaparte was the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, an imperial French Princess and the Princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano. She was the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte, Corsica's representative to the court of King Louis XVI of France. Her elder brother,...
's marriage to general Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, despite Napoleon's initial reservations as to Élisa's choice, since Félix had a reputation as a poor captain.
In July Félix was promoted to chef de bataillon, with the command of the citadel at Ajaccio. In 1799, the Bonaparte family moved to Paris, with Élisa setting up home at 125 rue de Miromesnil
Rue de Miromesnil
Rue de Miromesnil is a street in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It begins at rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré at the level of place Beauvau and ends at boulevard de Courcelles....
, in the quartier du Roule
Quartier du Faubourg-du-Roule
The quartier du Faubourg-du-Roule or 30th quarter of Paris is a 79.7 hectare administrative quarter of Paris, in its 8th arrondissement. Its borders are marked by place de l'Étoile, place de la République-de-l'Équateur, avenue Matignon and the .rond-point des Champs-Élysées-Marcel-Dassault....
, where she held receptions and put on plays. On the rise of the Consulate, she and her brother Lucien held an artistic and literary salon at the hôtel de Brissac, at which she met the journalist Louis de Fontanes, with whom she had a deep friendship for several years. On 14 May 1800, on the death of Lucien's first wife, Christine Boyer
Christine Boyer
Christine Boyer was a member of the Bonaparte family, as the sister of Lucien Bonaparte's housekeeper and then Lucien's first wife.-Issue:...
, Élisa took Lucien's two daughters under her protection, placing the eldest, Charlotte, in Madame Campan's boarding school for young women at Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
. At the start of November 1800, Lucien had to leave his job as minister of the interior and was sent to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
as French ambassador to the court of the king of Spain, with Élisa's husband Felice Baciochi as his secretary. Élisa remained in Paris, but kept up a regular correspondence with her brother.
On 18 May, the French Senate voted in favour of setting up the First French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
, and Élisa and Napoleon's other sisters were established as members of the Imperial family, taking the title "Altesse impériale" ("Imperial Highness"), with Felice Baciocchi being promoted to général de brigade and then made a senator.
Princess of Piombino and Lucca
Her separation from her husband in 1805 was seen favorably by Napoleon (though on her promotion to Lucca he soon rejoined her). On 19 March 1805, Napoleon awarded her the Principality of PiombinoPrincipality of Piombino
The Principality of Piombino was a state of Italy, which existed from 1399 to 1805, when Napoleon absorbed it into the Principality of Lucca and Piombino...
, which had been French property for some years and was of major strategic interest to Napoleon due to its proximity to Elba
Elba
Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...
and Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
. Felice and Élisa took the titles of prince and princess of Piombino. In June 1805 the oligarchic republic of Lucca (occupied by France since late 1799) was turned into a principality and added to Felice and Élisa's domain, with their entry into Lucca and investiture ceremony following on 14 July 1805.
Napoleon had contemptously called Lucca the "dwarf Republic", due to its small size in terms of territory, but despite this it was a bulwark of political, religious and commercial independence. Most of the power over Lucca and Piombino was exercised by Élisa, with Félix taking only a minor role and contenting himself with only taking military decisions. The inhabitants of Lucca, under French occupation and grudging the loss of their independence, knew Elisa ironically as "la Madame" and had little sympathy for Napoleon, Elisa or their attempts to "Frenchify" the republic.
Very active and concerned with administering the area, she was surrounded at Lucca by ministers who largely remained in place right to the end of her reign. These ministers included her minister of justice Luigi Matteucci, her minister of the interior and foreign affairs Francesco Belluomini (replaced in October 1807 by his son Giuseppe), her finance ministers Jean-Baptiste Froussard (head of the cabinet) and later Pierre d'Hautmesnil (with the budget portfolio). She also set up a court and court étiquette inspired by those at the Tuileries.
On 31 March 1806 Napoleon withdrew Massa and Carrara from the kingdom of Italy to add to Élisa's possessions. Carrara was one of the biggest white marble suppliers in Europe and Élisa bolstered her prestige by establishing an Académie des Beaux-Arts designed to host the greatest sculptors and thus make Carrara an exporter of marble statues, which had a greater value than the raw marble. She also set up the Banque Élisienne to give financial aid to sculptors and workers on marble taxes. She reformed the clergy at Lucca and Piombino from May 1806, during which reforms she nationalised their goods and lands and closed down convents which did not also function as hotels or schools. She also carried out legislative reform in Lucca, producing laws inspired by the Code Napoleon (such as the notable "Codice rurale del Principato di Piombino", issued on 24 March 1808) and producing a new penal code which was promulgated in 1807 and first reformed in 1810.
In 1807 she set up the Committee of Public Charity for distributing charity funds, made up of clergy and lay-people, and also instituted free medical consultations for the poor so as to eradicate the diseases then ravaging Lucca's population. She demolished Piombino's hospital to build a new one in the former monastery of San Anastasia, with the new building opening in 1810, and also set up the Casa Sanitaria, a dispensary in the town's port. On 5 May 1807 decreed the established of the Committee for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce to encourage and finance the invention of new machines and new techniques to increase the territories' agricultural production and experimental plantations such as those of mulberries at Massa, where an École Normale de la Soie (Silk School) was created on 16 August 1808.
Élisa also set up many teaching establishments in Lucca and, in 1809, a Direction Générale de l'Instruction Publique (General Department of Public Education). On 1 December 1807 she set up the Collège Félix, the only boys' secondary school in the principality. For girls, she began by fixing set curricula for convents that also operated as schools, then set up a body of "dames d'inspection" to verify that these curricula were being adhered to. Teaching of girls aged 5 to 8 was made compulsory, though the laws were not always well applied. On 2 July 1807 Élisa founded the Institut Élisa within the limits of a former convent for noble-born girls, to produce well-educated and cultivated future wives. On 29 July 1812 Élisa set up an establishment for young poor girls, the Congregazione San Felice, though this did not long outlive Élisa's fall.
As with Napoleon, Élisa set up city improvement works in her territories, mainly to expand the princely palaces. These works were hotly contested, especially in Lucca, where the expansion of the princely palaces necessitated the demolition of the church of San Pietro in March 1807. She also razed an entire block in Lucca to build a piazza in the French style in front of her city residence (now the seat of the province and the prefecture). That block had included the church of San Paolo with the venerated image of the Madonna
Madonna (art)
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...
dei miracoli and so its demolition seriously affected the city's medieval architecture and almost sparked a revolt.
At Massa, she demolished a cathedral on 30 April 1807. The palace at Lucca was fully redecorated and the gardens improved, with the creation of a botanical garden with a menagerie and aviary in 1811. She also began road construction, notably the "route Friedland" to link Massa and Carrara, with work beginning on 15 August 1807 but becoming delayed and only completed in 1820. Lucca's status as a spa town was also bolstered by her improvement of the architecture and decor of the town's baths. She began construction of an aqueduct into Lucca in 1811, but this too was only completed after her fall.
Grand duchess of Tuscany
On 21 March 1801 Lucien Bonaparte and the king of Spain had signed the Treaty of San IldefonsoThird Treaty of San Ildefonso
The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso was a secretly negotiated treaty between France and Spain in which Spain returned the colonial territory of...
, which restored Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
to France and in exchange established the kingdom of Etruria
Kingdom of Etruria
The Kingdom of Etruria was a kingdom comprising the larger part of Tuscany which existed between 1801 and 1807. It took its name from Etruria, the old Roman name for the land of the Etruscans.It was created by the Treaty of Aranjuez, signed on 21 March 1801...
by dividing Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
. The new kingdom was initially put in the charge of the infante Maria Louisa and her husband Louis
Louis of Etruria
Louis was the first of only two Kings of Etruria.Louis was the son of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and Maria Amalia of Austria, the second surviving daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor....
, but he rapidly proved to be a poor ruler and was also soon widowed. Thus, on 29 October 1807, Napoleon signed the treaty of Fontainebleau with the Spanish court. This transferred Tuscany to France and in November that year Marie-Louise left the kingdom. From 12 May 1808 Tuscany was entrusted to an intermediary governor Abdallah Jacques Menou, a French soldier who had converted to Islam during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, but his way of life and lack of interest in the territory's affairs forced Napoleon to recall him on 5 April 1809. From 1808 Élisa has wished to become governor of Tuscany, but at the end of that year an illness temporarily prevented her from taking part in state affairs. She recovered in February 1809 and on 2 and 3 March that year a decree officially created the grand duchy of Tuscany and made Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
its capital and Élisa its grand duchess, with Félix being promoted to général de division. However, unlike her relative autonomy in Lucca and Piomobino, in Tuscany Élisa was ordered to enforce the decisions of Napoleon and his ministers with no power to modify those decisions.
On 2 April 1809 Élisa arrived in Florence, where she was coldly received by the nobility, the more so since her arrival coincided with a revolt against compulsory conscription, in the course of which a mayor and a judge were assassinated. That conscription and the many new taxes imposed on Tuscany by Napoleon both proved the source of many conflicts in the region. As at Lucca, Élisa tried to nationalise the goods of the clergy and closed many convents. The first two volumes of the "Annali del Museo Imperiale di Fisica e Storia Naturale" of Florence were dedicated to her, in 1808 and 1809 - the observatory at that museum of physics and natural history was the ancestor of Florence's present-day Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri.
Élisa also got caught up in Napoleon's removal of pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...
. Pius had opposed the Empire's annexation of the Papal States, refused to renounce his temporal powers and excommunicated Napoleon in the bull Quum memoranda on 10 June 1809, and so Napoleon put general Étienne Radet
Étienne Radet
Étienne, baron Radet was a French general of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. He is notable as the leader of the troops Napoleon sent to kidnap pope Pius VII.-Life:...
in charge of removing the pope and thus the opposition he was arousing against Napoleon. The removal occurred on the night of 6 July 1809 and in the following days took the pope towards Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
, passing by Florence, where Élisa not only did not welcome the pope in person but also asked his kidnappers to get out of the area as soon as possible, so as not to displease her brother by welcoming his enemy too comfortably or too long.
Élisa's relations with Napoleon were already becoming more and more strained, with Napoleon frequently recalling her for any irregularity in her execution of his orders in Tuscany. On 17 March 1810, Élisa arrived in Paris for Napoleon's marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria, but Napoleon took advantage of this to reclaim the payments from his grants of Massa and Carrara. Returning to Tuscany, she found Napoleon still claiming these payments via his envoys but refused to pay them, arguing that the territories had too few resources to pay (Napoleon was claiming 200,000 lira). He thus threatened to take Carrara back from her and in May 1811 also demanded conscription in Lucca, which had previously been spared this. On returning to Lucca from Florence did not find herself welcome. Back in Lucca, she restored the villa now known as the Villa Reale di Marlia.
Fall and exile
In 1813, with Napoleon facing the allied coalition after his Russian campaignFrench invasion of Russia
The French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. It reduced the French and allied invasion forces to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics as it dramatically weakened French hegemony in Europe...
, Caroline Bonaparte
Caroline Bonaparte
Maria Annunziata Carolina Murat , better known as Caroline Bonaparte, was the seventh surviving child and third surviving daughter of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino and a younger sister of Napoleon I of France...
's husband Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
, king of Naples, put the defence of his subjects over support for his brother in law and split from him to join the Austrian forces. The Neapolitans marched on Rome and on 1 February 1814 Élisa had to abdicate her title as Grand Duchess on the restoration of Grand Duke Ferdinand III
Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1790 to 1801 and, after a period of disenfranchisement, again from 1814 to 1824. He was also the Prince-elector and Grand Duke of Salzburg and Grand Duke of Würzburg .-Biography:Ferdinand was born in Florence, Tuscany, into the...
and leave Tuscany for Lucca. In March, the Neapolitans captured Massa
Massa
Massa is a town and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, the administrative centre of the province of Massa-Carrara. It is located in the Frigido River Valley, near the Alpi Apuane, some 5 kilometers from the Tyrrhenian Sea....
and Carrara
Carrara
Carrara is a city and comune in the province of Massa-Carrara , notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence....
and the Anglo-Austrian forces under Lord William Bentinck
Lord William Bentinck
Lieutenant-General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck GCB, GCH, PC , known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman...
captured Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
, forcing the pregnant Élisa to flee on the night of 13 March 1814. She made several short stays in Italy and France, notably seeking support in Marseille for her to be able to return to Italy as a private individual. Those requests were denied and she was able to stay in Austria for a time thanks to her brother Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte, French Prince, King of Westphalia, 1st Prince of Montfort was the youngest brother of Napoleon, who made him king of Westphalia...
before moving to the Villa Caprara in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
.
Napoleon was exiled to Elba on 1 March 1815 and Élisa was arrested on 25 March before being interned in the fortress of Brünn in Austria. At the end of August, she was freed and authorised to stay in Trieste with the title of countess of Compignano. She then acquired a country house at Villa Vicentina
Villa Vicentina
Villa Vicentina is a comune in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 35 km northwest of Trieste and about 30 km southeast of Udine....
near Cervignano and began financing archaeological digs in the region. In June 1820 she contracted a fatal illness, probably on an excavation site, and died on 7 August aged 43, becoming the only adult sibling
Sibling
Siblings are people who share at least one parent. A male sibling is called a brother; and a female sibling is called a sister. In most societies throughout the world, siblings usually grow up together and spend a good deal of their childhood socializing with one another...
of Napoleon Bonaparte who did not survive him. She was buried in the San Petronio Basilica
San Petronio Basilica
The Basilica of San Petronio is the main church of Bologna, Emilia Romagna, northern Italy. It dominates the Piazza Maggiore. It is the fifth largest church in the world, stretching for 132 meters in length and 60 meters in width, while the vault reaches 45 meters inside and 51 meters in the facade...
of Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
.
Marriage and issue
She married Felice Pasquale Baciocchi Levoy, a member of Corsican nobilityNobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
, on 1 May 1797, created Prince Français, Duke of Lucca and Prince of Piombino and Prince of Massa-Carrara and La Garfagnana. They were parents of four children:
- Felix Napoléon Baciocchi Levoy (1798–1799).
- Elisa Napoléone Baciocchi LevoyElisa Napoléone BaciocchiElisa Napoleona Baciocchi Levoy was a daughter of Elisa Bonaparte, a sister to Napoleon I of France, and Felice Baciocchi .-Life:Elisa Napoléone Baciocchi Levoy was born at Lucca....
(1806–1869).
She married Philippe, Comte Camerata-Passioneï de Mazzoleni, one son Charles Félix Jean-Baptiste Camerata-Passionei di MazzoleniCharles Félix Jean-Baptiste Camerata-Passionei di MazzoleniCharles Félix Jean-Baptiste Camerata-Passionei di Mazzoleni was a French-Italian aristocrat born in Ancona, the son of Filippo Camerata-Passionei di Mazzoleni, an Italian count, and Princess Elisa Napoléone Baciocchi, the daughter of Felice Baciocchi Levoy and Elisa Bonaparte... - Jérôme Charles Baciocchi Levoy (1810–1811).
- Frédéric Napoléon Baciocchi Levoy (1813–1833).