Louis Bonaparte spouse Hortense de Beauharnais
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French client state roughly corresponding to the modern-day Kingdom of the Netherlands). In that capacity he was known as Louis I (Dutch: Lodewijk I [ˈloːdəʋɛik]).
Louis was the fifth surviving child and fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino, out of eight children who lived past infancy. He and his siblings were all born on Corsica, which had been conquered by France less than a decade before his birth. Louis followed his older brothers into the French Army, where he benefited from Napoleon's patronage. In 1802, he married his step-niece Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Empress Joséphine (Napoleon's wife).
In 1806, Napoleon established the Kingdom of Holland in place of the Batavian Republic, appointing Louis as the new king. Napoleon had intended for Holland to be little more than a puppet state, but Louis was determined to be as independent as possible, and in fact became quite popular amongst his new people. Growing tired of his brother's wilfulness, Napoleon annexed Holland into the French Empire in 1810, and Louis went into exile.
His youngest son, Louis-Napoléon, established the Second French Empire in 1852, proclaiming himself Napoleon III.Early life
Louis was born in Ajaccio, Corsica. He was a younger brother of Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, and Elisa Bonaparte, and the older brother of Pauline, Caroline, and Jérôme Bonaparte. Louis' godparents were the island's governor, Mr de Marbeuf and the wife of the intendant, Bertrand de Boucheporn, whom Letizia and her husband, Carlo, had befriended.Louis Bonaparte's early career was spent in the Army, and he served with Napoleon in Egypt. Thanks to his older brother, Napoleon, Louis was given a commission in the French Military, and was promoted to Lieutenant in the 4th Artillery Regiment, and from there he was made Aide de Camp on Napoleon's staff. Napoleon, during his Italian Campaign, recommended Louis to Carnot, and Louis was consequently made a captain. He later became a General by the age of 25, although he himself felt that he had risen too high in too short a time.
Upon Louis's return to France, he was involved in Napoleon's plot to overthrow the Directory. After becoming the First Consul, Napoleon arranged for a marriage between Louis and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Empress Josephine, and hence Napoleon's stepdaughter. Hortense, who was opposed to the marriage at first, was persuaded by her mother to marry Louis for the sake of the family, and she did so.
Louis supposedly suffered from periods of mental illness. These periods of depression or mental instability (records fail to distinguish) would plague Louis until his death.Marriage and children
Louis was married on 4 January 1802 to Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of the deceased general Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and his wife Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie. Josephine was the first wife of Louis's brother Napoleon. Thus Hortense was also Louis's step-niece.
This marriage had been forced upon them and was rather loveless, though they supposedly consummated it and interacted often enough to produce three sons. As a rule, the Bonapartes, with the exception of Napoleon, loathed the Beauharnaises. Hortense also certainly had extra-marital lovers.Hortense de Beauharnais gave birth to three sons which were officially claimed by Louis Bonaparte, despite his own doubts about their paternity:
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