Relatively Speaking
Napoleon's Relatives
The fallen Emperor had reason to be bitter. In Napoleon’s eyes, he had raised his large Corsican brood, consisting of Joseph, Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome, to the status of royalty. He had given them titles, put them on the thrones of kingdoms, and made them rich. In return, Napoleon had expected blind loyalty from his siblings. He should have known better.
From the start, not all of Napoleon’s brothers and sisters held him in high regard. His younger brother Lucien hated him from childhood, believing that he was a bully and a megalomaniac. Writing to his older brother Joseph in the early 1790s, he listed all Napoleons faults, noting, "He seems to me to have a strong liking for tyrannical methods; if he were king, he would be a tyrant, and his name, for posterity and in the ears of sensitive patriots, would be a name of horror." via
The Golden Bees of Bonapartes
Napoleon III, being accused on one occasion of having nothing of the Great Napoleon
about him, replied with as much exasperation as wit, that he did, on the contrary,
have his relations.
The Golden Bees: The Story of the Bonapartes - by Theo Aronson. via
dr. π (pi)
.
The fallen Emperor had reason to be bitter. In Napoleon’s eyes, he had raised his large Corsican brood, consisting of Joseph, Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome, to the status of royalty. He had given them titles, put them on the thrones of kingdoms, and made them rich. In return, Napoleon had expected blind loyalty from his siblings. He should have known better.
From the start, not all of Napoleon’s brothers and sisters held him in high regard. His younger brother Lucien hated him from childhood, believing that he was a bully and a megalomaniac. Writing to his older brother Joseph in the early 1790s, he listed all Napoleons faults, noting, "He seems to me to have a strong liking for tyrannical methods; if he were king, he would be a tyrant, and his name, for posterity and in the ears of sensitive patriots, would be a name of horror." via
The Golden Bees of Bonapartes
Napoleon III, being accused on one occasion of having nothing of the Great Napoleon
about him, replied with as much exasperation as wit, that he did, on the contrary,
have his relations.
The Golden Bees: The Story of the Bonapartes - by Theo Aronson. via
dr. π (pi)
.