WEBVTT - Napoleon's Brother Off Exit 7 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.680 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:15.520 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. The year 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.279 is eighteen twenty and smoke is rising through the air 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.319 of the small town of Bordentown, New Jersey. It's a 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:28.240 cold January night, and the enormous estate of the town's 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:34.240 newest resident, a charming but strange French nobleman, is going 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:40.080 up in flames. As the American townsfolk of Bordentown rush 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:45.400 toward the blaze, rumors swirl like the ashes. They say 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.680 that the frenchmen in their midst known as the Count 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.360 of Cervier, is more than just a minor noble. They 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.480 say that in order to outfit his eighteen hundred acre 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.040 estate in central Jersey, they dug up a buried treasure 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.959 chest in Switzerland. They say that that chest was filled 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:11.160 with diamonds. They say that this point breeze estate contains 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.759 fine arts the likes of which the United States has 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:20.160 never seen, including scandalous nudes and busts of the former 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:25.759 French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. They even say that the man 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:31.280 surrounded by art and his mistresses in New Jersey is himself, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:36.759 a former European ruler, a former king of both Naples 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.160 and Spain. They say, in fact that he is the 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:47.880 older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. While listener, some rumors 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.080 turn out to be true, and all of those were. 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:58.440 Joseph Bonaparte lately of New Jersey was the older brother 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.760 of the more famous Napoleon. Back when Napoleon was in 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:08.040 power in France. Joseph was indeed the reluctant philosopher king 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.959 of both Naples and Spain, and he did indeed flee 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:18.079 to the United States when his brother lost power. He 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.320 was close with his more famous brother, but at the 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.560 same time Joseph was always a little bit of a 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.359 disappointment to Napoleon, more of an esthete than a political 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:34.919 or military leader. In America, Joseph owned property in both 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.560 Philadelphia and in Bordentown, New Jersey, where he lived on 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:45.160 a sprawling eighteen hundred acres, half like an American Republican 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.560 and half like a former king. In the twenty six 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:54.919 years he spent exiled in America, he never learned passable English. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.359 He amassed more books at Point Breeze, the name of 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.560 the estate then the Library of Congress had at the time. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:08.839 He alternately adored his American neighbors and lamented that they 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:15.800 couldn't understand European high art. That night, in January eighteen twenty, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.200 he watched as all he had collected in New Jersey 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.560 went up in flames. It's possible he looked with regret 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.080 at the burning sum total of his life in America. 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.359 It's possible that what crossed his mind was actually water 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.000 instead of fire, that he was thinking about the ship 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.000 that he had taken across the Atlantic years ago, away 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.960 from his wife and two young daughters. By the light 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.320 of the flames, he may have remembered the letters he 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.560 had sent to his wife across the sea, speaking of 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.560 the suitability of the home that he was building for 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:57.200 her and their children. He had been free here in America, 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.360 but he had also been very alone. Now, as the 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.160 night sky lit up with the flames of the Bonaparte 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:10.160 History collection, Joseph's own future in America was in doubt. 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.360 Without a home for his wife and children. Would he 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.320 ever see them again? Or would the oldest Bonaparte, the 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.800 former King of Naples and Spain, wind up alone in 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:34.159 exile forever? I'm Danish forts, and this is noble blood. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.440 Joseph Buonaparte was born on January seventh, my birthday actually 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:44.680 seventeen sixty eight, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. He 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.680 was the eldest of the family's eight children, but it 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.919 was his twenty month's younger brother, Napoleon, who would be 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.680 destined to make a name for the family. In fact, 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.119 that name was different from the one they were born with. 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.080 It was Napoleon who changed the spelling of the family 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:09.680 name from the Italian sounding Buonaparte to the French sounding Bonaparte, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.400 the better to rule and fit in France. Joseph and 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.320 Napoleon grew up very close with each other, but that 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.479 didn't stop them from clashing over their very different personalities. 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.400 Napoleon was more interested, as you can imagine, in the 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.920 military and in power. Joseph was more interested in arts 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.919 and culture. Napoleon called him quote an ornament on society, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.599 and throughout his life Joseph would kind of prove him right. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.960 He didn't love the law, though he did practice it. 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.800 He didn't love the military, though he did participate in it. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.480 He was a lover of republic more than monarchy. What 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:57.240 Joseph did love was literature, gardening, fine arts, opera, high culture, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:03.320 not to mention the art of seduction, at which he excelled. Still, 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.839 Joseph also loved his younger brother. When a young Joseph 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.800 proposed to a woman named desire Clary, it turned out 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:17.520 that Napoleon wanted her too. Napoleon suggested that Joseph proposed 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.839 to Desiree's older sister instead, and, like the good brother 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:27.200 he always was, Joseph did. Joseph and Julie Clary got 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.200 married in seventeen ninety four, when Joseph was twenty six 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.440 and Julie was twenty two. The two had a happy 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:40.200 early marriage. They had two daughters, Zenaide and Charlotte, in 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.080 eighteen oh one and eighteen oh two. Joseph loved all 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.520 of his girls and would have happily stayed in the 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.760 countryside with them alongside his arts and literature. Some painted 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.440 nude maybe some mistresses, I mean, don't be mistaken. Of course, 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.040 just because he loved his wife didn't mean that he 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.120 was faithful to her. But Joseph was a guy whose 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:08.000 younger brother was Napoleon Bonaparte, and Napoleon was not known 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.760 to take the simple pleasures and preferences of other people 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:17.160 into account. By seventeen ninety nine, five years into Joseph's 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:22.280 married life, Napoleon had staged a successful coupdetat and become 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:27.240 first Consul of the French Republic. From then on, Napoleon 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:32.000 appointed Joseph to a litany of ever more serious positions 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.240 Army colonel and then Regent of France, Commander in chief 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.360 of the Naples Army, King of Naples, and finally King 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.440 of Spain. It was a lot of titles for a 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.560 guy who basically just wanted to read books with his 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.760 family in a pretty French garden somewhere in the country. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.360 How can I find happiness, Joseph once wrote, when my 0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.600 position is quite incompatible with my character. To be fair, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.920 Joseph did find some happiness as a monarch. As King 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:10.240 of Spain, he earned the nickname pepe boteas basically Joe Bottles, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.680 because of how much wine he went through. As King 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.000 of Naples, he had an affair with a duchess who 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.400 wrote him letters twice a day and bore his child, 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:26.640 though tragically, the boy, Julio, died young. Heads up listeners 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:32.000 Joseph's story will be littered with illegitimate children, but he 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.960 did always come back to his deep love for his 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:41.040 two legitimate daughters. And though Napoleon kept pulling Joseph into 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.240 political power games that he never really wanted to be 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:50.760 a part of, Joseph always loved his little brother. After 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:55.520 Napoleon's defeat at the famous Battle of Waterloo, it became 0:08:55.720 --> 0:09:00.320 dangerous to be a Bonaparte on the continent. Joseph actually 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.280 offered to pretend to be Napoleon, sick in bed while 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:10.560 Napoleon escaped to America. Napoleon refused the offer. By July 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.560 eighteen fifteen, Napoleon was a prisoner of the British and 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:21.120 it was Joseph who took the opportunity to escape Europe. Joseph, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.760 as historian Patricia Tyson Stroud put it, got to quote 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:30.960 live out his brother's idea of freedom in America. So, 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.920 at the age of forty seven, Joseph Bonaparte boarded a 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.319 ship headed to New York City. It was a great adventure, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.760 and it also likely saved his life, but it was 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.160 also a sad and risky move. He was leaving behind 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.560 his beloved wife and country, and his even more beloved 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.560 young daughters. He had been married at this point to 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.600 Julie for twenty one years. As he sailed away to 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.440 safety across the Atlantic, he had had no idea what 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.320 fate had in store for him. He was hopefully sure, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.280 tragically sure, that his wife and daughters would soon join 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.240 him in America. He sailed away, really believing that he 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.559 would make a home and he would see them all 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:24.520 again very soon. In eighteen fifteen. It was not a 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:29.840 simple thing to be a Buonaparte escaping to America. Americans, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.600 who had recently shaken off the shackles of British monarchy 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:38.160 didn't tend to like the remnants of European monarchy or 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.800 empire on their shores. Aboard the ship, Joseph told no 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.960 one who he really was. He took on the name 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.880 the Count de Servilliers, which was the least of his 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.400 many grand titles. But it was not so easy for 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.800 the former King of Naples in Spain to go undetected. 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.400 Even across the Atlantic. In New York City, former Spanish 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.960 subjects kept stopping to kiss him on the hand. His 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:11.200 pretense was flimsy to the point of completely falling apart. 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.600 Worried that he would be extradited to England, where his 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:20.160 brother was being held prisoner. Joseph tried to get to Washington, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:25.040 d C. But President James Madison didn't want to risk 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.960 disturbing international diplomacy by interacting with the brother of the 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.880 former Emperor of France, so he essentially told Joseph to 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:39.800 go ahead and live the American dream. It's a free country, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.080 Madison basically said, and you're free to no need for 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.240 my protection. So that was the end of Joseph's attempts 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.600 to get to d C. He rented a house that's 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:56.480 still standing on Ninth Street in Philadelphia, but a city 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.200 rental was never going to cut it in the long 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.560 run for the lavish former king of Spain. In July 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.360 eighteen sixteen, just about one year after beginning his exile 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.120 in America, Joseph bought the eighteen hundred acre estate of 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:18.840 Point Breeze now Exit seven on the turnpike for Bordentown, 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:24.520 New Jersey. Joseph immediately set about fulfilling his brother Napoleon's 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.320 prediction that quote, he will be a bourgeois American and 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.400 spend his fortune in making gardens in order to fund 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.839 his estate. Joseph sent his personal secretary Louis Mayard back 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.320 to Europe. Mayard had only been twenty when he crossed 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.840 the ocean with Joseph before now Joseph dispatched him back 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.600 to Pranjin, Switzerland. It was a little escapade that actually 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:54.280 could be its own swashbuckling adventure book. Mayard wound up 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:59.200 being shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, surviving and finally 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:05.240 eventually digging up a buried treasure chest at Joseph's old chateau. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:10.520 The chest contained a handful of diamonds, letters from Napoleon, 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.320 and rumor has it even the crowns from when Joseph 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:20.840 was King of Naples and Spain. Joseph used that money 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.800 to turn Point Breeze into the idyllic, expensive center of 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.360 the arts that he had always wanted. He filled the 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:34.160 estate with paintings, lavish gardens, and a library of eight 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.320 thousand books, as I mentioned, more than the Library of 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.160 Congress had at the time. He also set up an 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.640 elaborate tunnel system under the giant property. He entertained fellow 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.800 French exiles, and he barely spoke English. He baffled and 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:56.559 amused his American neighbors who couldn't really understand the operas 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:01.040 and painted nudes that they're strange, but welcoming new European 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:05.600 neighbors seemed to love the whole time. Joseph was writing 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.440 to his wife Julie. He expected and wanted her to 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.200 come join him make the crossing in August. He told her, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.960 so that you can see the autumns in America. Bring 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.280 our daughters, whom I miss so dearly. It seemed to 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.320 Joseph like Julie was going to come, but she missed 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.600 one ship to America and then another. She was in 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.920 ill health, she told my Art her doctors were advising 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.200 her not to make the crossing. It didn't help that 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.440 she was terrified of a wreck at sea, which my 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:46.080 art himself had literally just experienced over in America. It 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.880 slowly dawned on Joseph that he would not be seeing 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.360 his wife again anytime soon. Send me one of our daughters. 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.160 In that case, he told his wife, it's only fair 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.760 you keep one and send the other. Zenate the oldest, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.000 she's the strongest. I am alone in liberty, he wrote 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.600 his wife. I am unhappy because I am isolated the 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.120 hope of your arrival, the establishing of a house, the 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:18.440 preparations to receive you have supported my existence. But today 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:23.040 this hope is extinguished. I am disgusted with my establishment, 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.120 even though it is beautiful, because I have not made 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:31.920 it for myself alone. Joseph was genuinely sorrow struck to 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.240 be away from his family, but then again, he was 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:41.239 also the ever charming Joseph Bonaparte, European sophisticate and seducer. 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:46.360 Those tunnels he'd built under Point Breeze, maybe he'd plan 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.960 to use them to escape the British if they ever 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.560 came for him in the case of an emergency, Or 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.520 maybe he just wanted to ferry his mistresses to and 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:01.000 from his bed. Because by eighteen eighteen he had met 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:05.520 a woman named Anna Savage in Philadelphia. Rumor had it 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.840 that she was a descendant of Pocahontas. It was not true, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.400 although her great ancestor, Thomas Savage, had been hostage to 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:20.560 Poetan in the early sixteen hundreds. So Joseph, the French exile, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:25.480 who barely spoke English, began a year's long affair with Anna, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.880 descendant of one of the oldest English families in America. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.480 They would have two daughters together, one of whom would 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.720 live to adulthood. When their first daughter was almost one 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.480 year old, Joseph rented a house in Trenton for Anna 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:46.480 and his little illegitimate American family. He was in his 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.920 carriage coming back from Trenton on the cold night of 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.000 January fourth, eighteen twenty, when he returned to discover his 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:02.040 beautiful estate in flames. His heart pounded as he rushed 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.600 toward the fire. His first thought may have been to 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.880 his wife back in France, and to his two daughters, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.840 who would never see the home that he had built 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.880 in such ardent hopes that they would eventually join him here. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.159 Or maybe he was thinking about his illegitimate family that 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.840 he had just left in Trenton, who were thankfully safe 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:27.680 as his estate burned. But if his first thoughts were 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:32.600 to his women and daughters, then his second was surely 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:38.080 to his possessions. His American neighbors could easily ransack the 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.680 house in the chaos of the flames and the heath. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.080 They could have stolen his jewels, his art, his books, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:50.320 his gold medals, his letters to and from his brother Napoleon. Instead, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:56.760 Joseph's neighbors in Bordentown endeared themselves to him forever. They 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:02.600 formed an impromptu brigade to put ted his possessions. As 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.919 the fire roared, Joseph's neighbors rescued almost all of his 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:13.320 valuable possessions and returned them to him. This almost certainly 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:18.320 included the famous painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps at 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.800 the Great Saint Bernard by Jacques Louis d vide Listeners. 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.199 Look it up, just google it and you'll surely recognize it. 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.399 After the fire, Joseph wrote a letter that was published 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.960 in newspapers across the United States. His letter expressed his 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:41.920 gratitude toward those upright Americans, the happiest people he'd ever known. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.800 Of course, people are people. Some of those very Americans 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.920 were offended that he had even thought that they might 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.760 be thieves in the first place. Still, probably encouraged by 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.800 the goodness of his neighbors in New Jersey, Joseph didn't 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.920 give up on Point Breeze after the fire. He started 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:08.159 rebuilding almost immediately. It was later that same year that 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:13.280 Joseph finally got his long awaited reward. His daughter was 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:18.200 coming to America at last, But it wasn't Zenaide. The 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.720 older daughter whom Joseph had sent for It was his 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:26.040 younger daughter, Charlotte. She had been only twelve years old 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.399 when Joseph left France. Six and a half years later, 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.919 when he finally saw her again in America, she was 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.840 nineteen years old and a firecracker, right in the artistic 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:42.320 and romantic mold of her father. Princess Charlotte fell in 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.560 love with the captain of her ship to America, and 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:50.119 then she worked as a painter. Joseph was overjoyed to 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.080 see his younger daughter again. The following year, her older sister, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:59.600 Zanade joined her, along with Zanede's husband, Charles Lucienne, and 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.520 Joseph had almost his whole family in America. He even 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.639 had a new mistress at this point, Emil Lacosse, who 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:12.399 would wind up having twins, but his wife Julie would 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.520 still not come and the fullness of his family was 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:21.640 short lived. Charlotte sailed back to Europe in eighteen twenty four, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.520 never to return to America. Zenaide followed her back to 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.479 Europe a few years later. After that, there was less 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.960 and less for Joseph in America. His former mistresses kept 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.000 asking for money and support if you can imagine that 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.240 for his illegitimate children. He had financial troubles. He'd kept 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.480 writing to his wife all those years, and now alone again, 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:51.960 without the family he considered truly his own. The years 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:57.359 passed in ever greater loneliness. Hosting the Marquis de Lafayette, 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:02.040 the famed Frenchman of the American Revolution, didn't help. Joseph 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.959 longed for home for his family, So at last, in 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:12.160 eighteen thirty six, he said goodbye to his fabulous, once burned, 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.439 now rebuilt Point Breeze. He gave away much of his 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.600 art and treasures to the American neighbors who had helped 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.879 him so much back during the fire, and finally he 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:33.320 set sail away from America for good. Joseph hoped that 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.720 he would ultimately be allowed to travel back to France 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.800 to see his wife. After all, by this point, Napoleon 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.480 had been dead for fifteen years. Joseph was an old 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.719 man now, and he hoped France would consider the threat 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.320 of the Bonapartes past. But it was not to be. 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:58.879 France remained closed to the older brother of Napoleon. So 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.080 Joseph went to England, and it was there in eighteen 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:07.640 thirty nine that Joseph received the worst news of his life. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.040 His beloved daughter Charlotte had died in Italy at thirty 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.200 six years old. One year later, perhaps as a result 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.400 of age and perhaps of the immense sorrow of losing 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.920 his brilliant younger daughter, Joseph had a stroke in London 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:29.400 which left him paralyzed on his right side, and one 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:33.760 year after that, in eighteen forty one, he left England 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.600 for a journey to Florence. At this point he was 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.879 a seventy three year old man, infirm and hunched, and 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.960 he looked up at a figure he had not seen 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.359 since he was a young, charming forty seven year old. 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.399 There walking toward him in Italy was his wife, Julie. 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:58.879 After twenty six years, the spouses were reunited at last. 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.080 It's impossible to know what they each felt upon seeing 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.440 each other again after a gap of a quarter century. 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:11.280 They had exchanged letters all these years. Maybe Julie knew 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.640 and simply bore the fact of Joseph's many extramarital affairs 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:20.600 and illegitimate children. Maybe Joseph felt embarrassed at the immensity 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:25.160 of his physical decline, or maybe against all odds, they 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:30.159 simply felt an immense continued love based in the remembrance 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:34.040 of their time together as a young married couple, way 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.280 back before Napoleon was ever Emperor of France, before it 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.920 was a scourge to hold the last name Bonaparte on 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:46.639 the continent. Joseph's health had been in decline for a 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:50.800 long time by the time of the couple's reunion. It 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:55.000 wasn't long before he had a second stroke. Julie stuck 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:59.600 by him the whole time. As Joseph sickened. They stayed together, 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:05.120 and on July twenty eighth, eighteen forty four, Joseph Bonaparte 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:09.040 lay in his wife's arms and breathed his last. At 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.480 the tail end of their fifty year marriage, they were 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:18.200 reunited again. For only three Joseph Bonaparte had seen his wife, 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:22.320 but he would never see his beloved France again. But 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.720 his remains did come to their final resting place in Paris. 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:36.080 He was interred eventually near his brother Napoleon. That's the 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:39.679 story of Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte, who wound up living 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:43.440 in New Jersey, but stick around after a brief sponsor 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.880 break to hear more about what happened to his massive 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:58.520 estate Point Breeze. As for Joseph's magnificent estate Point Breeze, 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:02.880 a Catholic mission called the Society of the Divine World 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.080 bought the property in nineteen forty one and held it 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.879 for seventy years. In twenty twenty one, at last, a 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:15.399 land preservation trust worked with both the state and the 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:18.840 town of Bordentown to buy the property and make it 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:24.399 open to the public. The Bordentown Historical Society website says 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:28.280 that the Joseph Bonaparte exhibit is open at least two 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:31.760 saturdays per month, and that in it you can see 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:35.399 a lock of Joseph's hair. If you find yourself on 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:39.040 exit seven of the New Jersey Turnpike, try and go, 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:43.280 and please report back. And if you feel some sorrow 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:47.119 for the exiled King of Naples in Spain, waiting in 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:50.480 vain for his wife and never to return to France, 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:54.399 well you might be in good company. Joseph's daughters in 0:25:54.480 --> 0:25:57.679 Aid was married to a man named Charles Lucien, who 0:25:57.760 --> 0:26:03.359 became a famous early ornithologists. Charles Lucien named one bird 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:08.639 species after his wife. That species is called the Zeneida Macrura. 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:20.439 We know it better as the Mourning Dove. Noble Blood 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:24.360 is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:28.840 from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:34.119 with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, 0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:39.399 Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is 0:26:39.560 --> 0:26:44.119 edited and produced by Noemy Griffin and rema Ill Kaali, 0:26:44.440 --> 0:26:49.560 with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, 0:26:49.720 --> 0:26:54.600 Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio. 0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:59.480 Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:00.560 to your favorite ches.