Noble Blood - Napoleon's Brother Off Exit 7

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, it became a dangerous thing to be a Bonaparte in Europe. And so Joseph, Napoleon's older brother, sailed to America, where he lived for more than two decades, building a luxurious estate in New Jersey filled with art and historical artifacts.Support Noble Blood:— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. The year is 1820, and smoke is rising through the air of the small town of Bordentown, New Jersey. It's a cold January night, and the enormous estate of the town's newest resident, a charming but strange French nobleman, is going up in flames. As the American townsfolk of Borden Town rush toward the blaze, rumors swirl like the ashes. They say that the Frenchmen in their midst, known as the Count of Servier,

is more than just a minor noble. They say that in order to outfit his 1,800-acre estate in central Jersey, he dug up a buried treasure chest in Switzerland. They say that that chest was filled with diamonds. They say that this Point Breeze estate contains fine arts, the likes of which the United States has never seen, including scandalous nudes and busts of. of the former French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

They even say that the man surrounded by art and his mistresses in New Jersey is himself a former European ruler, a former king of both Naples and Spain. They say, in fact, that he is the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Well, listener, some rumors turn out to be true. true. And all of those were. Joseph Bonaparte, lately of New Jersey, was the older brother of the more

famous Napoleon. Back when Napoleon was in power in France, Joseph was indeed the reluctant philosopher king of both Naples and Spain, and he did indeed flee to the United States when his brother lost power. He was close with his more famous brother, but at the same time, Joseph was always a little bit of a disappointment to Napoleon, more of an estate than a political or military leader. In America, Joseph owned property in both Philadelphia and in Bordentown, New Jersey, where he lived on a sprawling 1800 acres, half like an American Republican and and half like a former king. In the 26 years he spent exiled in America,

he never learned passable English. He amassed more books at Point Breeze, the name of the estate, than the Library of Congress had at the time. He alternately adored his American neighbors and lamented that they couldn't understand European high art. That night in January 1820, he watched as all he had collected in New Jersey went up in flames. It's possible he looked with regret at the burning sum total of his life in America.

It's possible that what crossed his mind was actually water instead of fire, that he was thinking about the ship that he had taken across the Atlantic years ago, away from his wife and two young daughters. By the light of the flames, he may have remembered the letters he had sent to his wife across the sea, speaking of the suitability of the home that he was building for her and their children. He had been free here in America, but he had also been very alone. Now, as the night sky lit up with the flames of the Bonaparte history collection, Joseph's own future in America was in doubt. Without a home for his wife and children,

would he ever see them again? Or would the oldest Bonaparte, the former king of Naples and Spain, wind up alone in exile forever? I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Joseph Buoniparte was born on January 7th, my birthday actually, 1768, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. He was the eldest of the family's eight children. but it was his 20-month's younger brother, Napoleon,

who would be destined to make a name for the family. In fact, that name was different from the one they were born with. It was Napoleon who changed the spelling of the family name from the Italian-sounding Buonaparte to the French-sounding Bonaparte, the better to rule and fit in France. Joseph and Napoleon grew up very close with each other, But that didn't stop them from clashing over their very different personalities. Napoleon was more interested, as you can imagine, in the military and in power.

Joseph was more interested in arts and culture. Napoleon called him, quote, an ornament on society. And throughout his life, Joseph would kind of prove him right. He didn't love the law, though he did practice it. He didn't love the military, though he did participate in it. He was a lover of Republic more than monarchy. What Joseph did love was literature, gardening, fine arts, opera, high culture, not to mention the art of seduction at which he excelled.

Still, Joseph also loved his younger brother. When a young Joseph proposed to a woman named Desiree Clary, it turned out that Napoleon wanted her too. Napoleon suggested that Joseph, proposed to Desire's older sister instead, and like the good brother he always was, Joseph did. Joseph and Julie, Clary, got married in 1794, when Joseph was 26 and Julie was 22. The two had a happy early marriage. They had two daughters, Zinade and Charlotte, in 1801 and 1802. Joseph loved all of his girls and would have happily stayed in the countryside with them

alongside his arts and literature, some painted nude, maybe some mistresses. I mean, don't be mistaken, of course, just because he loved his wife, didn't mean that he was faithful to her. But Joseph was a guy whose younger brother was Napoleon Bonaparte. And Napoleon was not known to take the simple pleasures and preferences of other people into account. By 1799, five years into Joseph's married life, Napoleon had staged a successful coup d'etat and become first consul of the French Republic. From then on, Napoleon appointed Joseph to a litany of ever more serious positions. Army colonel and then regent of France, commander-in-chief of the Naples army, king of Naples, and finally, King of Spain.

It was a lot of titles for a guy who basically just wanted to read books with his family in a pretty French garden somewhere in the country. How can I find happiness, Joseph once wrote, when my position is quite incompatible with my character? To be fair, Joseph did find some happiness as a monarch. As King of Spain, he earned the nickname Pepe Boteas, basically Joe Bottles because of how much wine he went through. As King of Naples, he had an affair with a Duchess who wrote him letters twice a day and bore his child,

though tragically the boy Giulio died young. Heads up listeners, Joseph's story will be littered with illegitimate children. But he did always come back to his deep love for his two legitimate daughters. And though Napoleon kept pulling Joseph into political power games that he never really wanted to be a part of, Joseph always loved his little brother. After Napoleon's defeat at the famous Battle of Waterloo, it became dangerous to be a bonaparte on the continent. Joseph actually offered to pretend to be Napoleon sick in bed while Napoleon escaped to America. Napoleon refused the offer. By July 1815, Napoleon was a prisoner of the British,

and it was Joseph who took the opportunity to escape Europe. Joseph, as historian Patricia Tyson Stroud put it, got to, quote, live out his brother's idea of freedom in America. So at the age of 47, Joseph Bonaparte boarded a ship headed to New York, York City. It was a great adventure, and it also likely saved his life. But it was also a sad and risky move. He was leaving behind his beloved wife and country and his even more beloved young daughters. He had been married at this point to Julie for 21 years. As he sailed away to safety across the Atlantic, he had no idea what fate had in store for him. He was hopefully sure,

tragically sure, that his wife and daughters would soon join him in America. He sailed away really believing that he would make a home and he would see them all again very soon. In 1815, it was not a simple thing to be a Bonaparte escaping to America. Americans who had recently shaken off the shackles of British monarchy didn't tend to like the remnants of European monarchy or empire on their shores. Abboard the ship, Joseph told no one who he really was. He took on the name the Count de Servilliers, which was the least of his many grand titles. But it was not so easy for the former King of Naples in Spain to go undetected, even across the Atlantic. In New York City, former Spanish subjects kept stopping to kiss him on the hand. His pretense was flimsy to the

point of completely falling apart. Worried that he would be extradited to England, where his brother was being held prisoner, Joseph tried to get to Washington, D.C. But President James Madison didn't want to risk disturbing international diplomacy by interacting with the brother of the former emperor of France. So he essentially told Joseph to go ahead and live the American dream. It's a free country, Madison basically said, and you're free too. No need for my protection.

So that was the end of Joseph's attempts to get to D.C. He rented a house that's still standing on 9th Street in Philadelphia. But a city rental was never going to cut it in the long run for the lavish former King of Spain. In July 1816, just about one year after beginning his act, exile in America, Joseph bought the 1800-acre estate of Point Breeze, now exit 7 on the Turnpike for Borden Town, New Jersey. Joseph immediately said about fulfilling his brother Napoleon's prediction that, quote, he will be a bourgeois American and spend his fortune in making gardens. In order to fund his estate, Joseph sent his personal secretary, Louis Mayard, back to Europe.

Mayard had only been 20 when he crossed the ocean with Joseph before. Now Joseph dispatched him back to Prangian Switzerland. It was a little escapade that actually could be its own swashbuckling adventure book. Mayard wound up being shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, surviving, and finally, eventually, digging up a buried treasure chest at Joseph's old chateau. The chest contained a handful of. of diamonds, letters from Napoleon, and rumor has it, even the crowns from when Joseph was king of Naples and Spain. Joseph used that money to turn Point Breeze into the idyllic,

expensive center of the arts that he had always wanted. He filled the estate with paintings, lavish gardens, and a library of 8,000 books. As I mentioned more than the library, the library, of Congress had at the time. He also set up an elaborate tunnel system under the giant property. He entertained fellow French exiles and he barely spoke English. He baffled and amused his American neighbors who couldn't really understand the operas and painted nudes that their strange but welcoming new European neighbors seemed to love. The whole time Joseph was writing to his wife, Julie.

He expected and wanted her to come join him. Make the crossing in August, he told her, so that you can see the autumns in America. Bring our daughters whom I miss so dearly. It seemed to Joseph like Julie was going to come, but she missed one ship to America and then another. She was in ill health, she told Mayard. Her doctors were advising her not to make the crossing. It didn't help that she was terrified of a wreck at sea, which my art himself had literally just experience. Over in America, it slowly dawned on Joseph that he would not be seeing his wife again any time soon.

Send me one of our daughters, in that case, he told his wife. It's only fair. You keep one and send the other. Zinade, the oldest. She's the strongest. I am alone in liberty, he wrote his wife. I am unhappy because I am isolated. The hope of your arrival, the establishing of a house, the preparations to receive you, have supported my existence. But today this hope is extinguished. I am disgusted with my establishment, even though it is beautiful, because I have not made it for myself alone.

Joseph was genuinely sorrow-struck to be away from his family. but then again he was also the ever-charming Joseph Bonaparte, European sophisticate and seducer. Those tunnels he'd built under Point Breeze, maybe he'd plan to use them to escape the British if they ever came for him, in the case of an emergency. Or maybe he just wanted to ferry his mistresses to and from his bed. Because by 1818, he had met a woman named Anna Savage,

in Philadelphia. Rumor had it that she was a descendant of Pocahontas. It was not true, although her great ancestor, Thomas Savage, had been hostage to Poetan in the early 1600s. So Joseph, the French exile who barely spoke English, began a years-long affair with Anna, descendant of one of the oldest English families in America. They would have two daughters together,

one of whom would live to adulthood. When their first daughter was almost one year old, Joseph rented a house in Trenton for Anna and his little illegitimate American family. He was in his carriage coming back from Trenton on the cold night of January 4, 1820, when he returned to discover his beautiful estate in flames. His heart pounded as he rushed towards,

the fire, his first thought may have been to his wife back in France and to his two daughters, who would never see the home that he had built in such ardent hopes that they would eventually join him here. Or maybe he was thinking about his illegitimate family that he had just left in Trenton, who were thankfully safe as his estate burned. But if his first thoughts were to his women and daughters, then his second was surely to his possessions. His American neighbors could easily ransack the house in the chaos of the flames and the heath. They could have stolen his jewels, his art, his books, his gold medals, his letters to and from his brother Napoleon. Instead, Joseph's neighbors in Bordentown endeared themselves to him forever. They formed an impromptu

brigade to protect his possessions. As the fire roared, Joseph's neighbors rescued almost all of his valuable possessions and returned them to him. This almost certainly included the famous painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps at the Great St. Bernard by Jacques-Louis-Div. Listeners look it up, just Google it, and you'll surely recognize it. After the fire, Joseph wrote a letter that was published in newspapers across the United States. His letter expressed his gratitude toward those upright Americans, the happiest people he'd ever known. Of course, people are people. Some of those very Americans were offended that he had even thought that they might be thieves in the first place. Still, probably encouraged by the goodness of his neighbors in New Jersey, Joseph.

didn't give up on Point Breeze. After the fire, he started rebuilding almost immediately. It was later that same year that Joseph finally got his long-awaited reward. His daughter was coming to America at last. But it wasn't Zinade, the older daughter whom Joseph had sent for. It was his younger daughter, Charlotte. She had been only 12 years old when Joseph left France. Six and a half years later, when he finally saw her again in America, she was 19 years old and a firecracker right in the artistic and romantic mold of her father. Princess Charlotte fell in love with the captain of her ship to America, and then she worked as a painter. Joseph was overjoyed to see his younger daughter again. The following year, her older sister, Zinade, joined her, along with Zinade's husband, Charles Lillard.

Lucien, and Joseph had almost his whole family in America. He even had a new mistress at this point, Emil LeCost, who would wind up having twins. But his wife, Julie, would still not come, and the fullness of his family was short-lived. Charlotte sailed back to Europe in 1824, never to return to America. Zinade followed her back to Europe a few years later. After that, there was less and less for Joseph in America. His former mistresses kept asking for money and support, if you can imagine that, for his illegitimate children. He had financial troubles. He'd kept writing to his wife all those years, and now, alone again without the family he considered truly his own,

the years passed in ever greater loneliness. Hosting the Marquita Lafayette, the famed Frenchman of the American Revolution, didn't help. Joseph longed for home for his family. So at last, in 1836, he said goodbye to his fabulous, once-burned, now rebuilt Point Breeze. He gave away much of his art and treasures to the American neighbors who had helped him so much back during the fire. and finally he set sail away from America for good. Joseph hoped that he would ultimately be allowed to travel back to France to see his wife. After all, by this point, Napoleon had been dead for 15 years. Joseph was an old man now, and he hoped France would consider the threat of the Bonaparte's past.

But it was not to be. France remained closed to the... the older brother of Napoleon. So Joseph went to England, and it was there in 1839 that Joseph received the worst news of his life. His beloved daughter, Charlotte, had died in Italy at 36 years old. One year later, perhaps as a result of age and perhaps of the immense sorrow of losing his brilliant younger daughter, Joseph had a stroke in London, which left him pale. paralyzed on his right side, and one year after that, in 1841, he left England for a journey to Florence. At this point, he was a 73-year-old man, infirm and hunched, and he looked up

at a figure he had not seen since he was a young, charming 47-year-old. There, walking toward him in Italy, was his wife, Julie. After 26 years, the spouses were reunited at last. It's impossible to know what they each felt upon seeing each other again after a gap of a quarter century. They had exchanged letters all of these years. Maybe Julie knew and simply bore the fact of Joseph's many extramarital affairs and illegitimate children. Maybe Joseph felt embarrassed at the immensity of his physical decline. Or maybe against all odds they simply felt

an immense continued love, based in the remembrance of their time together as a young married couple, way back before Napoleon was ever Emperor of France, before it was a scourge to hold the last name Bonaparte on the continent. Joseph's health had been in decline for a long time by the time of the couple's reunion. It wasn't long before he had a second stroke. Julie stuck by him the whole time. As Joseph sickened, they stayed together. And on July 28, 1844, Joseph Bonaparte lay in his wife's arms and breathed his last. At the tail end of their 50-year marriage, they were reunited again for only three. Joseph Bonaparte had seen his wife, but he would never see his beloved France again. But his remains did come to their final resting place in Paris.

He was interred eventually near his brother, Napoleon. That's the story of Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who wound up living in New Jersey. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear more about what happened to his massive estate, Point Breeze. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. and he's like, just give it a shot.

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.

I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come look for up-and-coming talent, He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah. It would not be... Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. As for Joseph's magnificent estate, Point Breeze, a Catholic mission called the Society of the Divine World, bought the property in 1941 and held it for 70 years. In 2021 at last, a land preservation trust worked with both the state and...

and the town of Borden Town, to buy the property and make it open to the public. The Borden Town Historical Society website says that the Joseph Bone Apart exhibit is open at least two Saturdays per month, and that in it you can see a lock of Joseph's hair. If you find yourself on exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike, try and go and please report back. And if you feel some sorrow for the exiled king of the king of the city of the city of the city turnpike, try and go. Naples in Spain, waiting in vain for his wife, and never to return to France. Well, you might be in good company. Joseph's daughter, Zenaid, was married to a man named Charles Lucian, who became a famous

early ornithologist. Charles Lucien named one bird species after his wife. That species is called the Zenaida Macrura. We know it better as the mourning dove. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimmin-Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Melani, and Armand Kasam. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Rima Il K. Ali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.