Joseph Bonaparte Chronology
1768 January 7: Joseph Bonaparte born at Corte, Corsica.
1769 August 15: Napoleon born at Ajaccio, Corsica.
1789 French Revolution begins.
1793 Bonaparte family escapes from Corsica, lands at Toulon.
1793 January: execution of Louis XVI.
1793 The Reign of Terror in France.
1794 Joseph marries Marie-Julie Clary, daughter of a rich merchant of Marseilles.
1797 Joseph elected to Council of Five Hundred in Paris.
1797 Appointed Minister to Rome.
1798 Joseph buys Mortefontaine, 47 kilometers northeast of Paris.
1799 November 19: Napoleon’s coup d’etat establishes Consulate; he is soon First Consul.
1800 October 3: Joseph signs treaty with United States at Mortefontaine ending hostilities between the two countries.
1801 February 9: Signs Treaty of Lunéville with Austrian minister, Count Cobenzl, ending hostilities with Austria for the time being.
1801 June 21: Signs Concordat with three cardinals representing Pope Pius VII restoring the Catholic religion in France.
1802 March 27: Signs Treaty of Amiens with Lord Cornwallis, temporarily ending hostilities with England.
1801 July 8: Birth of daughter Zénaïde-Charlotte-Julie.
1803 May 24: Birth of Charles-Lucien Bonaparte, son of Joseph’s brother Lucien and future husband of Zénaïde.
1803 October 31: Birth of daughter Charlotte.
1804 December 4: Napoleon declares himself Emperor of the French.
1806 March: Joseph takes up duties as King of Naples.
1808 July 20: Enters Madrid as King of Spain and the Indies; disappointing reception, empty streets and shuttered windows.
1813 June 21: Defeat of French forces at Vitoria, Spain; Joseph returns to Mortefontaine.
1814 June: Napoleon defeated by allied armies of Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, and Russia, abdicates, and is exiled to Elba.
1814 July: Joseph buys Château de Prangins in Switzerland.
1814 At Blois, Joseph buys large tract of land in northern New York State from James Le Ray de Chaumont.
1815 March 1: Napoleon escapes from Elba, lands near Antibes and returns to Paris. Joseph joins him there.
1815 June 18: Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
1815 July 25: Joseph sails for America; Napoleon, a British prisoner, is taken to remote island of St. Helena off southwestern coast of Africa.
1815 August 20: Joseph lands in New York and calls himself the Count de Survilliers.
1815-16 Rents house on Ninth Street in Philadelphia.
1816 Leases Lansdowne on outskirts of Philadelphia.
1816 July 2: Buys estate of Point Breeze outside Bordentown, New Jersey; James Carret signs papers as Joseph not a citizen.
1817 January 22: New Jersey legislature permits Joseph to own Point Breeze.
1817 Founding of ill-fated Champ d’Asile in Texas by Charles and Henri Lallemande with Joseph’s financial support.
1817 Late summer: Joseph first visits his Black River property in northern New York State.
1818 Winter: leases Dunlop House in Philadelphia from Stephen Girard.
1818 Meets Anna Savage in Philadelphia; begins liaison.
1819 Rents Bow Hill near Trenton for Anna; birth of Joseph’s natural daughter Pauline Josephe.
1820 January 4: Point Breeze house burns to the ground; Joseph starts at once to rebuild at a different site on the same property.
1821 May 5: death of Napoleon on St. Helena.
1821 December 21: Arrival of daughter Charlotte in Philadelphia.
1821 Fall: arrival of Félix and Emilie Lacoste from France.
1822 Birth of Joseph’s natural daughter Caroline Charlotte.
1823 Joseph elected to American Philosophical Society.
1823 September: Zénaïde and Charles arrive in New York.
1823 December: accidental death of Anna’s daughter Pauline Josephe.
1824 Emilie Lacoste takes up residence at Point Breeze while her husband is away in Saint Domingue on business.
1824 February 12: Birth of Zénaïde and Charles’s first child, Joseph-Lucien-Charles-Napoleon.
1824 August: Charlotte returns to Europe aboard the Crisis.
1825 March: birth of Emilie Lacoste’s twin sons by Joseph. Only Félix will live past infancy.
1825 Death of Pauline Borghese; leaves Villa Paolina in Rome to Napoleon-Louis (son of Joseph’s brother Louis).
1825 Joseph elected to American Academy of Fine Arts in New York.
1825 Anna Savage goes to Paris with daughter Caroline Charlotte.
1826 Anna marries Alexis de la Folie in Paris.
1826 Charlotte marries Napoleon-Louis in Italy.
1827 Emilie and Félix Lacoste return to France, taking little Félix but leaving son Léon at boarding school in New York under Joseph’s oversight.
1828 Zénaïde and Charles return to Italy.
1830 July Revolution in France; Louis-Philippe installed as king.
1830 March: death of Napoleon-Louis at Forli, Italy.
1831 December: death of Stephen Girard.
1832 July: Joseph sails for England in the hope of putting Napoleon’s son on the throne of France with himself as regent.
1832 July 22: death of the Duke de Reichstadt, Napoleon II, in Vienna.
1833 July 28: Napoleon’s statue erected on summit of column in Place Vendôme.
1834 May: death of General Lafayette.
1835 October 18: Joseph returns to America.
1836 February: death of Madame Mère, Joseph’s mother.
1836 August: Joseph sets sail for England.
1836 October: Louis-Napoleon’s failed coup d’etat at Strasbourg.
1838 August 20: Joseph departs England for America, arrives 30 September.
1839 March 3: Charlotte dies in childbirth in Sarzana, Italy.
1839 April and May: deaths of Joseph’s sister Caroline Murat and his uncle Cardinal Fesch.
1840 June: Joseph suffers a serious stroke in rented house outside London.
1840 June 29: Joseph’s brother Lucien dies of cancer in Viterbo, Italy.
1840 August: At Boulogne, Louis-Napoleon’s second failed coup d’etat.
1840 December 15: Napoleon’s remains interred in Les Invalides in Paris.
1841 June 6: Joseph arrives in Genoa, accompanied by Charles and Louis Mailliard, after boarding steamboat in London.
1841 June: reunited with Julie after twenty-six years.
1844 July 28: Joseph dies at Villa Serristori in Florence.
1845 April 7: death of Julie at Villa Serristori in Florence.
1847 Sale of Point Breeze by Joseph’s grandson, Joseph, who had inherited it.
1862 Joseph Bonaparte’s remains entombed at Les Invalides near Napoleon.