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Murat, Marshal Prince Joachim, King of Naples (1767-1815). Son of a village postmaster, Murat was educated in a seminary. He joined the cavalry in 1787 and speedily won promotion to sergeant major. After ups and downs in 1790-2 he was commissioned, and, having enabled Napoleon to seize the cannon with which he administered a ‘whiff of grapeshot’ to Paris in 1795, was promoted colonel. He served under Napoleon in Italy and accompanied him on the French Egyptian expedition, leading the decisive cavalry charge at Aboukir on 25 July 1799.
Confirmed as general of division on his return to France, Murat commanded the grenadiers who saved the day when Napoleon's 18th Brumaire coup faltered. He married Napoleon's pretty and intelligent sister Caroline in 1800, and was appointed marshal in the first creation of 1804. His cavalry performed well in the campaign and battle of Austerlitz. Murat's pursuit reaped the reward of Jena/Auerstadt in 1806, and the massed cavalry charge he led, dressed in a uniform consisting mostly of gold braid, saved the day at Eylau in 1807. He was created grand duke of Cleves and Berg in 1806 and showered with foreign orders in 1807.
Sent to Spain in 1808, he brutally put down the Dos de Mayo rising. Recalled when Joseph Bonaparte was appointed king of Spain, he was installed on Joseph's throne of Naples. Soon at odds with Napoleon, he joined the Grande Armée for the Russian campaign, commanding it when Napoleon left. He returned to his kingdom as soon as he could, resisted Allied attempts to win him over, and rejoined Napoleon in 1813. After Leipzig he went back to Italy and struggled hard to retain his throne. Hearing that Napoleon had escaped from Elba he went to join him, but was denied even an audience. He returned to Naples, now in Bourbon hands, and was shot by firing squad. Murat characteristically declined a blindfold and gave the order to fire.
Murat was handsome, burly, and a devoted (if noisily irascible) husband and father. An archetypal cavalryman, with a taste for extravagant self-designed uniforms, he had enormous courage and a penetrating tactical eye, but no strategic or common sense at all.
— Richard Holmes
| Biography: Joachim Murat |
The French marshal Joachim Murat (1767-1815), brother-in-law of Napoleon I, served in the wars of the French Revolution and Empire. He was king of Naples from 1808 to 1815.
Joachim Murat was born at La Bastide-Fortumière (Lot) on March 25, 1767. He was the second son of an inn-keeper who intended the boy to make his career in the Church. He was educated first at Cahors and then studied canon law at Toulouse. Realizing that he had no calling to the religious life, Joachim left his studies and enlisted in a cavalry regiment. He remained in military service until 1790, at which time he was discharged for disciplinary reasons. Shortly thereafter, he reentered the army (1791).
Capt. Murat was in Paris in 1795, and he was employed by Napoleon Bonaparte on 13 Vendémiaire to aid him in putting down the rising against the Directory. Bonaparte then took him to Italy in 1796 as his first aide-de-camp, where he served during the first Italian campaign. In 1798 he sailed with the Army of Egypt to the banks of the Nile, where he commanded the cavalry during the Battle of the Pyramids. The following year he took part in the Syrian expedition. In the summer of 1799, when Bonaparte returned to France with only a small group of favored officers, Murat was among them. He was promoted to the rank of general of division in October 1799. On the 18th of Brumaire (Nov. 10, 1799) Murat commanded the grenadiers who evicted the Council of Five Hundred from their meeting hall at Saint-Cloud, thus assuring the overthrow of the Directory and the establishment of the Consulate. Napoleon, the new first consul, appointed him commandant of the consular guard and gave him his sister, Caroline Bonaparte, in marriage (Jan. 20, 1800). The second Italian campaign saw Murat at the head of the cavalry, and he took part in the Battle of Marengo. During the next 4 years of peace on the Continent he was governor of the Cisalpine Republic and governor of Paris. With the creation of the Empire in 1804, he was named marshal and invested with the grand eagle of the Legion of Honor.
The renewal of hostilities in 1805 found Murat once again at the head of the cavalry. He took an active part in the campaigns of 1806 and 1807 and fought with distinction at Jena, Eylau, and Friedland. In 1808 he was named general in chief of the French Army of Spain. He had high hopes of being named king of Spain, but the Emperor placed his own older brother Joseph on the throne. As a conciliation, Murat was given the throne of Naples (Aug. 1, 1808).
Styling himself King Joachim Napoleon, Murat established an extravagant court at Naples and continued the reforms that Joseph Bonaparte had begun. His principal problem was his relationship with his all-powerful brother-in-law. It was Napoleon's intention that the kingdom of Naples should be governed in the best interests of France. Murat balked but remained in line.
In 1812 the King of Naples again headed the cavalry of the Grand Army. Throughout the Russian campaign and the retreat, he distinguished himself by his bravery in the face of enemy fire. When the French retreated beyond the Rhine after the defeat at Leipzig (Oct. 16-18, 1813), Murat retired to Italy. He now realized that the Napoleonic Empire would not survive. He therefore opened negotiations with Austria in an effort to save his throne. On Jan. 11, 1814, he signed a treaty with Austria that guaranteed him the throne of Naples in return for his renunciation of Napoleon and active military support against France. But Austria was the only great power supporting him, and at the Congress of Vienna the other Allied nations wished to return the deposed King Ferdinand to Naples. Thus, in coordination with Napoleon's return to France in March 1815, but without the returning Emperor's approval, Murat went to war with Austria in the name of Italian unification.
The Neapolitan army was defeated in its first engagement with the Austrians, and Murat was forced to flee from his kingdom to France. Napoleon, still furious with his former lieutenant, refused to give him service in the French army or even to allow him to remain on French soil. In early October he made one last bid to reestablish himself in Italy. Landing at Pizzo on October 8 with a handful of men, he was at once captured. On Oct. 13, 1815, he was condemned to death by a court-martial and shot.
Further Reading
Neither of the two biographies of Murat in English can be considered definitive: A. H. Atteridge, Joachim Murat, Marshal of France (1911), however, is better than A. Berlam, King of Naples (1922). A. Espitalier, Napoleon and King Murat (1912), is a good account of the relationship between the two men. Useful background works include R. M. Johnston, The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy (2 vols., 1904); Piers G. Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean (1957); and Owen Connelly, Napoleon's Satellite Kingdoms (1965).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Joachim Murat |
Bibliography
See H. Cole, The Murats (1972).
| Wikipedia: Joachim Murat |
| Joachim Murat | |
|---|---|
| King of the Two Sicilies Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves |
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| Reign | 1 August 1808 – 3 May 1815 |
| Predecessor | Joseph Bonaparte |
| Successor | Ferdinand IV |
| Issue | |
| Prince Achille Murat Princess Marie Letizia Murat Prince Napoleon Lucien Charles Murat Princess Louise Julie Caroline Murat |
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| Father | Pierre Murat-Jordy |
| Mother | Jeanne Loubières |
| Born | 25 March 1767 La Bastide (Lot), France |
| Died | 13 October 1815 (aged 48) Calabria, Italy |
| Burial | Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France |
Joachim-Napoléon Murat (born Joachim Murat; Italian: Gioacchino Napoleone Murat; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815), 1st Prince Murat, Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves, Marshal of France and Admiral of France, was King of Naples from 1808 to 1815. He received his titles in part by being the brother-in-law of Napoleon Bonaparte, through marriage to Napoleon's youngest sister, Caroline Bonaparte. He was noted as a flamboyant dresser and was known as 'the dandy king'.
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Joachim Murat was born 25 March 1767, in La Bastide[1], (renamed Labastide-Murat after its renowned citizen), in the Lot department of France, in the former province of Guyenne, to Pierre Murat-Jordy, (d. 27 July 1799), an innkeeper, and his wife Jeanne Loubières (La Bastide Fortunière, b.1722 – La Bastide Fortunière, d. 11 March 1806), daughter of Pierre Loubières and of his wife Jeanne Viellescazes. His father was the son of Guillaume Murat (1692 – 1754) and wife Marguerite Herbeil (– 1755), paternal grandson of Pierre Murat, born in 1634, and wife Catherine Badourès, who died in 1697, and maternal grandson of Bertrand Herbeil and wife Anne Roques.
Murat enlisted in the cavalry at the age of twenty. In 1791, he joined the king's Constitutional Guard, but left it soon for the regular army. In 1792, he became an officer. He was a staunch supporter of the notorious revolutionary Jacobin Jean-Paul Marat, and thus believed in a philosophy championing a strong centralized government in the form of a republic.
In the autumn of 1795, three years after King Louis XVI of France was deposed, royalist and counter-revolutionaries organised an armed uprising. On 3 October, General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was stationed in Paris, was named commander of the French National Convention's defending forces. This constitutional convention, after a long period of emergency rule, was striving to establish a more stable and permanent government in the uncertain period after the Reign of Terror. Bonaparte tasked Murat with the gathering of artillery from a suburb outside the control of the government's forces. Murat managed to take the cannons of the Camp des Sablons and transport them to the centre of Paris while avoiding the rioters. The use of these cannons on 4 October allowed Bonaparte to save the members of the National Convention.[2] For this success Joachim Murat was made chef de brigade (colonel) and thereafter remained one of Napoleon's best officers.
In 1796, with the situation in the capital and government apparently stabilised and the war going poorly (See also: French Revolutionary Wars), Napoleon lobbied to join the armies attempting to secure the revolution against the invading monarchist forces. Murat then went with Bonaparte to northern Italy, initially as his aide-de-camp, and was later named commander of the cavalry during the many campaigns against the Austrians and their allies. These forces were waging war on France and seeking to restore a monarchy in revolutionary France. His valour and his daring cavalry charges later earned him the rank of général in these important campaigns, the battles of which became famous as Bonaparte constantly used speed of maneuver to fend off and eventually defeat individually superior opposing armies closing in on the French forces from several directions. Thus, Murat's skills in no small part helped establish Bonaparte's legendary fame and enhance his popularity with the French people.
Murat commanded the cavalry of the French Egyptian expedition of 1798, again under Bonaparte. The expedition's strategic goal was to threaten Britain's rich holdings in India. (Some had been taken from France during the Seven Years' War). However, the overall effort ended prematurely because of lack of logistical support with the defeat of the French fleet due to British sea power (See: Battle of the Nile). After the sea battle, Napoleon led his troops on land toward Europe (via Palestine and thence Ottoman Turkey), but was recalled by the Directory (at least in part) as it feared an invasion by Britain. Abbé Sieyès also saw Bonaparte as an ally against a resurgent Jacobin movement, and so the expeditionary army was turned over to a subordinate.
The remaining non-military expedition staff officers, including Murat, and Bonaparte returned to France, eluding various British fleets in five frigates. A short while later, Murat played an important, even pivotal, role in Bonaparte's 'coup within a coup' of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) when Napoleon first assumed national power. Along with two others (including Director Abbé Sieyès), Napoleon Bonaparte set aside the five-man directory government, establishing the three-man French Consulate government.
Murat married Caroline Bonaparte in a civil ceremony on 20 January 1800 at Mortefontaine (Plailly?) and religiously on 4 January 1802 in Paris, thus becoming a son-in-law of Letizia Ramolino as well as brother-in-law to Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon I of France, Lucien Bonaparte, Elisa Bonaparte, Louis Bonaparte, Pauline Bonaparte and Jérôme Bonaparte.
Napoleon made Murat a Marshal of France on 18 May 1804, and also granted him the title of "First Horseman of Europe". He was created Prince of the Empire in 1805, appointed Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves on 15 March 1806 and held this title till 1 August 1808 when he was named King of Naples and Sicily.
Murat was equally useful in Napoleon's invasion of Russia (1812), and in the Battle of Leipzig (1813). However, after France's defeat at Leipzig, Murat reached an agreement with the Austrian Empire in order to save his own throne.
During the Hundred Days, he realized that the European powers, meeting as the Congress of Vienna, had the intention to remove him and return the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily to its pre-Napoleonic rulers. Murat deserted his new allies, and, after issuing a proclamation to the Italian patriots in Rimini, moved north to fight against the Austrians in the Neapolitan War to strengthen his rule in Italy by military means. He was defeated by Frederick Bianchi, a general of Francis I of Austria, in the Battle of Tolentino (2-3 May 1815).
He fled to Corsica after Napoleon's fall. During an attempt to regain Naples through an insurrection in Calabria, he was arrested by the forces of the legitimate King, Ferdinand IV of Naples, and was eventually executed by firing squad at the Castello di Pizzo, (Calabria).
When the fatal moment arrived, Murat walked with a firm step to the place of execution, as calm, as unmoved, as if he had been going to an ordinary review. He would not accept a chair, nor suffer his eyes to be bound. "I have braved death (said he) too often to fear it." He stood upright, proudly and undauntedly, with his countenance towards the soldiers; and when all was ready, he kissed a cameo on which the head of his wife was engraved, and gave the word — thus,
« Soldats ! Faites votre devoir ! Droit au cœur mais épargnez le visage. Feu ! »
[citation needed]"Soldiers! Do your duty! Straight to the heart but avoid the face. Fire!"
Murat is memorialised by a grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery though it is claimed he is not actually buried there but that his body was lost or destroyed after his execution.[citation needed] Others[who?] say he was buried in a church in Pizzo making the removal of his body possible later on.
Murat and Caroline had four children:
He had a brother named Pierre Murat (La Bastide-Fortunière, 27 November 1748 – La Bastide-Fortunière, 8 October 1792), who married at La Bastide-Fortunière on 26 February 1783 Louise d'Astorg (La Bastide-Fortunière, 23 October 1762 – 31 May 1832), daughter of Aymeric d'Astorg, born in 1721, and wife Marie Alanyou, paternal granddaughter of Antoine d'Astorg, born 18 November 1676, and wife Marie de Mary (4 May 1686 – 7 October 1727) and maternal granddaughter of Jean Alanyou and wife Louise de Valon. Pierre and Louise were the parents of Marie, Pierre, Adrien, Radegonde, Thomas Joachim and Marie Antoinette Murat, whom Emperor Napoleon I arranged to marry Charles, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; Karl III and Marie were the parents of Charles Anthony, Prince of Hohenzollern from whom descended Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Queen of Portugal; her brother Carol I of Romania and Carol I nephew Albert I of Belgium.
Another descendant of note is great-great-great-grandson and Star Trek icon Rene Auberjonois.
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Joachim Murat
House of Murat
Born: 25 March 1767 Died: 13 October 1815 |
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| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| New title | Grand Duke of Berg 1806–1808 |
Vacant
Title next held by
Napoleon Louis Bonaparte |
| Preceded by Joseph I |
King of Naples 1808–1815 |
Succeeded by Ferdinand IV |
| French nobility | ||
| New title | Prince Murat | Succeeded by Achille, Prince Murat |
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