After seeing the photo of me riding an elephant, one of this blog’s readers asked if Napoleon had ridden a camel during his Egyptian Campaign (1798). Yes, Melanie! Here’s a photo I took of a small bronze statue of the Man himself on camelback. It’s displayed in the Musée Fesch in Ajaccio, Corsica, Napoleon’s hometown. …
As far back as Corsican records go, Napoleon’s family signed their name “Bonaparte.” In 1759, Napoleon’s father, Carlo, in his quest to establish hereditary links to Tuscan nobility, changed to the Italian “Buonoparte” form. Ten years later, his second son, Napoleon, was born under that surname. Because Carlo had succeeded in establishing the family’s noble …
On August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, Corsica, the Archdeacon Lucien Buonaparte celebrated the festival of the Virgin Mary, the town’s patron saint. Young Letizia Buonaparte, interrupting her devotions, hurried home to give birth to her second son. The boy was named Napoleon after an uncle who had died several months earlier while fighting in vain …
