The Bonaparte family of France continues to influence politics & fashion worldwide. We need to sort out whom is whom, because there were many with same or similar names through the generations. We’ve been discussing the ones from the first Napoleonic era, and we’re going to review them again so you can figure out who the ones we’re introducing in the 2nd Napoleonic era.
Review: Jacques-Luis David Napoleon was the first to arrive in history. The Bourbon Monarchy under King Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette had been dethroned in the French Revolution (which started in about 1793 with the Reign of Terror).
Jacques crowned himself emperor in 1804, and called himself Napoleon I. That same year he married his first wife, the quite fashionable Josephine de Beauharnais (who was part of the Marveilleuse fashion & cultural movement from 1793-1805 & had been married before with children).
To put it into perspective, Queen Victoria of England was not even born yet.
(Portraits: left to right – Napoleon 1st 1812, Josephine 1808, & Princess Victoria in 1819 who would become Queen Victoria of England much later in 1837)
