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Caroline Bonaparte

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Monarch

The Resume

    (March 25, 1782-May 18, 1839)
    Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, France
    Birth name was Marie Annonciade Caroline Bonaparte
    Youngest sister of Napoleon Bonaparte
    Married Marshal Joachim Murat
    Grand Duchess of Berg and Cleves (1806-08)
    Queen Consort of Naples (1808-15)
    Great-great-great-grandmother of actor Rene Auberjonois

Why she might be annoying:

    She constantly tried to undermine Empress Josephine, even though Josephine had intervened to convince Napoleon to approve her marriage to Murat.
    She succeeded when she fixed Napoleon up with Eleonore Denuelle, who bore him a son out of wedlock. With this evidence that their failure to produce an heir had not been his fault, he proceeded to divorce Josephine.
    When she was given the task of escorting Napoleon’s new wife, Marie Louise, to France, she forced Marie Louise to leave her luggage, servants and pet dog behind in Austria.
    After her brothers were made kings of various lands under Napoleon’s rule, she complained endlessly to him about being outranked by her sisters-in-law, with one argument becoming so heated that she fainted at the end.
    She convinced her husband to make a separate peace with the anti-Napoleonic alliance that would allow them to retain control of Naples.
    After learning that Naples had defected to the enemy, Napoleon wrote, ‘It is [Murat’s] wife who is the cause of this defection. To think that Caroline, my own sister, would betray me.’

Why she might not be annoying:

    Salon hostess Juliette Recamier said her skin was ‘as fair as a lily.’
    She was an able administrator of Naples when her husband was away on campaigns.
    Talleyrand described her as ‘Born with much grandeur of character, strong mind, and sublime ideas; possessing a subtle and delicate wit, together with amiability and grace, seductive beyond expression; she was deficient in nothing but in the art of concealing her desire to rule.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 96 Votes: 68.75% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 28 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 63 Votes: 65.08% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 95 Votes: 51.58% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 106 Votes: 51.89% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 59 Votes: 50.85% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 55 Votes: 52.73% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 46 Votes: 58.70% Annoying