An archive of primary source material relating to Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and King of Naples
Shortly after Napoleon had resolved to marry the Austrian archduchess Marie-Louise in the wake of his divorce from Josephine, he dispatched his youngest sister, Caroline Murat, the Queen of Naples, to meet his bride-to-be in Munich. Caroline's journey began early in March 1810. She was to accompany Marie-Louise to Soissons, where the archduchess was (in …
Continue reading A day in the life of the Murats–24 March 1810
(Source: http://www.autographes-manuscripta.com/murat-autographe/) Letter from Joachim Murat to Maria-Letizia Bonaparte (mother of Napoleon; commonly referred to by the Emperor as "Madame Mère), Naples, 29 Feb 1812. At the time that Murat wrote this, his wife Caroline was in Paris, working once more as a go-between to salvage the increasingly fractured relationship between Murat and Napoleon. The …
Continue reading “Your son who loves you like his own true mother”
Sketch of Joachim Murat & his family, by Paolo Girgenti, 1815; and an embroidered painting based on the drawing. The latter was on public display for a time at the Palazzo Reale in Naples, in an exhibition on Murat near the 200th anniversary of his death. And, lastly, a detail from the above.
Watercolor of Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in the Silver Salon at the Elysée Palace in Paris, painted in 1810 by Louis Hippolyte Lebas. Caroline spent the majority of 1810 in Paris ostensibly to assist her brother Napoleon’s new Empress, Marie-Louise, with the running of her new household at court, but also to promote the …
Miniature portrait of Joachim & Caroline Murat. Artist and date unknown.
-Josephine Bonaparte to Caroline Murat, undated. Source: Memoirs of the Empress Josephine: With Anecdotes of the Courts of Navarre and Malmaison, Volume 1, by Georgette Ducrest. London (H. Colburn), 1828, pgs 231-232.
Caroline Murat & children. Painted by François Gérard, around 1809/1810.(Left to right: Louise Murat, Achille Murat, Caroline Murat, Lucien Murat, and Letitia Murat.) Mount Vesuvius is featured in the background.
Project Murat 