Zénaïde Bonaparte


Zénaïde Laetitia Julie Bonaparte, Princess of Canino and Musignano was the elder daughter of Joseph Bonaparte and Julie Clary, and the wife of Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who was also her cousin. She joined her father in exile for several years in Bordentown, New Jersey.

Biography

When she was 14, Napoleon offered Zénaïde in marriage to Ferdinand, the deposed king of Spain, but the offer was refused.
On 29 June 1822, in Brussels, she married her cousin Charles Lucien Bonaparte, son of her uncle Lucien. Her father Joseph had suggested the marriage to his wife when Zénaïde was only five; the idea was to carry on the Napoleonic succession by marrying his two daughters to sons of two of his brothers.
The wedding was met with surprisingly little fanfare, perhaps because Zénaïde's mother was outraged at the excessive sum of the dowry, which had strained her resources.
Charles was an ornithologist. They had twelve children, listed below.

Issue

Ancestry