17 Facts About Letizia Bonaparte

Maria-Letizia Buonaparte, known as Letizia Bonaparte, was a Corsican noblewoman and mother of Napoleon I of France.

Letizia Bonaparte spent her later years in Rome where she died in February 1836.

Letizia Bonaparte was educated at home and trained in nothing but domestic skills, like most Corsican women at the time.

Letizia Bonaparte would fight beside her husband in the struggle for independence.

Letizia Bonaparte kept only one servant - a woman named Mammuccia Caterina, who lived with the family without wages and acted as the midwife during Napoleon's birth.

Letizia Bonaparte remained in Ajaccio, bearing six more children, Lucien in 1775, Elisa in 1777, Louis in 1778, Pauline in 1780, Caroline in 1782 and Jerome in 1784.

In 1784, Letizia Bonaparte managed to visit Napoleon at Brienne, even though no boy could leave the school grounds for six years and visits by parents were restricted.

The family financial situation worsened, and Letizia Bonaparte had four children dependent on her as well as school fees to pay for Jerome and Joseph.

Penniless, Letizia Bonaparte had to queue for food at the soup kitchen.

Letizia Bonaparte sided with Lucien and left Paris for Rome, where Pauline already lived as Princess Borghese, and where Letizia Bonaparte stayed with her half-brother, now Cardinal Fesch.

On 19 December 1804, Letizia Bonaparte left Rome and took up residence at the Hotel de Brienne, 92 rue Saint Dominique in Paris, a house that she purchased from Lucien for 600,000 francs.

Letizia Bonaparte did not attend the Imperial court and lived from 1805 to 1813 at the Chateau de Pont-sur-Seine, a castle that Napoleon gifted her.

In 1814, Letizia Bonaparte shared Napoleon's exile on the island of Elba with Pauline.

In February 1815, Letizia Bonaparte followed him to Paris during the Hundred Days.

Letizia Bonaparte purchased the former Palazzo Rinuccini, renamed Palazzo Bonaparte on the corner of piazza Venezia and Via del Corso, where she lived with Joseph.

Letizia Bonaparte died in 1836, aged 85, three weeks before the 51st anniversary of her husband's death.

Letizia Bonaparte gave birth to thirteen children between 1768 and 1784; five of them died, two at birth and three in their infancy.