Caroline Bonaparte Murat, Queen of Naples, by Louis Ducis, circa 1810 Napoleon’s sister Carol

Caroline Bonaparte Murat, Queen of Naples, by Louis Ducis, circa 1810

Napoleon’s sister Caroline Bonaparte Murat was ambitious and enterprising. Although Caroline and her husband, Joachim Murat, owed their wealth and their crowns to Napoleon, when it looked like Napoleon was going to be defeated in 1814, they allied with Napoleon’s enemies. French Foreign Minister Talleyrand wrote that Caroline “had the head of Cromwell upon the body of a well-shaped woman. 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; and when she failed in attaining her end, it was because she sought to reach it too quickly.” For details about this fascinating Bonaparte sibling, see “Caroline Bonapare Murat, Napoleon’s Treasonous Sister.”