Joachim Murat

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Joachim Murat (Labastide-Fortunière, 25 March 1767 - Pizzo, 13 October 1815) was a French general, king of Naples (with the name of Joachim Napoleone), and Marshal of the Empire with Napoleone Bonaparte.

He was the last of the eleven children of a couple of innkeepers, Pierre Murat Jordy and his wife Jeanne Loubières. They managed the assets of the community and ecclesiastical benefits of the priory of Bastide-Fortunière (from 1763) and the priory of Anglars (from 1770). He distinguished himself under the command of General Napoleon Bonaparte on the 13 Vendemme (1795), when he was instrumental in suppressing the Royalist insurrection in Paris. He became an aide-de-camp to Napoleon and commanded the cavalry during the French campaigns in Italy and in Egypt. Murat played a fundamental role in the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire (1799), which brought Napoleon to political power. In 1800, he became the brother-in- law of Napoleon, when he married Carolina Bonaparte, the younger sister of the emperor.

Murat was nominated Marshal of the Empire at the proclamation of the French empire. He took part in various battles among which were those in Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena and Eylau, where he led a famous cavalry charge in masse against the Russians. In 1806 Murat was named Grand Duke of Berg, a title he held until 1808 when he became King of Naples. He went on to serve Napoleon during the campaigns in Russia and in Germany, but abandoned the Grande Armée after the Battle of Leipzig to save his throne. In 1815 Murat launched the Neapolitan war against the Austrians but was finally defeated at Tolentino. He fled to the Corsica, and then made a desperate attempt to recover the throne, but was quickly taken prisoner by the king, Ferdinand IV of Naples. He was tried for treason and condemned to death by firing squad in Pizzo.

from son of innkeepers to general

Born on 25 March 1767 at Labastide-Fortunière to a couple of innkeepers, Pierre Murat (1721-1799) Jordy and Jeanne Loubières (1722-1806), Joachim Murat is a great example of the social mobility that characterized the Napoleonic period (and also of the tragic conclusions of many dazzling careers). Destined for an ecclesiastical career, he found himself among the seminarians of Cahors, then with the Lazarists of Toulouse. He was preparing for the priesthood, but was a lover of the beautiful life, he incurred debts, and, fearing paternal ire, enrolled on 23 February 1787, in "Hunters of the Ardennes", then in the 12th regiment of the "Hunters on Horseback in Champagne", the unit of cavalry that recruited audacious men. Educated, he soon distinguished himself and became maréchal de logis (sergeant)[1], but in 1789 he was reported for insubordination.

His regiment, stationed in the province of Sélestat, refused to obey the orders of an officer and, following an internal investigation, Murat was identified as the agitator of the protest. The young man had spread philo-revolutionary ideas among the soldiers by means of pamphlets and newspapers. Joachim was placed on absolute leave and forced to return to his native village. His father Pierre, disappointed by the ruined ecclesiastical career, did not want to receive him at the family inn. Murat found work as a waiter at the drug store in the nearby town of Saint-Cere.[2]

After a few months of work, Joachim approached the Jacobin club of Cahors and the canton of Montfaucon chose him as a representative at the festival of the Federation of Paris, held on 14 July 1790. Unable to support himself financially with his work at the drug store, Murat reattempted a military career and became reinstated in the army in January 1791, as a private soldier.[1] In the summer of the same year, he was a few kilometers away from Varennes, when Lafayette's National Guard arrested the king and queen while they were attempting to escape.

At the beginning of 1792, Murat joined the Constitutional Guard of Luigi XVI. The French Legislative Assenmbly established the guard to protect the king, replacing the musketeers; Murat wanted to join because it was an elite unit based in the capital, but soon realized that the environment was not for him, given that the guard was primarily composed of pro-monarchist officers.[2] After only one month of service, Murat gave his resignation. The royalist colonel Descours, interested in Murat's military talents, secretly offered him 40 luigi d'oro to enlist in one of the counter-revolutionary armies that were forming outside of France, but Murat denounced him.

On the basis of that denunciation, the deputy Claude Basire obtained the dissolution of the king's guard on 29 May 1792. In this way, Murat gained the trust of the new political class, and was reintegrated into his old regiment. On 15 October 1792 he became lieutenant; in 1793 he became first captain and then squadron commander.[1] When the monarchy fell, he entered the revolutionary army, and quickly became an officer.

During the revolutionary years, Murat was a great supporter of the revolutionary process, as evidenced by his correspondence[3] and, according to some authors[4] , he was also pro-Jacobin; he used to sign his name with the surname of the revolutionary Marat, making it follow his.[5] In 1795 he was in Paris supporting Napoleon against the loyalist insurrection and then followed him in the Italian campaign. In 1796 he took part in the Battle of Bassano, where he commanded a cavalry corps, whose charges were of decisive importance for success in battle.[6]

In 1797, during a stay at the castle of Mombello, he met Carolina Bonaparte, the younger sister of Napoleon, who fell in love with him.[7] In May 1798 he sailed from Genoa on board the Artémise, and took part in the Egyptian campaign, where he was appointed general, and was instrumental in the victory of Abukir against the Turks. He actively participated in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire 1799 and became commander of the First Consul's guard. The following year, on January 20, he married Carolina Bonaparte, with whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters. Elected, in 1800, a deputy of his department, the Lot, he was then named commander of the first military division and governor of Paris, in command of 60,000 men.

Murat the marshal

In 1804 he was named Marshal of the Empire, and two years later, "Grand Duke of Clèves and Berg", a title that he left to his nephew Napoleon Louis Bonaparte (the son of his brother-in-law Louis Bonacarte), after he became king of Naples in 1808. Great soldier and great commander of cavalry, he was with Napoleon in all his campaigns, while also not renouncing his opinions, as when he opposed the execution of the Duke of Enghien. He was a born combatant, a man contemptuous of danger, ready to attack even when the situation was risky and dangerous: he never lacked courage. On the blade of his saber, he had engraved: "Honor and women"[8]

Oftentimes the overwhelming charges of his cavalry had resulted favorably to the French in a critical situation, as happened in the battle of Eylau, and it was instrumental to the success of the Bonapartian coup d'etat on 18 Brumaire when, along with Leclerc, he commanded the troops stationed at Saint-Cloud, in front of the hall where the Council of Five Hundred was meeting. Yet he did not excel in military art, and, despite his courage and contempt for danger, they gave way to cold calculation. His ability to immediately evaluate the situation on the battlefield and his related strategic decisions did not demonstrate great talents. One can say that in battle he had much more guts (and his heart) than head.

General Savory expressed this aspect well in his concern about Murat's future conduct in the battle of Heilsberg (10 June 1807): "... it would be better than he [Murat] had been endowed with less courage and a little more common sense!"[9] Equally significant of the marshal's qualities and defects are two episodes that occurred between the battle of Ulm and that of Austerlitz. On 12 November 1805, Murat came within sight of Vienna, declared by the austrians "an open city," and he about to cross the Danube in the suburbs of the city using the last available bridge, but that a contingent of Austrian engineers was almost ready to destroy.

Unable to take the bridge by assualt, for fear that the enemy bomb squads would detonate the mines, Murat and Lannes, accompanied by the whole staff, appeared at the south bank of the Danube in full parade uniform, and began to cross the bridge on foot, shouting "Armistice, armistice," and flashing large smiles. The Austrian officers who were directing the operations of the engineers were surprised, and did not dare to open fire on the group of French officers, apparently no longer, at the moment, belligerents.

They crossed the bridge, and not even having reached the north bank, they abandoned their smiles, and drew their sabers, and rushed at the nearest bomb squads, neutralizing them. At that moment, a pillar of French grenadiers of General Oudinot, who remained hidden in the woods of the south bank, charged across the bridge and easily overwhelmed the group of Austrian engineers: the bridge was saved, and the troops of Murat and Lannes could cross it without danger.[10] The episode greatly amused Napoleon, who thus "forgot" a previous, recent blunder of his brother-in-law.

A few weeks later, however, a couple of weeks before the battle of Austerlitz, near Hollabrunn, while the French army was trying to encircle Kutuzov's Russian army, Murat was persuaded by the Russian General Wintzingerode, who had come to speak, to sign, without having the power, a truce of arms, who had the only result of allowing the Russian General Bagration to free himself from the pinch in which he was forced to cover the retreat of his colleague Kutuzov.

Here's what the enraged Napoleon wrote to him when he learned of the truce that his uncautious brother-in-law had signed with the astute Wintzingerode: "Your work is truly unqualified, and I have no words to fully express my feelings! You are only a commander of my vanguard, and you have no right to conclude an armistice without a precise order to do so. You've thrown away all the benefits of an entire campaign. Break the truce immediately! Attack the enemy! March! Destroy the Russian army! The Austrians allowed themselves to be fooled at the Vienna bridge but now you have allowed yourself to be deceived by an aide-de-camp of the Tsar!"[11] Needless to say that Murat did not have it repeated, but by then most of Bagration's troops reached safety. In 1808 Murat was sent to Spain, where he ferociously repressed the revolt of the people of Madrid against the French occupation.

King of Naples

In 1808, Napoleon named him king of Naples, after the appointment of the previous regent, Giuseppe Bonaparte, as king of Spain. In Naples, the new king, now known as "Joachim Napoleon", was well received by the people, who appreciated his beautiful presence, his sanguine character, his physical courage, his taste for spectacle, and his attempts to provide relief from poverty, but he was detested by the clergy.[12] On 8 August 1809, Murat, with decree no. 448, began the suppression of the religious orders in the Kingdom of Naples, and particularly of the order of the Domenicans, with the consequent confiscation of all their wealth, the conversion of their convents to another use (often military) and the passage of their churches to the diocesan clergy. Among his first acts of government, were the concession of a pardon for the deserters, the allocation of subsdies for military servicemen who retired due to inability or injury, and assistance to widows and orphans of the fallen.[13]

Through contacts and agreements with Austria he tried to gain recognition from the European powers as the legitimate ruler of the Two Sicilies. Murat, who had intended to settle permanently in Naples, sought to consolidate the kingdom, first by conquering Sicily, liberating from the cumbersome presence in Palermo of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina.[14] One of the first reforms to which Murat put his hand was that of the Neapolitan army. The new sovereign's firm intention was to give the kingdom a large and modern national army.

In this respect, he was helped by Napoleon himself, who, by the convention of Bayonne, imposed on the kingdom of Naples to furnish to the empire at least 16,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry. Joseph Bonaparte had already started the restructuring of the armed forces but the pro-Bourbon presence in the troops had slowed down the innovations. The nucleus that Joseph relied upon was formed from the Armée de Naples composed of French troops. It was necessary to establish a compulsory military service, succeeding at last in procuring the people's sympathies, and to resolve the problems that arose during the reign of his predecessor. Initially, the people did not see military service with good eye, but it later revealed itself as a foundational element of the kingdom's unity.

The young peasants, who had a miserable life because of the poor economic conditions of their families, were able to better their position in the army, where they could enjoy a good food, clothing, and a basic education in military arts. Murat's Neapolitan army was composed of 9 regiments, each of which was made up of 3 battalions (which became 4 in war), in turn composed of 7 companies (of which two were chosen grenadiers and vaulters) and equipped with an artillery battery.[14] In 1809 Murat also formed two regionally recruited line infantry regiments, the 4th "Real Sannita" and the 5th "Real Calabria", while the following year, to make up for the losses reported in Spain and in the expedition in Sicily, the 6th "Naples" Line Infantry Regiment was created, made up of elements of the Municipal Guard of Naples, and a former French department made up of black soldiers, the 7th Line Infantry Regiment "Real African", was also incorporated into the Neapolitan army. The new army had its baptism of fire in the lightning military expedition that made it possible to expel the English from the island of Capri.

The French ruler brought order to the finances of the state that at his arrival showed a remarkable deficit, diminishing the expenses of all ministers and rationalizing the public debt.[14] The enormous debt was subdivided between that which was not meant to be paid because he had been accumulated by the Bourbon administration and that pertaining to his predecessor Joseph, to whom the recalculated coupons were regularly paid with a maximum interest of 3%.[14] He also restructured the land register, the values of which were the basis of the calculation of the land tax. The government of the Frenchman was characterized by interventions intended to have a positive impact and give the economy of the South a strong push in a bourgeois sense. The elimination of all jurisdictional power of the barons, the sale of state lands and those belonging to suppressed religious corporations, the liberalization of trade and the abolition of duties are all impulses to the transformation of society in a modern sense; in the same direction went support for industrial initiatives, some traditional ones like silk processing, some new like the production of the sulfuric acid and copper sulphate.[15]

During his short reign, Murat founded, by decree of 18 November 1808, the "Corps of Engineers of Bridges and Roads" (originally from the Faculty of Engineering in Naples, the first in Italy) with the School of Application in Bridges and Roads[14], and a school of agriculture in the same university with the decree of 10 December 1809, but he condemned to closure, with the decree of 29 November 1811, the ancient Salerno medical school. He promoted the Royal Society founded by Joseph and divided it into three sections: Academy of History and Fine Letters, Academy of Sciences and Academy of Fine Arts.

Further, he initiated public works not only in Naples (new excavations in Ercolano, the Field of Mars, etc.), but also in the rest of the Kingdom (public lighting in Reggio Calabria, the Borgo Nuovo project in Bari, the redevelopment of the port of Brindisi, the establishment of the San Carlo hospital in Potenza and the first mental hospital in Italy in Aversa, garrisons located in the Lagonegro District with monuments and public lighting, plus the modernization of the road system in the mountains of Abruzzo). The population's approval of his work was reciprocated by the sovereign himself, who named the entire city of Torre Annunziata after himself, changing its name to "Gioacchinopoli".

Decisive for the construction of Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples was the law of 7 August 1809 issued by Murat, which ordered the suppression of monasteries throughout the kingdom of Naples; the demolition of the various pre-existing convents, in fact, led to the total surface area of the square tripling, from 9000 to more than 23,000 m2.[16] In this way, Murat already in 1809 was able to santion the beginning of the work for the "grand and public square", the so-called "Foro Gioacchino"[17], to be built under the direction of the Neapolitan architect Leopoldo Laperuta, assisted by Antonio De Simone.[18] In the wake of the vast urban renewals that were involving France and Enlightenment Europe, he intended to replace what was essentially an irregular open space with a geometrically well-defined square; only in this way would greater vitality be infused into one of the city's major focal points, as it was in front of the Royal Palace. The objective of the Napoleonids was to give greater architectural grandiosity to the Largo, through a monumental model that employed two contrasting architectural wings, flanked by neutral elements (in this case, respectively the semicircular portico, the Royal Palace and the twin palaces).[19]

The work for the building of the Foro Gioacchino, which continued until 1815, led to the construction of the two twin palaces (the Palace of the Ministers of State and the Palace for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), while only the foundation of the building was finished.[20] Murat was also responsible for widening the connection from the square to Via Chiaia which he named Largo Carolina in honor of his wife.[13] And Murat insisted on the completion of work begun under Joseph, from the Ponte della Sanità (previously travelers going to Capodimonte were forced into a steep descent into the Vallone della Sanità, and a steep climb up the side of Capodimonte), who constituted the "Corso Napoleone" (today via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi and Corso Amadeo di Savoia, uniting the city center and the Capodimonte district where the royal palace also stood and where the astronomer Federigo Zuccari received from the French king an order to construct a new building of monumental forms, the future Astronomical Observatory, the enterprise of which was approved on 8 March 1812 and on 4 November the first stone of the new observatory was set with a solemn ceremony presided over by the minister Giuseppe Zurlo.[21]

Both the Observatory and the Botanical Garden had been officially founded by Joseph Bonaparte but were built under Murat. He was also responsible for starting in 1812 the projects on Via Posillipo entrusted to Romualdo De Tommaso to connect Mergellina to Capo di Posillipo. Murat promoted the work of draining the marshes located east of Naples, at the foot of the Poggioreale Hill, and those of the plain between the Posillipo and the sea, in today's Fuorigrotta district.[14] In 1812, Murat provided for the resystemization of Piazza Cavour's whole road axis from the Museum to the Albergo dei Poveri and beyond, involving the filling of ditches, and the adaptation of the buildings that made the passage narrow.

On 1 January 1809, Murat introduced the Napoleonic Code into the kingdom, which, among the various forms, legalized for the first time in the penisula, divorce, civil marriage and adoption, which was not appreciated by the clergy, who he lost the capacity to manage family policy. The nobility appreciated the charges and the reorganization of the army on the French model, which offered good career opportunities. The literati appreciated the reopening of the Pontaniana Academy by intellectuals who gathered in the residence of Giustino Fortunato and the establishment of the new Royal Academy and the technicians appreciated the attention given to scientific and industrial studies. The free services of the farmers in favor of the feudal lords were abolished and the ban on using river waters to irrigate the fields or operate the mills was lifted.[13]

However, the most dissatisfied were the merchants, whose business was ruined by the English blockade on trade with Naples (a blockade against which Murat tolerated and encouraged smuggling, which made a further reason for granting him popular favor). Much effective, even if done with the methods of revolting cruelty, was the repression of the brigandage, first entrusted to General Andrea Massena, and then to General Charles Antoine Manhès. On 11 June 1809, he founded the Supreme Council of Naples (called of the Two Sicilies) of Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, of which he was the first Sovereign Grand Commander until 1815.[22]

In 1810, for three months, Murat governed the kingdom from the heights of Piale (now the fraction of villa San Giovanni, in the province of Reggio Calabria). Moving from Naples to the conquer of Sicily (where King Ferdinand had fled under the protection of the English, an army of which was encamped near Punta Faro in Messina), he arrived in Scilla on 3 June 1810 and stayed there until 5 July, when the great encampment in Piale was complete.

In the short period of his stay, Murat had the three forts of Torre Cavallo, Altafiumara and Piale built, the last with a telegraph tower (Chappe telegraph). On 26 September of the same year, noting that the conquest of Sicily was a difficult task, also due to the the hardly convinced support of Napoleon, Murat left the encampment in Piale, and went back to the capital. In 1811, after some conflicts with Napoleon, who threatened to incorporate the kingdom of Naples in the empire, Murat introduced a rule which provided that ministers and the state officials must have citizenship of the kingdom.

In this way, he wanted to force all the French who wanted to keep their positions to naturalize by acquiring the Neapolitan citizenship. Napoleon intervened in the matter, affirming that all the French citizens were to be considered citizens of the Kingdom of Naples. Murat, after the emperor's position, was forced to backtrack. However, he began a slow and constant replacement of French officials with Neapolitan elements.[14] Finally, one should not underestimate the role that his wife Carolina had in the government during the Murat period, an intelligent and very ambitious woman.

last battles with Napoleon

His role as king did not hinder him from participating in the Grande Armée, in the Russian campaign of 1812, at the command of the Napoleonic cavalry and of a contingent of soldiers of the Kingdom of Naples: his conduct in the war was as in the past, excellent. His charge in the Battle of Moscow decided the fate of the same in favor of the Nepoleonic army. It was thanks to his impetuosity that Murat, charged with leading the vanguard of the Napoleonic army, with his column of cavalry, invaded Moscow, and reached the Kremlin.[23]

This was also the case during the retreat and on 5 December 1812, Napoleon leaving to return to Paris, entrusted him with command of what remained of the Grande Armée.[24] But when he reached Poznań, Murat in turn left command of the French army to Eugene di Beauharnais on 16 January 1813, and quickly returned to Naples. The first negotiations with the Austrians date to this period and were influenced by the advice of Queen Carolina. Nevertheless, he returned to Napoleon's side in time to fight at Dresden and Leipzig, after which he left the army.

the betrayal

When he reached Milan on 8 November 1813, Murat let the Austrian ambassador know that he was disposed to leave the Napoleonic camp and two months later (January 1814) a covenant of alliance between Austria and the Kingdom of Naples was signed. On the evening of 6 February the news, sent to him by Eugenio di Beauharnais, reached Napoleon, who was engaged in the defense of the French ground, and who reacted as follows:

"... it can not be! Murat, to whom I gave my sister! Murat, to whom I gave a throne! Eugene must have been wrong. It is impossible that Murat declared himself against me."
— Napoleon Bonaparte[25]

Murat, faced with the danger of losing the kingdom that he had laboriously constructed and put on its financial feet after the brief reign of Joseph Bonaparte, as the barely astute diplomat that he was, chose to the change sides, in the hope that the Great Powers would decide to leave him his State, preventing a Bourbon restoration. Moreover, his relations with Napoleon himself had by then deteriorated, so much so that his illustrious brother-in-law, often forgetting the family ties that bound them, always considered him a "vassal."[26] In the treaty, Austria guaranteed Murat his states[27][28], thus placing a mortgage on the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, which initially did not want to deprive him of the Kingdom of Naples, and was supported in this from both England and Russia, who had officially recognized the January treaty.[29]

the Congress of Vienna

In Vienna, two distinct Neapolitan delegations were present, that of Joachim Murat, king in office, and that of the Bourbon court in Palermo, who claimed the restitution of the kingdom that occupied in 1806 by the Napoleonic army. Naturally, the treaty signed by Murat with Austria, which recognized his possession of the kingdom in very clear terms, was a hard blow to Ferdinand's hopes, which were revived however by the restoration in Spain and in France of the Bourbon dynasties, obviously favorable to his cause. Talleyrand, backed by the Spanish plenipotentiary minister, the Marquis Pedro Gómez Labrador, fought from the beginning, on the principle of legitimacy, for Ferdinand of Bourbon's restoration to the Neapolitan throne. Pope Pius VII was also hostile to Murat because the king of Naples occupied the Marche and the two papal enclaves of Benevento and Pontecorvo. But in general, the whole orientation of the Congress was unfavorable to Napoleon's brother-in-law, as demonstrated among other things by the words of Prussian Wilhelm von Humboldt in a draft of the rules for the congress written in September 1814:

"The powers cannot tolerate that a sovereign, who some of the most authoritative among them refuse to recognize, continues to exist in Europe; one should not even tolerate Naples and Sicily remaining in a continuously hostile stance."

Twice on 12 September and on 25 December 1814, the Duke of Wellington the English ambassador in Paris, raised the possibility of a military expedition from Sicily to drive Murat from the Neapolitan throne, but the Prime Minister Liverpool rejected the suggestion of a direct English military involvement in Italy.

As Walter Maturi wrote, Murat's fate in Vienna was bound to a thread, and that thread was in the hands of Metternich.[30] He continued to affirm that he was bound by the respect of the treaty of January 1814. In reality, the Austrian minister also distrusted Murat, and it was not at all inclined to leave on the throne a relative of Napoleon, a man inclined to the adventure and certainly not a factor in the stability of the penisula, because he had long loved to present himself as a point of reference for the aspirations of Italians to independence and unity. Metternich, however, thought that the moment had not yet come, and so he countered the broadsides of Talleyrand who was asking the congress to officially pronounce itself for the dethronization of the usurper. The Austrian minister did not want a Bourbon restoration to give France a foothold to insert itself into the political game of the penisula.

Metternich decided to overcome the hostile French plenipotentiary by starting negotiations directly with Paris, through the Count of Blacas, favorite of Luigi XVIII. The agreement was concluded by Castlereagh, who acted as Metternich's agent, when he passed through Paris on his return to London. In practice, Ferdinand, in exchange for the Austrian effort to drive Murat from the throne, agreed to pay the expenses of the military expedition, and ceded to Vienna's requests on all the other questions concerning the Italian penisula. On 5 March 1815, Luigi XVIII sent Talleyrand a dispatch containing the directions for negotiating a secret agreement with Austria that would provide for the expulsion of Murat from the throne. In conclusion, when news of Napoleon's escape from the island of Elba reached Vienna, the fate of Murat had already been decided, even if Metternich waited to decide the proper times of the foreseen military intervention. Napoleon's last adventure would have overwhelmed his unfaithful brother-in-law too.

war against Austria and downfall

On March 1, 1815, Napoleon landed near Cannes, after having escaped from the Island of Elba; and on 5 March, Murat wrote to the courts of Vienna and London that, whatever Napoleon's fate would be after the reentry into France from Elba, he would remain faithful to the covenant with the two states[31], as the same brother-in-law asked, writing to him that "the past between the two of them no longer existed" and, forgiving him for his conduct the previous year, he also recommended above all that he remain in agreement with the Austrians and to limit himself to containing them if they marched against France.[32]

But already on the 19th of the same month, when he saw that the Congress was leaning toward the option of a Bourbon restoration on the territories of his kingdom, Murat started the Austro-Neapolitan War, invadding the Papal States with an army of 35,000 men.[33] Murat continued advancing north. With his army, he entered the Legations, garrisoned by the Austrian army, which after some attempts at resistance retreated, leaving to Murat the city of Bologna, which Murat entered on 2 April. And on 8 April, he had his plenipotentiaries in Vienna present a note in which, while protesting against the Austrian position, reiterated his desire to respect the agreements of January 1814.[33]

The Austrian diplomacy's response was swift: on the 10th of the same month the Austrian minister Metternich presented to Murat's plenipotentiaries a declaration of war, and on 28 April, Austria signed a covenant with Ferdinand III of Sicily.[34] The latter's sovereignty over the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily was subsequently ratified by the Congress of Vienna. Murat was defeated by the Austrians, first in Occhiobello, then, after a retreat through Faenza and Forlì, occupied by Adam Albert von Neipperg, in the Battle of Tolentino (2 May 1815); the subsequent treaty of Casalanza (20 May 1815), signed near Capua by Pietro Colletta and Michele Carrascosa on behalf of Murat, definitively sanctioned his fall and the return of the Bourbon to the throne.

Meanwhile Murat, after the defeat at Tolentino and after having issued the famous proclamation of 12 May falsely dated 30 March 1815[35] and dedicated to the Italians whom he called to revolt against the new masters, presenting himself as the standard bearer of their independence, committed one of his last mistakes. He intended to go to Gaeta to defend his already lost kingdom, but his courtiers forced him to depart for France and fight with Napoleon. It was agreed that the Queen would remain in Naples to deal with the English and on 19 May at 8pm he left his court and his family[36]; he would never see them again. On the morning of 20 May, he embarked for Ischia, and was able to disembark in Cannes on 25 May.

Here he wandered for long time in Provence, hoping that his illustrious brother- in-law, having regained power after his escape from the island of Elba, would recall him to the army. But Bonaparte not only did not recall him, but he ordered him, through an envoy of the foreign minister Caulaincourt, to keep away from Paris and to stay between Grenoble and Sisteron.[37] Not wanting Murat at his side was an error regretted by Napoleon himself in his memoirs:

"[in Belgium] even he could perhaps have brought us victory: what was needed in certain moments on the day of Waterloo? To break three or four English squadrons: now Murat was admirable for such a need; he was precisely the man for the task; Never, at the head of the cavalry, was seen anyone more resolute, more brave, more courageous than him."[38]

arrest and shooting

When he learned of the Napoleonic defeat at Waterloo, where the emperor with 120,000 men was unable to defend his empire[39], and Murat having a price on his head of 48,000 francs, made available by the Marquis of Rivière[40], a man whom Murat himself had saved from the gallows, the king of Naples hastily fled to Corsica, where he reached on 25 August 1815 and where he was quickly surrounded by hundreds of his partisans. Waiting too long for passports coming from Austria to be able to reach his wife Carolina at Trieste and having false news about the discontent of the Neapolitans, he was persuaded to arrange an expedition to recover the kingdom of Naples. The voyage, quickly assembled with strength of 250 men, departed from Ajaccio on 28 September 1815. At first, Murat wanted to disembark near Salerno, but, diverted by a storm in Calabria and betrayed by the battalion head Courrand[41], he disembarked at the small port of Pizzo on 8 October.

The Bourbon gendarmerie commanded by Capitain Trentacapilli intercepted them, arrested them and locked them up in the prisons of the local castle. Informed of the capture of the ex-sovereign, General Vito Nunziante (as military governor of Calabria) rushed in disbelief from Monteleone, where he was, to verify the identity of the prisoner. Ferdinand IV of Bourbon (in the meantime having returned to the throne) appointed a military commission from Naples a competent to judge Joachim. It was composed of seven judges and presided over by the very faithful Vito Nunziante, to whom the king had ordered to impose a death sentence based on the penal code tpromulgated by Joachim Murat himself. It provided for the maximum punishment to those who were the author of revolutionary acts[42], and to give the condemned only a half-hour to receive religious comfort.

In hearing the sentence of death, Murat was undisturbed. He asked to write in French a last letter to his wife and to children (who, having set themselves under the protection of the flag of the United Kingdom, were then transferred by the Austrians[43] to Trieste) and he gave Nunziante an envelope with some locks of his hair.

He wanted to confess and communicate, before facing the firing squad that awaited him, and he was shot in Pizzo on 13 October 1815. In front of the firing squad, he behaved with great firmness, refusing to be blindfolded. It seems that his last words were:

"Spare my face, aim at the heart, fire!"
— Joachim Murat

Charles Gallois, almost like a chronicler of the time, relates that: "The soldiers are moved, two shots go off without touching him. 'No mercy! Let's begin again! Fire!' This time ten shots detonated at once; 6 balls struck him. He stood upright for a moment, then fell to the ground thunderstruck."[44]

after his death

After disposing of such a dangerous rival, Ferdinand of Bourbon awarded Pizzo the title of "most faithful" and granted General Nunziante the fiefdom and the title of Marquis of San Ferdinando of Rosarno.[45] Subsequently, rumors circulated that Murat was the victim of a plot hatched by Giustino Fortunato and Pietro Colletta, who lured him to Calabria by making him believe he was received and acclaimed by the kingdom, a plot which ultimately proved to be non-existent.[46] Eight days after the shooting, General Nunziante was appointed marquis, while the lieutenant who carried out the shooting became commander.

On the epilogue of Murat's life, his brother-in-law Napoleon expressed a lapidary opinion in his memoirs:

"Murat attempted to reconquer with two hundred men the territory that he had failed to hold when he had eighty thousand at his disposal."
— Napoleon Bonaparte[47]

Murat is remembered with a stone at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris and by a memorial in the Certosa cemetery of Bologna, which overlays the tomb of his daughter Letizia, who married Count Pepoli in Bologna. The body was buried in the church of San Giorgio in Pizzo, in a common pit; a stone on the floor at the center of the nave, recalls the burial in this temple.[48]

notes

1. Jean Tulard, I, in Murat, 2ª ed., Fayard, 1999, pp. 29-34.
2. Antonio Spinosa, Murat. Da stalliere a re di Napoli, collana Le Scie, I, Napoli, Arnoldo Mondadori S.p.A., 1984, pp. 19-24.
3. Joachim Murat, Correspondance de Joachim Murat, chasseur a cheval, général, maréchal d’empire, grand-duc de Clèves et de Berg : (julliet 1791-julliet 1808)., a cura di Albert Lumbroso, I, Torino, Roux Frassati & C, 1899.
4. Mario Mazzucchelli, Gioacchino Murat, III, Milano, Edizioni Corbaccio, 1932, p. 20.
5. Paul de Barras, Mémoires de Barras, a cura di Jean-Pierre Thomas, collana Le Temps retrouvé, Mercvre de France, 2010, p. 305.
6. A. Hilliard Atteridge,Joachim Murat marchal of France and king of Naples, Londra, Methuen & Co, 1911, p. 27
7. Comte Jean-Baptiste Spalletti,Souvenirs d'enfance de la comtesse Rasponi fille de Joachim Murat, Parigi, Librairie Academique Perrin et Cie, 1929, p. 19
8. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, p. 15
9. David G. Chandler, Le Campagne di Napoleone, Vol I, p. 691
10. David G. Chandler, Vol I, p. 510
11. David G. Chandler, Vol I, p. 511
12. Il giorno 8 agosto 1809 Murat, con decreto nº 448, iniziò la soppressione degli ordini religiosi nel regno di Napoli e in particolare dell'ordine dei domenicani, con la conseguente confisca di tutti i loro beni, la conversione dei conventi ad altro uso (spesso militare) e il passaggio delle loro chiese al clero diocesano.
13. IL DECENNIO FRANCESE, su Cose di Napoli, 14 luglio 2017.
14. LA NAPOLI DI GIOACCHINO MURAT – HistoriaPage, su historypage.it.
15. Gianni Oliva, Capitolo 6 Dal sogno di Murat alla Restaurazione, in Un Regno che è stato grande. La storia negata dei Borbone di Napoli e Sicilia, collana Collezione Le Scie.Nuova serie, Milano, Mondadori, 2012.
16. Colletta, diapositiva 15.
17. Colletta, diapositiva 13.
18. Colletta, diapositiva 14.
19. Colletta, diapositiva 12.
20. Colletta, diapositiva 16.
21. Mauro Gargano, Emilia Olostro Cirella e Massimo Della Valle, Il tempio di Urania : progetti per una specola astronomica a Napoli, Napoli, INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, 2012.
22. Luigi Sessa, I Sovrani Grandi Commendatori e breve storia del Supremo Consiglio d'Italia del Rito Scozzese antico e accettato. Palazzo Giustiniani dal 1805 ad oggi., Foggia, Bastogi Ed., 2004, p. 182.
23. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, pp. 114-115
24. David G. Chandler, Le Campagne di Napoleone, Vol II, p. 1016
25. David G. Chandler, Le Campagne di Napoleone, Vol II, p. 1048
26. Claudio Asciuti, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, p. 2
27. Massimo Costa. Storia istituzionale e politica della Sicilia. Un compendio, Amazon, Palermo, 2019, p. 260
28. Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, p. 236
29. Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, pp. 238-239
30. In Rivista storica italiana, 1938, p. 17.
31. Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, p. 348
32. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, pp. 150-151
33. Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, p. 352
34. Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, p. 353
35. Giuseppe Campolieti, Il re lazzarone, p. 410
36. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, pp. 164-165
37. Quest'ordine di Napoleone è conservato presso gli archivi del Ministero degli Affari Esteri di Francia.
38. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, pp. 170-171
39. Atlante storico Garzanti, Milano, Garzanti Editore, 1967, p. 327
40. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, p. 175
41. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, p. 209
42. Ancora oggi, a Napoli, in relazione alla morte di Gioacchino Murat, un proverbio popolare dice: «Gioacchino facette a legge, Gioacchino murette 'mpiso».
43. Charles Gallois, Murat, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990, p. 169
44. Charles Gallois, Murat, p. 229, Genova, Fratelli Melita Editori, 1990
45. murat italiano, su jmurat.xoom.it.
46. Gerardo Raffaele Zitarosa, Giustino Fortunato storico, Pellegrini, 1970, p. 340
47. Giuseppe Campolieti, Il re lazzarone, p. 416
48. Guida turistica di Pizzo, su pizzocalabro.it.

bibliography

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• Renata De Lorenzo, Murat, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2011.
• Alexandre Dumas, Viaggio in Calabria (traduzione: Antonio Coltellaro), Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2006.
• David G. Chandler, Le Campagne di Napoleone, vol. 1, Milano, R.C.S. Libri, 1998.
• David G. Chandler, Le Campagne di Napoleone, vol. 2, Milano, R.C.S. Libri, 1998.
• J. Tulard, J.F. Fayard e A. Fierro, Histoire et Dictionnaire de la Révolution française, Parigi, Éditions Robert Laffont, 1998.
• Alexandre Dumas, Murat, a cura di Giovanna Arese, Palermo, Sellerio, 2005.
• Giuseppe Campolieti, Il re lazzarone, Milano, Mondadori, 1999.
• Guglielmo Ferrero, Il Congresso di Vienna - 1814-1815, vol. II, Edizione speciale per "Il Giornale" (stampata su licenza della Casa editrice Corbaccio), Milano, 1999.
• Mario Mazzucchelli, Murat il Cavaliere di Napoleone, Milano, Longanesi, 1970.
• AA.VV., Murat 1815. La battaglia di Occhiobello, crollo dell’impero e nascita della nazione, Rovigo, Minelliana, 2017.

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