Louis Bonaparte

Louis Bonaparte
Portrait by Charles Howard Hodges, 1809
King of Holland
Reign	5 June 1806 – 1 July 1810
Successor	Louis II
Head of the House of Bonaparte
Tenure	28 July 1844 – 25 July 1846
Predecessor	Joseph, Count of Survilliers
Successor	Napoleon III
Born	2 September 1778 Ajaccio, Corsica, Kingdom of France
Died	25 July 1846(1846-07-25) (aged 67) Livorno, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Burial	Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, Paris
Spouse	Hortense de Beauharnais ​ ​ (m. 1802; died 1837)​
Issue	Napoléon-Charles Napoléon-Louis Napoleon III, Emperor of the French
Names Louis Napoléon Bonaparte
House	Bonaparte
Father	Carlo Buonaparte
Mother	Letizia Ramolino
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature

Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French client state roughly corresponding to the modern-day Netherlands). In that capacity, he was known as Louis I (Dutch: Lodewijk I [ˈloːdəʋɛik]).

Louis was the fifth surviving child and fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino, out of eight children who lived past infancy. He and his siblings were all born in Corsica, which had been conquered by France less than a decade before his birth. Louis followed his older brothers into the French Army, where he benefited from Napoleon's patronage. In 1802, he married his step-niece Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Empress Joséphine (Napoleon's wife).

In 1806, Napoleon established the Kingdom of Holland in place of the Batavian Republic, appointing Louis as the new king. Napoleon had intended for Holland to be little more than a puppet state, but Louis was determined to be as independent as possible and became quite popular amongst his new people. Growing tired of his brother's wilfulness, Napoleon annexed Holland into the French Empire in 1810, and Louis went into exile.

His youngest son, Louis-Napoléon, established the Second French Empire in 1852, proclaiming himself Napoleon III.