In this article we discover who was Jérôme Bonaparte, why did he invite Beethoven to his court and how the composer used this offer as bargaining chip for advancing his positions in Vienna.
Who was Jérôme Bonaparte?
The youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jérôme Bonaparte (15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, as Girolamo Buonaparte. He was the eighth – surviving – child of the Bonaparte family.
After graduating from college he had served in the French Navy, then moved to the US, where he met his first wife, Elizabeth Patterson. Elizabeth came from a wealthy merchant family in Baltimore. His brother Napoleon did not like the marriage, he had other dynastic plans with his siblings. He first lobbied at the Pope (Pius VII.) who refused the request to annul this marriage, then he did it himself as a French imperial decree, naming the issue as matter of state. Elizabeth, who was pregnant at the time, was cast back to the US. Jérôme never saw or met his own son.
Napoleon, from various northwestern German principalities, organized a new confederation called Confederation of the Rhine. He made his brother Jérôme king of the realm, the King of Westphalia. The brother also provided a queen and “organized” a new wife for him, Princess Catharina of Württemberg, a cousin of Tsar Alexander I.
The couple had eye for splendor and did not save on luxury. The capital Kassel underwent some significant and expensive changes, inside and outside. Both local and Parisian artisans, manufactures eagerly delivered the orders. The budget for running the Kingdom of Westphalia was comparable to the one his brother Napoleon had to finance in Paris. This earned his contempt and later refused to support Jérôme financially. Military pomp, parties and mistresses inspired the subjects to call him König Lustig (King Marry).
The Kingdom of Westphalia was designed to be a model for other German states and this way along with appearances, intellectual upturn was to be presented. Napoleon wrote him “It is essential that your people enjoy a liberty, an equality, a wellbeing unknown to the people of Germany.”
The kingdom was short lived, it existed only from 1807 to 1813, when the advancing allied Prussian and Russian forces occupied the city and declared the kingdom dissolved.
Jérôme had fled to Paris, later shortly visited the US again, then settled down in Italy. Here he married again for the third time. When his nephew Louis Napoleon became the President of the Second French Republic in 1848, he returned to France and occupied more positions as Governor, President of the Senate and in 1850 was named Marshall of France.
He died in 1860 and is buried in Les Invalides.
Jérôme Bonaparte’s invitation to Beethoven
In 1808 Beethoven received an invitation from the King of Westphalia to come to his court and be the local celebrity as his Kapellmeister. The desire to bring such a composer to Kassel was not rooted in musical sophistication, but rather the need for appearances.
The job description was specific. Beethoven would enjoy much freedom to pursue his projects, he was only to conduct a few concerts and play for the King occasionally. In return he would have unlimited access to the court orchestra, freedom to travel and a salary of 600 gold ducats (around 2 700 florins; a yearly wage for a court musician was around 3-400 florins), plus a 1 000 florins budget for traveling.
We will never know how seriously he did consider this offer, but we can be sure he played with the idea. His beloved grandfather was a Kapellmeister, a position he valued highly. What is even more, this freedom and financial stability was something Beethoven always wanted. The offer was bargaining chip, too. Beethoven had been working on some kind of a yearly annuity agreement with local Viennese patrons. In return he would stay in Vienna.
He went public with the offer. He wrote to Count Oppersdorff, initial commissioner of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, “I have been offered an appointment as Kapellmeister to the King of Westphalia and it may well be that I shall accept this offer.”
In January 1809, Beethoven, in order to put more pressure on his local patrons, accepted the offer of King Jérôme Bonaparte. The reaction was immense. With the lead of Archduke Rudolph (half brother of the reigning emperor Franz I.) two more wealthy sponsors (Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Ferdinand Kinsky) forged alliance to keep Beethoven “at home”.
In March 1. 1809, the contract that offered the composer a yearly 4 000 florins annuity, was done. Beethoven accepted the terms and stayed in Vienna for the rest of his life.
