Napoleon was the son of Charles Bonaparte (1746-1785) and his wife, Letizia Ramolino (1750-1836). Charles initially fought for Corsican independence alongside the leader, Pascal Paoli, but he later sided with the pro-French party. Charles’s family was of Tuscan origin and had made its home in Corsica in the 15th century. He was an ambitious businessman trained in law with a pronounced taste for legal procedure. When the new government recognised that his family had been noble for at least two hundred years, he was to benefit from certain privileges, such as having access to measures facilitating the integration of Corsican noblemen into French society. He became a lawyer and then assessor at the royal court of Ajaccio, and he was able to take advantage of his change of fortune, obtaining financial advantages for himself, subsidies for his agricultural projects, and scholarships for his children. Recognised by the authorities as an acceptable interlocutor, he became a member of the Council of twelve nobles who assisted the Governor of Corsica and was even presented to Louis XVI, during a collective audience in Versailles (1778).
Charles Bonaparte had married the beautiful Maria-Letizia Ramolino on 1 June 1764. She bore him twelve children, eight of whom escaped the high infant mortality of the time: Joseph (born in 1768), Napoleon (1769), Lucien (1775), Marie-Anne known as “Elisa” (1777), Louis (1778), Marie-Paulette known as “Pauline” (1780), Marie-Annonciade known as “Caroline” (1782) and Jérôme (1783). One of them would become an Emperor, four would be kings or queens, whilst the others would have to “settle” for princely titles. Charles died of a stomach disease at the age of 39, and would therefore never know the extraordinary destiny of his offspring; History has especially remembered the role of “mother courage” played by his widow who managed with authority and a legendary sense of financial astuteness, to provide for the needs of her dependent children. She did so with the help of her two eldest sons, and in particular Napoleon who took Louis under his wing and who oversaw his sisters’ education with great rigour.