117. MURAT (Achille). 3 autograph letters signed,... Lot 117

117. MURAT (Achille). 3 autograph letters signed, to one of the Bonapartist activists of Paris. 1831.« ... If MY UNCLE JOSEPH [Bonaparte] were in Europe, it is to him that it would belong to act in the present circumstance. But if he arrives only after the success of the enterprise, in which I would have committed my honor and my reputation, I WOULD NOT BE IN HUMOR (WHATEVER MY ATTACTION AND MY RESPECT FOR HIM) TO GIVE HIM THE POSITION which would have been given to me, and which the mere arrival of the Emperor [the Duke of Reichstadt] would make me leave. What I say there about my uncle Joseph applies much more to all the other members of my family, and I wish that we agree well on this... I CEASED IN 1815 TO BE PRINCE OF PONTO [?] AND THEREFORE LOST THE RIGHT TO BEAR THE TITLE, for it is only according to the principles of legitimacy [the Bourbons of Naples] (which I have always fought) that I could have claimed to keep it. BUT MUCH MORE ON BECOMING A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES I SOLEMNLY RENOUNCED IT in open court and under oath as well as the orders of knighthood, etc., with which I was decorated. So you can see that it is completely out of the question that I take a title that I have renounced. For me to have the right to wear it, it would have to be given back to me by some authority and I would have to agree to accept it. I DON'T SEE WHY MR ACHILLE MURAT "REGENT DE L'EMPIRE" OR "LIEUTENANT DE L'EMPEREUR" DOESN'T DO AS WELL AS MR SURLET DE CHOQUIER regent of Belgium? [Erasmus-Louis Sulret de Chokier was regent of the kingdom of Belgium from February to July 1831, the date of Leopold I's elevation to the throne of that country]. I would also point out that among the conditions you sent me. I find the abolition of the titles of nobility and certainly it would be a singular way of proceeding to it to begin by taking back of my own accord a title which I have renounced... " AINE SON OF JOACHIM MURAT AND CAROLINE BONAPARTE, SISTER OF NAPOLEON I, PRINCE ACHILLE MURAT (1801-1867) lived his childhood and adolescence in Paris, Naples and then under house arrest in Austria. Exiled to the United States in 1822, he first stayed with his maternal uncle Joseph Bonaparte in Philadelphia, then settled in the South, buying a plantation near Tallahassee, and married a great-grandniece of George Washington. The revolution of July 1830 kindled in him the hope of an imperial restoration, and he went to Europe in February 1831, but stayed in London being forbidden to visit France like the other Napoleonides. He considered taking power in France and exercising the regency himself, first in the name of the young duke of Reichstadt, then, after the latter's death without an heir in July 1832, in the name of Joseph Bonaparte. Nourished by the liberal ideal inspired by the American model, he wanted to support the aspirations for liberation of the peoples of Europe. Considering Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte to be politically incompetent, he undertook a series of actions that placed him on the fringes of the Bonaparte family, despite the respect he had for Joseph: he tried unsuccessfully to use the French Bonapartist networks for his own benefit, then formed a regiment in Belgium, envisaged a landing in Italy, and finally gave his support to the Portuguese liberals, without achieving anything conclusive. In June 1833 he sailed back to the United States, where he remained from then on, except for a short trip in 1839 when his mother died in Florence.