Eugène de Beauharnais

"Prince of Venice" redirects here. For current Italian prince and heir-apparent to the disputed headship of the House of Savoy, see Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice.
Eugène de Beauharnais
French Prince, Prince of Venice, Grand Duke of Frankfurt, Duke of Leuchtenberg, Prince of Eichstätt
Portrait of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, by Andrea Appiani (1810)
Viceroy of Italy
Term 5 June 1805 – 11 April 1814
Monarch Napoleon I
Duke of Leuchtenberg
Prince of Eichstätt
Tenure 14 November 1817 – 21 February 1824
Successor Auguste de Beauharnais
Born 3 September 1781
Paris, Kingdom of France
Died 21 February 1824 (aged 42)
Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria
Burial
St. Michael's Church, Munich
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1806)​
Issue
Names
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais
House Beauharnais
Father Alexandre de Beauharnais
Mother Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie
Religion Roman Catholicism
Signature Eugène de Beauharnais's signature
Military career
Allegiance French First Republic
First French Empire
Kingdom of Italy
Battles/wars French Revolutionary Wars
Napoleonic Wars

Eugène Rose de Beauharnais ([øʒɛn də boaʁnɛ]; 3 September 1781 – 21 February 1824) was a French nobleman, statesman, and military commander who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Through the second marriage of his mother, Joséphine de Beauharnais, he was the stepson of Napoleon Bonaparte. Under the French Empire he also became Napoleon's adopted son (but not the heir to the imperial throne). He was Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy under his stepfather, from 1805 to 1814, and commanded the Army of Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. Historians consider him one of Napoleon's most able relatives.

Family

Eugène Rose de Beauharnais was born in Paris on 3 September 1781 as the son of Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, both born in the French colony of Martinique but divorced. During the early Revolutionary Wars his father served as a general in Germany. After losing the Siege of Mainz (1793) he was imprisoned and executed by guillotine on 23 July 1794, a few days before the fall of Maximilien Robespierre and the end of the Reign of Terror. For a while Princess Amalie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg, the lover of his father, took care of Eugène and his sister Hortense de Beauharnais.

Early career

Eugène de Beauharnais as an aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy, by Antoine-Jean Gros (1798)

Eugène began his military career soon after his father's death, serving in the staff of General Lazare Hoche during the War in the Vendée. However, within a year his mother Joséphine had arranged his return to Paris, after she remarried to Napoleon Bonaparte. After joining the 1st Hussar Regiment as an assistant sub-lieutenant on 30 June 1797, Eugène served as an aide-de-camp to his stepfather in the Italian campaign. After the Treaty of Campo Formio (17 October 1797) he was sent on missions to the Ionian Islands and Rome. In 1798, he followed Napoleon in his campaign in Egypt and Syria, where he took part in the Siege of Jaffa and was wounded during the Siege of Acre.

Eugène returned to France with Napoleon in the autumn of 1799, helping to bring about the reconciliation of the general and his mother, who had become estranged due to their mutual extramarital affairs. During the Coup of 18 Brumaire, he accompanied Napoleon to Saint-Cloud, where they brought the Council of Five Hundred into submission. When Napoleon became First Consul following the coup, Eugène was appointed captain of the chasseurs à cheval of the Consular Guard. He distinguished himself in the Guard's cavalry charges at Battle of Marengo, and was promoted to chef d'escadron. In 1803 he bought Hôtel Beauharnais.

Eugène de Beauharnais as colonel of the Consular Guard's chasseurs à cheval, by François Gérard (c. 1802)

After rising through the ranks under the Consulate, Eugène was promoted to brigade general soon after the establishment of the Empire in 1804. On 14 June 1804 he was made an official member of the imperial family as His Imperial Highness, French Prince (Prince français) Eugène de Beauharnais. By a decree of 1 February 1805, Eugène was created Arch-Chancellor of State.

Viceroy of Italy

Eugène de Beauharnais as Viceroy of Italy, by François Gérard (1810–1811)
Eugene's tent in Rykantai on 3 July 1812 when he received orders to avoid Vilnius. Painting by Albrecht Adam.

As commander of the Imperial Guard (successor to the Consular Guard), Eugène preceded his stepfather to Milan ahead of Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy on 26 May 1805. Napoleon had originally intended to place his brother Joseph on the Italian throne and then, after Joseph's refusal, his nephew Napoléon Charles, the son of Louis Bonaparte and Eugène's sister, Hortense. However, both Joseph and Louis refused, so Napoleon placed the Iron Crown upon his own head instead. During the coronation, Napoleon handed the royal ring and mantle to his stepson and on 7 June 1805 announced Eugène's appointment as Viceroy of Italy to the Italian Legislative Assembly.

In 1805, the War of the Third Coalition was to test Eugène's talents as an organizer, if not as a commander. While General André Masséna commanded the Army of Italy, Eugène raised a reserve army to guard the kingdom's southern border, after Naples broke its neutrality agreement with France. After the French victory at Austerlitz, Napoleon sought to strengthen Bavaria's alliance with France and arranged Eugène's marriage to Princess Augusta of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, breaking her engagement to Charles, Hereditary Prince of Baden. On 12 January 1806, Eugène was officially adopted by Napoleon. Though excluded from succession to the French Empire, on 16 February 1806 he was declared heir presumptive to the Italian throne, in the absence of a second son of Napoleon.

Over the following years, Eugène dedicated himself to the management of the Kingdom of Italy, showing himself an astute politician and administrator. He oversaw military works (fortification of Mantua, expansion of the Rocca d'Anfo), public works (construction of roads, restoration of the Venetian Arsenal, draining of the marshes around Verona), and the promulgation of the Napoleonic civil, commercial, and penal codes. After the kingdom annexed the Marches from the dissolved Papal States, in April 1808, Eugène managed to keep relations with the Holy See from breaking down and rallied the populations of the annexed areas through economic benefits.

During the War of the Fifth Coalition, Eugène was put in command of the Army of Italy with some highly competent generals like Grenier, Charpentier, and the future marshal Étienne MacDonald accompanying him as advisers and officers. In April 1809, he fought and lost the Battle of Sacile against the Austrian army of the Archduke John, but Eugène's troops won the rematch at the Battle of the Piave in May and the Battle of Raab in June. After the Battle of Aspern-Essling, Napoleon recalled the Army of Italy to Austria. After joining the main army on the island of Lobau in the Danube, Eugène took part in the Battle of Wagram.

Napoleon considered making Eugene regent of France during the Russian campaign but ultimately decided against this. During the campaign, Eugène again commanded the Army of Italy (IV Corps), with a total force of 80,000 men. He fought in the Battle of Borodino, the Battle of Maloyaroslavets and the Battle of Krasnoi. After Napoleon and then Joachim Murat had left the retreating army in December 1812, Eugène took command of the remnants and led it back to Germany.

During the German campaign of 1813, Eugène took part in the Battle of Lützen. He then returned to Italy, where he set about re-organizing his troops and preparing the defence against the Austrian Empire. Despite the defection of Murat's Kingdom of Naples in February 1814, and pressure from his Bavarian father-in-law, Eugène refused to join the Coalition, while also rejecting calls to leave behind his kingdom and join Napoleon in the defence of France. He commanded a series of engagements in the Po Valley in order to slow down the enemy advance, which were in effect a series of organized retreats up to the river Adige. Despite some success against the Austrians at the Battle of the Mincio River on 8 February 1814, and successive victories against the Neapolitan Army, he was beaten at the rivers Taro and Nure, and after Napoleon's abdication in April was forced to accept an armistice.

Later life

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler (1815)

After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, Eugène retired to Munich at the behest of his father-in-law. He soon returned to Paris on the death of his mother, where he was honourably received by Louis XVIII and Alexander I of Russia. He immediately renounced his political activity and returned to his wife's family in Bavaria. Accordingly, he remained neutral during Napoleon's return to power in the Hundred Days.

Tomb monument of Eugène de Beauharnais in St. Michael's Church, Munich, by Bertel Thorvaldsen

As Duke of Leuchtenberg, Eugène lived his last years in Munich managing his estates and expanding his art collection. At the same time, he provided assistance for proscripts under the Bourbon Restoration, such as Antoine Marie Chamans de Lavalette, and lobbied for the alleviation of the harsh treatment imposed on Napoleon in his captivity in Saint-Helena. In 1822, Eugène's health began to deteriorate. After suffering two attacks of apoplexy in 1823, he died on 21 February 1824 in Munich, aged 42.

Marriage and issue

On 14 January 1806, two days after his adoption by Napoleon, Eugène married Princess Augusta Amalia Ludovika Georgia of Bavaria (1788–1851), eldest daughter of Napoleon's ally, King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. Although a diplomatic marriage, this union would turn out to be a happy one. On 14 November 1817, his father-in-law made him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstätt, with the style Royal Highness.

Eugène and Augusta had seven children:

Roles and titles

On 20 December 1807 he was given the title of Prince de Venise ("Prince of Venice"), a title created on 30 March 1806, when the Venetian Province taken from Austria in 1805 was united to Bonaparte's Kingdom of Italy.

In 1810, Napoleon used his influence over Karl von Dalberg, Archbishop of Regensburg and Grand Duke of Frankfurt, to name Eugène as constitutional heir of the grand duchy. Von Dalberg abdicated on 26 October 1813 due to Frankfurt's imminent conquest by the allied armies, and Eugène became nominal grand duke until Frankfurt was occupied by the allies in December of that same year.

A further imperial sinecure was Archichancelier d'État de l'Empire de France ("Archchancellor of State of the Empire of France").

His name is inscribed on Column 24 of the Southern Pillar of the Arc du Triomphe, reading BEAUHARNAIS.

Battle record

Heraldry

  • Monogram of Eugène de Beauharnais
    Monogram of Eugène de Beauharnais
  • Coat of arms as French Prince
    Coat of arms as
    French Prince
  • Coat of arms as Viceroy of Italy
    Coat of arms as
    Viceroy of Italy
  • Coat of arms as Duke of Leuchtenberg
    Coat of arms as
    Duke of Leuchtenberg