BONA FIDE (Lat. "in good faith"), in law, a term implying the absence of
all fraud or unfair dealing or acting. It is usually employed in
conjunction with a noun, e.g. "bona fide purchaser," one who has
purchased property from its legal owner, to whom he has paid the
consideration, and from whom he has taken a legal conveyance, without
having any notice of any trust affecting the property; "bona fide
holder" of a bill of exchange, one who has taken a bill complete and
regular on the face of it, before it was overdue, and in good faith and
for value, and without notice of any defect in the title of the person
who negotiated it to him; "bona fide traveller" under the licensing
acts, one whose lodging-place during the preceding night is at least 3
m. distant from the place where he demands to be supplied with liquor,
such distance being calculated by the nearest public thoroughfare.
BONALD, LOUIS GABRIEL AMBROISE, VICOMTE DE (1754-1840), French
philosopher and politician, was born at Le Monna, near Millau in
Aveyron, on the 2nd of October 1754. Disliking the principles of the
Revolution, he emigrated in 1791, joined the army of the prince of
Conde, and soon afterwards settled at Heidelberg. There he wrote his
first important work, the highly conservative _Theorie du pouvoir
politique et religieux_ (3 vols., 1796; new ed., Paris, 1854, 2 vols.),
which was condemned by the Directory. Returning to France he found
himself an object of suspicion, and was obliged to live in retirement.
In 1806 he was associated with Chateaubriand and Fievee in the conduct
of the _Mercure de France_, and two years later was appointed councillor
of the Imperial University which he had often attacked. After the
restoration he was a member of the council of public instruction, and
from 1815 to 1822 sat in the chamber as deputy. His speeches were on the
extreme conservative side; he even advocated a literary censorship. In
1822 he was made minister of state, and presided over the censorship
commission. In the following year he was made a peer, a dignity which he
lost through refusing to take the oath in 1830. From 1816 he had been a
member of the Academy. He took no part in public affairs after 1830, but
retired to his seat at Le Monna, where he died on the 23rd of November
1840.
Bonald was one of the leading writers of the theocratic or
traditionalist school, which included de Maistre, Lamennais, Ballanche
and d'Eckstein. His writings are mainly on social and political
philosophy, and are based ultimately on one great principle, the divine
origin of language. In his own words, "L'homme pense sa parole avant de
parler sa pensee"; the first language contained the essence of all
truth. From this he deduces the existence of God, the divine origin and
consequent supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the
infallibility of the church. While this thought lies at the root of all
his speculations there is a formula of constant application. All
relations may be stated as the triad of cause, means and effect, which
he sees repeated throughout nature. Thus, in the universe, he finds the
first cause as mover, movement as the means, and bodies as the result;
in the state, power as the cause, ministers as the means, and subjects
as the effects; in the family, the same relation is exemplified by
father, mother and children. These three terms bear specific relations
to one another; the first is to the second as the second to the third.
Thus, in the great triad of the religious world--God, the Mediator, and
Man-God is to the God-Man as the God-Man is to Man. On this basis he
constructed a system of political absolutism which lacks two things
only:--well-grounded premisses instead of baseless hypotheses, and the
acquiescence of those who were to be subjected to it.
Bonald's style is remarkably fine; ornate, but pure and vigorous. Many
fruitful thoughts are scattered among his works, but his system scarcely
deserves the name of a philosophy. In abstract thought he was a mere
dilettante, and his strength lay in the vigour and sincerity of his
statements rather than in cogency of reasoning.
He had four sons. Of these, VICTOR DE BONALD (1780-1871) followed his
father in his exile, was rector of the academy of Montpellier after the
restoration, but lost his post during the Hundred Days. Regaining it at
the second restoration, he resigned finally in 1830. He wrote _Des vrais
principes opposes aux erreurs du XIXe siecle_ (1833), _Moise et les
geologues modernes_ (1835), and a life of his father. LOUIS JACQUES
MAURICE (1787-1870), cardinal (1841), was condemned by the council of
state for a pastoral letter attacking Dupin the elder's _Manuel de droit
ecclesiastique_. In 1848 he held a memorial service "for those who fell
gloriously in defence of civil and religious liberty." In 1851 he
nevertheless advocated in the senate the maintenance of the temporal
power of Rome by force of arms. HENRI (d. 1846) was a contributor to
legitimist journals; and RENE was interim prefect of Aveyron in 1817.
Besides the _Theorie_ above mentioned, the vicomte de Bonald published
_Essai analytique sur les lois naturelles de l'ordre social_ (1800);
_Legislation primitive_ (1802); _Du divorce considere au XIXe siecle_
(1801); _Recherches philosophiques sur les premiers objets de
connaissances morales_ (2 vols., 1818); _Melanges litteraires et
politiques, demonstration philosophique du principe constitutif de la
societe_ (1819, 1852). The first collected edition appeared in 12
vols., 1817-1819; the latest is that of the Abbe Migne (3 vols.,
1859).
See _Notice sur M. le Vicomte de Bonald_ (1841, ed. Avignon, 1853),
(by his son Victor); Damiron, _Phil. en France au XIXe siecle_;
Windelband, _History of Philosophy_ (trans. J.H. Tufts, 1893); E.
Faguet in _Rev. des deux mondes_ (April 15, 1889).
BONAPARTE, the name of a family made famous by Napoleon I. (q.v.),
emperor of the French. The French form Bonaparte was not commonly used,
even by Napoleon, until after the spring of 1796. The original name was
Buonaparte, which was borne in the early middle ages by several distinct
families in Italy. One of these, which settled at Florence before the
year 1100, divided in the 13th century into the two branches of San
Miniato and Sarzana. A member of this latter, Francesco Buonaparte,
emigrated in the middle of the 16th century to Corsica, where his
descendants continued to occupy themselves with the affairs of law and
the magistracy.
Napoleon's father and mother.
CARLO BUONAPARTE [Charles Marie de Bonaparte] (1746-1785), the father of
Napoleon I., took his degree in law at the university of Pisa, and after
the conquest of Corsica by the French became assessor to the royal court
of Ajaccio and the neighbouring districts. His restless and dissatisfied
nature led him to press or intrigue for other posts, and to embark in
risky business enterprises which compromised the fortune of his family
for many years to come. In 1764 he married Letizia Ramolino, a beautiful
and high-spirited girl, aged fourteen, descended from a well-connected
family domiciled in Corsica since the middle of the 15th century. The
first two children, born in 1765 and 1767, died in infancy; Joseph (see
below), the first son who survived, was born in 1768, and Napoleon in
1769. The latter was born in the midst of the troubles consequent on the
French conquest, Letizia having recently accompanied her husband in
several journeys and escapes. Her firm and courageous disposition showed
itself at that trying time and throughout the whole of her singularly
varied career. Simple and frugal in her tastes, and devout in thought
and manner of life, she helped to bind her children to the life of
Corsica, while her husband, a schemer by nature and a Voltairian by
conviction, pointed the way to careers in France, the opening up of
which moulded the fortunes of the family and the destinies of Europe. He
died of cancer in the stomach at Montpellier in 1785.
Letizia lived to witness the glory and the downfall of her great son,
surviving Napoleon I. by sixteen years. She never accommodated herself
to the part she was called on to play during the Empire, and, though
endowed with immense wealth and distinguished by the title of _Madame
Mere_, lived mainly in retirement, and in the exercise of a strict
domestic economy which her early privations had made a second nature to
her, but which rendered her very unpopular in France and was displeasing
to Napoleon. After the events of 1814 she joined the emperor in the
island of Elba and was privy to his plans of escape, returning to Paris
during the Hundred Days. After the final downfall of Waterloo, she took
up her residence at Rome, where Pope Pius VII. treated her with great
kindness and consideration, and protected her from the suspicious
attentions of the powers of the Grand Alliance. In 1818 she addressed a
pathetic letter to the powers assembled at the congress of Aix,
petitioning for Napoleon's release, on the ground that his mortal
illness had removed any possibility of his ever again becoming a menace
to the world's peace. The letter remained unanswered, the powers having
reason to believe that it was a mere political move, and that its terms
had been previously concerted with Napoleon. Henceforth, saddened by the
death of Napoleon, of her daughters Pauline and Elisa, and of several
grandchildren, she lived a life of mournful seclusion. In 1829 she was
crippled by a serious fall, and was all but blind before her death in
1836.
For the Bonaparte family in general, and Carlo and Letizia, see
_Storia genealogica della famiglia Bonaparte, della sua origine fina
all' estinzione del ramo gia esisente nella citta di S. Miniato,
scritta da un Samminiatese_ (D. Morali) (Florence, 1846); F. de
Stefani, _Le antichita dei Bonaparte; precede per una introduzione_
(L. Beretta) (Venice, 1857); L. Ambrosini and A. Huard, _La Famille
imperiale. Hist. de la famille Bonaparte depuis son origine jusqu'en
1860_ (Paris, 1860); C. Leynadier, _Histoire de la famille Bonaparte
de l'an 1050 a l'an 1848_ (_continuee jusqu'en 1866 par de la
Brugere_) (Paris, 1866); A. Kleinschmidt, _Die Eltern und Geschwister
Napoleons I._ (Berlin, 1876); D.A. Bingham, _The Marriages of the
Bonapartes_ (2 vols., London, 1881); F. Masson, _Napoleon et sa
famille_ (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900); A. Chuquet, _La Jeunesse de
Napoleon_ (3 vols., Paris, 1897-1899); T. Nasica, _Memoires sur
l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoleon jusqu'a la age vingt-trois ans;
precedes d'une notice historique sur son pere_; Baron H. Larrey,
_Madame Mere_ (2 vols., Paris, 1892); Clara Tschudi, _Napoleons
Mutter: aus dem Norwegischen ubersetzt von H. von Lenk_ (Leipzig,
1901).
The brothers and sisters of Napoleon I., taken in order of age, are the
following:--
Napoleon's brothers and sisters: 1. Joseph Bonaparte.
I. JOSEPH (1768-1844), was born at Corte in Corsica, on the 7th of
January 1768. He was educated at the college at Autun in France,
returned to Corsica in 1784, shortly after the death of his father, and
thereafter studied law at the university of Pisa. He became a barrister
at Bastia in June 1788, and was soon elected a councillor of the
municipality of Ajaccio. Like his brothers, Napoleon and Lucien, he
embraced the French or democratic side, and on the victory of the
Paolist party fled with his family from Corsica and sought refuge in
France. After spending a short time in Paris, where he was disgusted
with the excesses of the Jacobins, he settled at Marseilles and married
Mlle Julie Clary, daughter of a merchant of that town. The Bonapartes
moved from place to place, mainly with the view of concerting measures
for the recovery of Corsica. Joseph took part in these efforts and went
on a mission to Genoa in 1795. In 1796 he accompanied his brother
Napoleon in the early part of the Italian campaign, and had some part in
the negotiations with Sardinia which led to the armistice of Cherasco
(April 28), the news of which he bore to the French government. Later he
proceeded to Leghorn, took part in the French expedition for the
recovery of Corsica, and, along with the commissioner of the French
Republic, Miot de Melito, helped in the reorganization of that island.
In March 1797 he was appointed by the Directory, minister to the court
of Parma, and early in the summer he proceeded to Rome in the same
capacity. Discords arose between the Vatican and the French Republic,
and it is clear that Napoleon and the French Directory ordered Joseph to
encourage revolutionary movements in Rome. On the 28th of December 1797
a disturbance took place opposite the French embassy, which led to the
death of the French general, Leonard Duphot. Joseph at once left Rome,
which soon became a republic. Repairing to Paris, he entered on
parliamentary life, becoming one of the members for Corsica in the
Council of Five Hundred. He made no mark in the chamber and retired in
1799.
Before the _coup d'etat_ of Brumaire he helped Napoleon in making
overtures to Sieyes and Moreau, but otherwise did little. Thereafter he
refused to enter the ministry, but became a member of the council of
state and of the _Corps Legislatif_, where his advice on the state of
public opinion was frequently useful. He had a hand in the negotiations
for the Concordat, but, according to Lucien Bonaparte, looked on that
measure as "ill-advised and retrograde." His services in the diplomatic
sphere were more important. At Mortfontaine, his country-house, he
concluded with the envoy of the United States a convention which bears
that name (1800). He also presided over the negotiations which led to
the treaty of Luneville with Austria (February 9, 1801); and he and
Maret represented France in the lengthy discussions with the British
envoy, Lord Cornwallis, which resulted in the signature of the treaty of
Amiens (March 25, 1802). This diplomatic triumph in its turn led to the
consolidation of Napoleon's power as First Consul for life (August 1,
1802) with the chief voice in the selection of his successor. On this
question the brothers disagreed. As neither Joseph nor Napoleon had a
male heir, the eldest brother, whose ideas of primogeniture were very
strict, claimed to be recognized as heir, while Napoleon wished to
recognize the son of Louis Bonaparte. On the proclamation of the French
empire (May 1804) the friction became acute. Napoleon offered to make
Joseph king of Lombardy if he would waive all claim of succession to the
French throne, but met with a firm refusal.
Meanwhile Joseph had striven earnestly, but in vain, to avert a rupture
with England, which came about in May 1803. In 1805 he acted as chief of
the French government while Napoleon was campaigning in Germany. Early
in 1806 he proceeded to Naples with a French force in order to expel the
Bourbon dynasty from southern Italy, Napoleon adding the promise that
the Neapolitan crown would be for Joseph if he chose to accept it. The
conquest of the mainland was speedily effected, though Gaeta, Reggio and
the rock of Scylla held out for some months. The Bourbon court retired
to Sicily, where it had the protection of a British force. By the decree
of the 30th of March 1806 Napoleon proclaimed Joseph king of Naples, but
allowed him to keep intact his claims to the throne of France. In
several letters he enjoined his brother to greater firmness in his
administration: "These peoples in Italy, and in general all nations, if
they do not find their masters, are disposed to rebellion and mutiny."
The memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, whom Joseph appointed minister of
war, show how great were the difficulties with which the new monarch had
to contend--an almost bankrupt treasury, a fickle and degraded populace,
Bourbon intrigues and plots, and frequent attacks by the British from
Sicily. General Stuart's victory at Maida (July 3) shook Joseph's throne
to its base; but the surrender of Gaeta soon enabled Massena to march
southwards and subdue Calabria. During his brief reign at Naples, Joseph
effected many improvements; he abolished the relics of feudalism,
reformed the monastic orders, reorganized the judicial, financial and
educational systems, and initiated several public works. In everything
he showed his desire to carry out the aims which he expressed to his
consort in April 1806: "Justice demands that I should make this people
as happy as the scourge of war will permit."
From these well-meant, but not always successful, efforts he was
suddenly called away by Napoleon to take the crown of Spain (May 1808).
There his difficulties were far greater. Despite the benevolent
intentions announced to the Spaniards in his proclamation dated Bayonne,
23rd of June 1808, all reconciliation between them and the French was
impossible after Napoleon's treatment of their _de facto_ king,
Ferdinand VII. For the varying fortunes of King Joseph in Spain and in
the eventful years of the Peninsular War, see SPAIN and PENINSULAR WAR.
His sovereignty was little more than titular. Compelled to leave Madrid
hastily in August 1808, owing to the Spanish success at Baylen, he was
reinstated by Napoleon at the close of the year; and he was thereafter
kept in a subordinate position which led him on four occasions to offer
to abdicate. The emperor took no notice of these offers, and ordered him
to govern with more energy. Between February and May 1810 the emperor
placed the northern and north-eastern provinces under the command of
French generals as military districts, virtually independent of
Joseph's authority. Again the king protested, but in vain. As his
trusted adviser, Miot de Melito, observed in his memoirs, Joseph tried
to be constitutional king of Spain, whereas after the experience of the
years 1808-1809 he could only succeed in the Peninsula by becoming "the
mere instrument of a military power." "Bearing a title which was only an
oppressive burden, the king had in reality ceased to exist as a monarch,
and barely retained some semblance of authority over a small part of the
French army as a general. Reduced by the exhausted state of his treasury
to the last extremity he at length seriously thought of departure."
Joseph took this step in April 1811, and proceeded to Paris in order to
extort better terms, or offer his abdication; but he had to return with
a monthly subsidy of 500,000 francs and the promise that the army of the
centre (the smallest of the five French armies) should be under his
control. Late in that year Napoleon united Catalonia to France.
Wellington's victory at Salamanca (July 22, 1812) compelled Joseph to
leave his capital; and despite the retirement of the British in the
autumn of that year, Joseph's authority never fully recovered from that
blow. The end of his nominal rule came in the next year, when Wellington
utterly overthrew the chief French army, commanded by King Joseph and
Marshal Jourdan, at Vittoria (June 21, 1813). The king fled from Spain,
was disgraced by Napoleon, and received the order to retire incognito to
Mortfontaine. The emperor wrote to the minister of war (July 11,
1813):--"His [Joseph's] behaviour has never ceased bringing misfortune
upon my army; it is time to make an end of it."
Napoleon was equally dissatisfied with his brother's conduct as
lieutenant-general of France, while he himself was conducting the
campaign of 1814 in the east of France. On the 30th of March, Joseph
empowered Marmont to make a truce with the assailants of Paris if they
should be in overpowering strength. On the surrender of the capital
Joseph at once retired. The part which he played during the Hundred Days
(1815) was also insignificant. It is strange that, four days after
Waterloo, Napoleon should have urged him to inspirit the Chamber of
Deputies with a view to a national resistance (_Lettres nouvelles de
Napoleon_). In point of fact Joseph did little beyond seeking to further
the emperor's plans of escape to America. After the surrender of his
brother to the captain of H.M.S. "Bellerophon" at Rochefort, Joseph went
to the United States. Settling in Bordentown, New Jersey, he adopted the
title of comte de Survilliers, and sought to promote plans for the
rescue of his brother from St Helena. In 1830 he pleaded, but
unsuccessfully, for the recognition of the claims of the duke of
Reichstadt (king of Rome) to the French throne. He afterwards visited
England, and for a time resided at Genoa and Florence. In the latter
city, the cradle of his race, he died on the 28th of July 1844. In
person he somewhat resembled Napoleon, but utterly lacked his strength
and energy. He was fitted for an embassy or judgeship, but was too mild,
supine and luxurious for the tasks thrust upon him by his brother. Yet
his correspondence and memoirs prove that he retained for Napoleon warm
feelings of affection.
Of the many works dealing with Joseph Bonaparte we may cite Baron A.
du Casse, _Memoires et correspondance politique et militaire du roi
Joseph_ (10 vols., Paris, 1854), and _Les Rois freres de Napoleon_
(1883); J.S.C. Abbott, _History of Joseph Bonaparte_ (New York, 1869);
G. Bertin, _Joseph Bonaparte in America_; _Joseph Bonaparte juge par
ses contemporains_ (anon.); the _Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito_
(translation, edited by General Fleischmann, 2 vols., 1881); R.M.
Johnston, _The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy_ (2 vols., with an
excellent bibliography, London, 1904); _Correspondence of Napoleon
with Joseph Bonaparte_ (2 vols., New York, 1856); Baron A. du Casse,
_Histoire des ... traites de Mortfontaine, de Luneville et d'Amiens_,
&c. (1855-1857); F. Masson, _Napoleon et sa famille_ (4 vols., Paris,
1889-1900).