Pierre-Napoléon Bonaparte

Pierre-Napoléon Bonaparte (born Oct. 11, 1815, Rome—died April 7, 1881, Versailles, Fr.) was a French prince (after 1851) and son of Napoleon I’s brother Lucien Bonaparte.

A self-proclaimed republican after 1848 and deputy for Corsica, Bonaparte was reconciled to his cousin Napoleon III after the latter’s coup d’etat in 1851. With this the republicans abandoned the Prince, and he had little effect on the politics of his time. His killing of the journalist Victor Noir in January 1870 hastened the already rising tide of republican and radical agitation directed against the Second Empire in its final months. The incident was the result of a controversy with another journalist, Paschal Grousset, who had sent Noir to invite the Prince to engage in a duel. The Prince was acquitted of murder by a special high court of justice at Tours. His Souvenirs, traditions et révélations appeared in 1876.