BONALD, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de, philosopher and politician, was bora at Monna, near Milhaud, in llouergue, France, on the 2d October 1754. He served for some years in the king s musketeers, and after his marriage was made mayor of his native place. Dissatisfied with the revolutionary principles then being acted upon, he emigrated in 1791, and joined the army of the Prince of Condu. Soon afterwards he settled, with his family, at Heidelberg, where he wrote his first important work, Tkeorie dtt pouvoir politique et reliyieux dans la 8ociete civile, 3 vols., 179G, in which his conservatism and reactionary views are fully expounded and illustrated. In this work, too, he predicted the certain return of the Bourbons to France. The book was condemned by the Directory, and in France very few copies escaped detection. Naturally, on his return to his native country, M. de Bonald found himself an object of suspicion, and was obliged to live in retirement. He still continued to publish works of the same tendencies, his Essai analytique sur les Lois naturclles de Vordre social appearing in 1800, the Legislation primitive in 1802, and the treatise Du Divorce considers au XlX me Siede shortly after. In 1806 he was associated with Chateaubriand and Fi6vtSe in the conduct of the Mercure de France; and two years later, after great persuasion, he allowed himself to be appointed councillor of the Imperial University, which he had often attacked. After the Restoration he was made member of the Council of Public Instruction, and from 1815 to 1822 he sat in the chamber as deputy. His speeches and votes were invariably on the extreme Conservative side ; he even advocated a literary censorship. In 1822 he was made minister of state, and presided over the commission in whose hands the censorship rested. In the following year he was raised to the rank of peer, a dignity which he lost through refusing to take the oath in 1830. From 1816 onwards he had been a member of the Academy. He took no part in public affairs after 1830, but retired to his country-seat at Monna, where he died on the 23d November 1840.
Bonald was one of the most able and vigorous writers of the theocratic or reactionary school, which comprehended among its numbers such men as De Maistre, De Lamennais, Ballanche, and D Eckstein. The great bulk of his writings belong to the department of social or political philosophy ; but all the results at which he arrives are deductions from a few principles. The one truth which to him seemed, in fact, all-comprehensive was the divine origin of language. In his own somewhat enigmatic expression, L homme pense sa parole avant de parler sa pensce, words and thoughts are inextricably linked together; the first language con tained the essence of all truth. From this premise he draws his proof for the existence of God, and for the divine origin and consequent supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures. The infallibility of the church as the exponent of spiritual truth readily follows. While this thought lies at the root of all his speculations there is a formula of constant and significant application. All relations are by him reduced to the triad of cause, means, and effect, which he sees constantly repeated throughout all nature. Thus, in the universe there are the first cause as mover, movement as the means, and bodies as the result; in the state we have power as the cause, ministers as the means, and subjects as the effects ; in the family we have the same relation exemplified by father, mother, and children. It is also to be remarked that these three terms bear specific relations to one another, the first is to the second as the second is 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. It will be readily apparent how Bonald was able from these principles to construct a complete system of po .itical absolutism, for the sufficiency of which only two things were wanted, well- grounded premises instead of baseless hypotheses, and the harmony of the scheme with the wills 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, which have been popular with a certain party ; but his system scarcely deserves the name of a philosophy.
Besides the above-mentioned works, Bonald published Reclierches PhilosopMqucs sur Us premiers oljets de Connaissances Morales, 2 vols., 1818 ; Melanges litteraires et politiques, Demonstration philo- sophique du principe constitutif de la Societe, 1830. The first col lected edition appeared in 12 vols., 1817-19 ; the latest is that in 3 vols., with introductory notice by the Abbe Migne. See Notice sur M. le Vicomte do Bonald, 1841 (by his son), and Damiron, Phil, en France au XIX Siedc.
BONAPARTE, or, as it was originally spelled, Buonaparte, the name of the Italian family from whom the great Napoleon was descended. The father of the first emperor, Carlo Maria Bonaparte, was born at Ajaccio in 1746. He was a lawyer by profession, and took a vigorous part in Paoli s insurrection. In 1781 he was one of the members of the council of Corsican nobility : he also held the post of assessor of Ajaccio. In 1785 he died of cancer in the stomach at Montpellier, whither he had removed for his health. His wife, Letizia Ramolino, born in 1750, was celebrated for her majestic beauty and resolute courage. She accompanied her husband through the campaigns with Paoli, and in 1793 emigrated with her family to Marseilles, where for a time she lived in great penury. After her son was made first consul she removed to Paris ; and, on the establishment of the empire, received the title of Madame Mere. She cared little for display ; and her frugal style of living frequently displeased Napoleon. After the battle of Waterloo she took up her abode in Rome, where she continued to reside till her death in 183G. Of her large family of thirteen, eight survived their father and have become known in history. These in order of age are—
1768. He was placed, along with his younger brother Napoleon, at the school of Autun, from which the latter was soon afterwards withdrawn. On completing his educa tion he contemplated a military career, but, on the death of his father, devoted himself to the care of his family. He studied law at the University of Pisa, and was received as an advocate in Corsica. He and his brother eagerly embraced the revolutionary side; and in 1793 the whole family were compelled to emigrate to Marseilles. In the following year he married Mile, Clary, daughter of a rich merchant, whose younger sister afterwards became the wife of Bernadotte. Two years later, when Napoleon was made general of the army of Italy, Joseph accompanied him as commissary-general. In 1797 he was elected to the Council of Five Hundred, and sent as ambassador to the Pope. On the establishment of the consulate he was made councillor of state, and by his suave and courteous manners rendered good diplomatic service. He conducted the negotiations with the United States in 1800, concluded the Treaty of Luneville in 1801, and was similarly engaged at the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. In 1805, after refusing various posts offered by his brother, he was left in charge of the Government during the war in Germany. In the following year, however, he was compelled to take command of the army of Naples, and soon after he set out it was announced to him that he must assume the throne of that kingdom. With considerable reluctance he accepted the post, and soon found that, though nominally king, he was really but the viceroy of his brother. He introduced many reforms, most of which were well conceived, but which did not at all meet the wishes of Napoleon, who looked upon
Naples merely as a province of France, and thought it