Buonapartes and the Ramolinos specialized in intermarriage with ancient
families of Italian origin, so a dynastic match made sense. There was just
one peculiarity: both the newly-weds' fathers had died young. Carlo's
father, a lawyer, died in 176o when his son was fourteen, which meant
that Carlo could bring into the marriage the family house in the Via
Malerba, two of the best vineyards in Ajaccio, some pasture and arable
land, and also his claims to another estate.
Marie-Letizia Ramolino (born either in late 1749 or early 1750) was in
a more complicated situation. Her father died when she was five, after
which her mother Angela Maria turned for consolation to Franl):ois (or
Franz) Fesch, a Swiss captain in the French garrison forces at Ajaccio.
Angela Maria married Fesch in 1757 and persuaded him to convert to
Catholicism, but his father, a banker in Basle, responded by disinheriting
him. From the union of Fesch and Letizia's mother came Joseph (born
1763), the future cardinal and Napoleon's uncle, though only six years his
senior. The unfortunate Fesch, who died in 1770, gave Letizia away; her
dowry comprised thirty-one acres of land, a mill, and an oven for baking
bread.
The marriage of Carlo and Letizia was a solid, down-to-earth marriage
of convenience. There is even reason to believe that Carlo hedged his bets
by not marrying in the Church in 1764, or ever. It was well known that
Corsicans took an idiosyncratic, eclectic attitude to the Catholic Church,
which was why legal marriage on the island consisted in the agreement of
the two male heads of families, the signature of a dotal contract, and the
act of consummation. The likelihood is that Carlo simply refused to go
through with a religious ceremony, and for reasons of pride and saving
face the two clans kept quiet about it.
Again, contrary to the mythmaking, it is untrue that some of
the Ramolinos opposed the match for political reasons, allegedly on the
grounds that they supported the Genoese masters of the island while the
Buonapartes backed the independence movement under Pasquale Paoli.
Almost certainly, they simply had doubts that this was the very best
dynastic bargain they could strike while, as for political ideology, both the
Buonapartes and Ramolinos were notorious trimmers who made obei
sance to whichever party in Corsica had the most power.
Carlo, a tall young man with a prominent nose, sensual lips and
almond-shaped eyes, was a hedonist and sensualist. Cunning, self
regarding, unrefined, unscrupulous, he made it clear that his marriage
was no love match by declaring a preference for a girl of the Forcioli
family. The romancers claim that he was bowled over by Letizia's beauty,
but portraits reveal a woman whose mouth was too small, whose nose was
marcin
(Marcin)
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