Comte de Marbeuf. French rule in Corsica essentially came down to the
military governor and a civil intendant supported by a docile conseil
superieur (a president, six French councillors, four Corsican) sitting at
Bastia. From 1772-86 the military governor was Charles Rene, Comte de
Marbeuf, a favourite of Louis XV's, while the Intendant from 1775-85
was M. de Boucheporn. Marbeuf, from an old Breton family, was sixty
when he took up his appointment as the virtual ruler of Corsica and soon
showed himself an enlightened reformer and improver, interested in crop
rotation and presiding in Cartesian benevolence over a strict administra
tive hierarchy of paese (village), pieve (canton), province and central
government.
Marbeuf surrounded himself with male proteges and sycophants on
the one hand and pretty women on the other. Having contracted a
marriage of convenience in France, he also conveniently left his wife
behind when he went out to Corsica as governor. A man whose virility
belied his years, he at first kept Madame de Varesnes, the 'Cleopatra of
Corsica', as his mistress. To his male proteges he distributed largesse,
and one of the principal beneficiaries was Carlo. In 1777 Marbeuf secured
his election as a deputy for the nobility, to represent Corsica at Versailles.
Carlo was away for two years.
Marbeuf meanwhile turned his attention to Letizia. It was well known
that he was besotted with her, but only in 1776, when he dropped
Madame de Varesnes, did he begin the pursuit. There is very strong
circumstantial evidence that Marbeuf and Letizia were lovers while Carlo
was in Versailles; unfortunately, zealots for the theory that Letizia was
habitually unfaithful to Carlo have tried to backdate the liaison to 1768 in
order to sustain the thesis that Marbeuf was Napoleon's father. It can be
stated categorically that he was not: at the probable date of Napoleon's
conception, around November 1768, Marbeuf was with French troops in
winter quarters and had no connection whatever with Letizia. Yet those
who have refuted the 'straw man' theory that Marbeuf was Napoleon's
father have made the unwarranted further assumption that he could not
have fathered any of her other children. He certainly did not beget the
third son, Lucien, who was born in 1775, nor the first daughter, Maria
Anna Elisa (born 1777), but it is highly likely that the fourth Buonaparte
son, Louis, was really the son of Marbeuf. The calendar favours Marbeuf
as father far more than Carlo; additionally Louis was quite unlike his
siblings in looks, character and temperament, and shared Marbeufs
brusque irascibility. Many biographers have asserted on no grounds
whatever that Marbeufs relationship with Letizia was platonic and that
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