Bonaparte, Lucien

Bonaparte, Lucien (1775-1840), younger brother of Napoleon, born in Ajaccio, Corsica, and educated at the seminary in Aix-en-Provence, France. In 1798 he was elected to the Council of Five Hundred. In 1799, as president of the council, he was largely responsible for the accession of Napoleon to the first consulship. The next year Napoleon rewarded him by appointing him ambassador to Madrid. Lucien, however, consistently opposed Napoleon's despotic reign and spent much of his life exiled from France. From 1803 to 1810 he lived in Italy, where Pope Pius VII named him Prince of Canino, and from 1810 to 1814 he was a prisoner of state in England, following his capture by the British. Lucien supported his brother during the Hundred Days, the period in 1815 between Napoleon's return from exile on Elba and his final defeat at Waterloo, but afterwards he returned to Italy.