v56_0371 - Mezza lira 1813 Naples VG.2262

ITALY - KINGDOM OF NAPLES - JOACHIM MURAT

(15/07/1808-9/05/1815)

Joachim Murat (25/03/1767-13/10/1815), general and aide-de-camp to Bonaparte in 1796, married Caroline Bonaparte in 1800; he is Governor of Paris, Marshal, Prince of the Empire. He received the principality of Berg to which was added that of Cleves (1806-1808) and was named King of Naples in place of Joseph in 1808. He plotted with Talleyrand and Fouché, but was not disgraced. If he participates in the Russian campaign, Murat betrays after Leipzig and deals with the Anglo-Austrians in order to keep his kingdom with the consent of Caroline. In 1815, he made contact with Napoleon who was on the island of Elba, tried to raise Italy, but was definitively beaten at Tolentino on May 2 and had to leave the country on May 9. Withdrawn in Provence, he was approached by provocateurs, landed on October 8 in Calabria. He was immediately arrested and tried, condemned and executed on October 13, like the Duc d'Enghein, whom he had had shot eleven years earlier in the ditches of Vincennes..