Point Breeze: Joseph Bonaparte's American - estate of former king in New Jersey; art, furniture collections

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2002 by Patricia Tyson Stroud

On ornament to society (1) was the way Napoleon I (r. 1804-1815) described his older brother Joseph Bonaparte (P1. II). Although this description had an edge to it, since Joseph Bonaparte had not been the ambitious ruler Napoleon had hoped for, it accurately forecast the nature of the older Bonaparte's life in the United States. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and subsequent surrender to the English aboard the HMS Bellerophon, Joseph Bonaparte set sail for exile in the new world, and for a life in which he and his art collection truly became ornaments to society.

In 1816 Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-king of Naples and of Spain, bought an estate called Point Breeze near Bordentown, New Jersey, twenty-five miles northeast of Philadelphia. There he built a grand house on a promontory overlooking the Delaware River (P1. I). In time he bought up numerous contiguous farms, orchards, meadows, and wetlands, constructed twelve miles of carriage roads through his property, and dammed Crosswicks Creek, a tributary of the Delaware, to form a half-mile-long lake. Several islands in the lake were planted with rare trees and shrubs, and European swans glided about on the water's surface. Small swan-shaped pleasure boats were moored in a quiet cove.

Joseph Bonaparte's attributes stood him in good stead in his initial attempt to establish himself in the United States, where animosity to Napoleon was often quite strong. The banker Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844), who became one of Bonaparte's closest friends in the United States, said that he was

by far the most interesting stranger that I have ever known in this country. He is free and communicative and talks of all the great events and the great persons of his day with a frankness which assures you of his good nature as well as his veracity. (2)

Speaking about politics, Bonaparte told Biddle that his ideas were formed during the French Revolution and that he was a republican "more even than you Americans are. I did not wish the formation of the French Empire." (3) A French contemporary wrote in his memoirs:

As a private man, M. Joseph was very fine; he was intelligent and spirited [perhaps a discreet reference to his charm with women], he loved letters and arts; and to those excellent qualities was joined an amiable and loyal character. (4)

At Point Breeze, the comte de Survilliers, as Joseph Bonaparte called himself here, welcomed countless visitors, both the curious, who came to see his large collection of European paintings, and his friends and acquaintances. He entertained the leading men and women of his day, including the congressman and jurist Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), also a resident of Bordentown; Biddle, whose country estate Andalusia was just across the Delaware River; the English reformer and author Frances Wright (1795-1852) when she visited the United States; and Stephen Girard (1750-1831) of Philadelphia, a fellow Frenchman, a banker and shipping magnate, and at the time the richest man in the United States. Prominent politicians who partook of Bonaparte's hospitality included President John Quincy Adams; Henry Clay (1777-1852), Adams's secretary of state; and Daniel Webster (1782-1852).

Point Breeze was also a meeting place for exiled French generals, several of whom had served under Joseph Bonaparte when he was king of Spain. In 1824, when General Lafayette (1757-1834) made his triumphal tour of the United States, he visited Point Breeze twice, arriving aboard a sixteen-oared barge that was said to be a gift to Bonaparte from Girard.

Joseph's wife, Julie Clary Bonaparte (see P1. IV), was the daughter of Francois Clary, a rich merchant in Marseilles, and his wife Rose. Julie Bonaparte was always in precarious health and feared ocean travel, which prevented her from joining her husband in the United States. Nevertheless, she allowed her two daughters, Zenaide and Charlotte (Pls. IV, VI), to visit their father. Charlotte came in 1821 and Zenaide arrived in 1823 with her husband and cousin, the naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803-1857), the son of Joseph Bonaparte's younger brother Lucien (1775-1840). In the summers, Joseph Bonaparte often traveled with his daughters and a large entourage to Ballston Spa and Saratoga Springs and to his hunting lodge, all in northern New York State. He invariably took gold plates for picnics in the woods and an elegant traveling toiletries case (P1. VIII) fitted with silver-topped jars, manicure tools, and a silver corkscrew. (5)

The first house that Bonaparte built at Point Breeze burned to the ground in 1820. However much to his amazement and gratitude, the people of Bordentown rushed to the rescue, saving nearly all the paintings, engravings, sculpture, furniture, rugs, silver, books, linen, and jewels. Bonaparte at once began to rebuild, aided by the French master mason Theodore Mauroy whom he had employed at Mortefontaine, his estate near Ermenonville north of Paris. (6) He chose a site further back from the promontory where the first house had been. The view was not as spectacular but the situation decidedly was more comfortable, with far less exposure to the wind. All that was left of the old mansion was the belvedere from which to view sunsets that Bonaparte often compared to those of Venice. Above the entrance he had inscribed: "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere" (Not unaware of misfortune, I know to help the unfortunate). (7) Perhaps this was a constant reminder not to take for granted the opulence in which he lived.