BONAPARTE JEROME (1784–1860), brother of Napoleon I. 5 AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED (‘Jérôme’, ‘J.’, or ‘Jérôme Napoléon’) TO HIS DAUGHTER, PRINCESS MATHILDE. Rotterdam, London, Antwerp, Bagni di Pisa, Quarto, Florence, Le Havre, Meudon, Villegenis and Palais-Royal, 1840–1842 and 1856–1857.

Some letters with crowned monogram and address. An important and revealing correspondence from Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon I, addressed to his daughter Princess Mathilde. This collection of letters provides valuable insight into the familial negotiations, personal anxieties, and political considerations surrounding the marriage between Mathilde and Prince Anatole Demidov—celebrated in Rome on 1 November 1840. The letters were written from London, Antwerp, and the Baths of Pisa. In the letter dated March 14: [Demidov is] ‘mad, ambitious, and heartless!!!’ ‘He is a nervous, cruel, and ambitious man, spoiled by women; he respects none of them. If you weren’t at the center of all this, he would have already lost his head for his disloyal behavior!!!’ Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia (1807–1813), was the youngest brother of Napoleon I Bonaparte. Mathilde-Létizia Wilhelmine Bonaparte (1820–1904) was a French princess and the hostess of a famous salon during the Second Empire and the Third Republic. She was the daughter of Napoleon I's brother Jérôme and his second wife, Catharina of Württemberg. On November 1, 1840, in Rome, she married Anatole Demidov (1812–1870); the marriage produced no children. The union between two strong personalities—Demidov and Mathilde—was stormy. The prince insisted on continuing his affair with Valentine de Saint-Aldegonde, and this desire met fierce resistance from Mathilde. In 1846, Mathilde fled with her lover Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, taking with her the jewels from her dowry (they had been bought by Demidov from her father-in-law and were considered his property). Reference is made to numerous social and family connections: the Emperor, the Empress and the Imperial Prince, Bacciochi, Baron Stoëlting, Count Léon, General de Montholon, the Duke of Sutherland, Lord and Lady Holland, Mrs Norton, her brother Joseph, her sons Napoleon and Jérôme, her nephew Lucien Murat, the Duke of Devonshire, Lady Palmerston, Lady Cooper, Lady Seymour, Julie Clary, the Prince and Princess of Wasa, Poniatowski, Corsini, Cipriani, Mme de Reiset