Napoleon and Pozzo: The Venetian agents deployed against France

 

The plan of London and Venice was to smash all remnants of republicanism in France and crush any such new growth everywhere else in the world. Their strategy required a two-pronged attack: Napoleon prepared the battleground, and Pozzo di Borgo delivered the death blow.

Both Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) and Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo (1764-1842) were Corsicans, whose families were centuries-old assets of Venice and Genoa. The two were lifelong friends and first cousins on both the maternal and paternal sides. Both families came from the old Corsican nobility, stretching back to the sixteenth century (the di Buonapartes) and the twelfth century (the Pozzo di Borgos). By the eighteenth century, the two families were intermarried and closely allied in their missions for the oligarchy. In fact, the Genoese Princess Pallavicini reportedly answered, when asked what portion of Napoleon’s actions was dictated by her family, “La buona parte” (“the best part”).

In Corsica, under the regime of Pascal Paoli (1755-1769), the Bonapartes and the Pozzo di Borgos were very closely allied. Not only were they associated by kinship (some Pozzo di Borgos lived on the upper floors of the Bonaparte house), but also politically. Both families supported Paoli’s efforts to liberate Corsica. Napoleon’s father, Charles, participated in the liberation wars with Paoli and was his secretary, while the Pozzos specialized in supplying intelligence reports and diplomacy. Charles Bonaparte became a great supporter of the French and a friend of the French governor to Corsica, Marbeuf. The Pozzos were more restrained in their support, but nevertheless, both families were among the 74 whose noble status was recognized by the French oligarchy, in 1774.  (more...)

Napoleon and Pozzo: The Venetian agents deployed against France