Jerome I of France (Crown of the Emperor)

Jerome I (born Girolamo Buonaparte; 15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was the King of Westphalia from 1807 to his death in 1860 and later the Emperor of the French in 1840 to 1860.

A member of the consular guard from 1800, Jerome was transferred to the navy soon after he was wounded in a duel. Napoleon sent Jerome to the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1801 as a member of the expeditionary forces to put down the slave rebellion occurring there. He was ordered to return to France in the summer of 1803. Fearing British capture if he sailed for France from the Caribbean, Jerome sailed instead for the United States. There, while visiting the city of Baltimore, he met and soon married Elizabeth Patterson, the 18-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant. The pair sailed for Europe in 1805. Because Napoleon intended to expand his power in Europe by making politically advantageous marriages for his siblings, he ordered Jerome’s pregnant wife to be excluded from his realm. As a result, Jerome’s son was born in England. Jerome soon saw the advantage in complying with the emperor’s wishes and rejected his wife and child in order to partake of the advantages of empire.

He took command of a small squadron in the Mediterranean and took part in the campaign of 1806. An imperial decree annulled his first marriage in 1807. The emperor then arranged Jerome’s marriage to Princess Catherine of Württemberg and made him king of Westphalia. During the early years of his reign, Jerome spent enormous amounts of money on improving the streets, parks, and buildings in his kingdom and especially on renovating his palace. In addition to this, the men he appointed to high office were either inept or corrupt. He soon drained his country’s treasury and enraged Napoleon. His most famous accomplishment was the then-unusual granting of rights to the Jews of Westphalia.

In 1820, Jerome was threatened by revolution due to his appointment of corrupt officials.