Louis Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.

He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French client state roughly corresponding to the modern-day Netherlands).

In 1802, he married his step-niece Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Empress Joséphine (Napoleon's wife).

Growing tired of his brother's wilfulness, Napoleon annexed Holland into the French Empire in 1810, and Louis went into exile.

[1] Louis Bonaparte's early career was spent in the Army, and he served with Napoleon in the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.

Feeling that the Batavian Republic was too independent for his liking, Napoleon I replaced it with the Kingdom of Holland on 5 June 1806 and placed Louis on the throne.

He forced his court and ministers (mostly provided by Napoleon) to speak only Dutch and to renounce their French citizenships.

On one occasion, after visiting the home of a wealthy Dutch merchant, he liked the place so much that he had the owner evicted so he could take up residence there.

Napoleon appeared disappointed and commented: ″Brother, when they say of some king or other that he is good, it means that he has failed in his rule.″[4] Louis Bonaparte's reign was short-lived due to two factors.

The first was that Napoleon wanted to reduce the value of French loans from Dutch investors by two-thirds, meaning a serious economic blow to the Netherlands.

Napoleon then accused Louis of putting Dutch interests above those of France, and removed most of the French forces in Holland for the coming war in the east, leaving only about 9,000 garrison soldiers in the country.

With Louis unable to defend his realm, France sent 80,000 militiamen, commanded by future King of Sweden Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, and successfully repelled the invasion.

Although traveling in the Netherlands under a false name, some people found out that it was their former king, which led to a cheering crowd gathering under the window of his hotel room.

Louis's son and heir, the future Emperor Napoleon III, on the other hand, was at that time being imprisoned in France for having attempted a Bonapartist coup d'état.

[9] Hortense de Beauharnais gave birth to three sons who were officially claimed by Louis Bonaparte, despite his doubts about their paternity: