Murat, Joachim, one of the lieutenants of Napoleon, was born on the 25th of March 1771, at La Bastide, near Mols Cahors, where his father was an innkeeper. Being sent to school at Toulouse, he there acquired some slight degree of elementary instruction; but his taste for dissipation and adventure soon drew him away from his studies, which he appears to have entirely neglected. Having returned to the hostelry of his father, he engaged in the service of the house along with the domestics, and then enlisted in the chasseurs of the Ardennes. But, in consequence of some misconduct, he soon afterwards deserted, and having gone to Paris, fell into such distress that he was obliged to serve at the table of a restaurateur. Being remarked for his activity and bearing, and his father having resolved to send him some assistance, he was admitted into the constitutional guard of Louis XVI.; and, on the disbanding of that body, which followed soon after its formation, he obtained a sub-lieutenancy in the eleventh regiment of chasseurs à cheval. Here he showed himself a furious revolutionist, and in consequence obtained rapid promotion. He was already lieutenant-colonel, and one of the most fervent adherents of Marat, when, upon the death of that ferocious tribune of the people, he wrote from Abbeville, where he was then in garrison, requesting the society of the Jacobins at Paris to grant him permission to change his name into that of Marat. It is not known whether his request was positively complied with; but it is certain that, after the fall of Robespierre, he was, like Bonaparte, dismissed as a terrorist, and, like him also, found himself at Paris, nearly without resources, in expectation of some change which might prove favourable to his prospects. Nor were his hopes in this respect disappointed. Being restored to his rank at the epoch of the 13th Vendemiaire (3rd October 1793), he served under the orders of Bonaparte, when the latter was employed to disperse the Parisians who had armed against the Convention. Attacking himself more and more to this young general, Murat showed much intelligence and bravery at the opening of the campaign of Italy in 1796, and became the confidential aide-de-camp of Bonaparte. In consequence of a mission to the court of Turin, which had made overtures of peace, he set out for Paris with despatches relative to the negotiations; and, in the month of June, he accompanied Fayout to Genoa, with instructions to demand of the doge the expulsion of the imperial minister. On his return to the army, Murat directed several attacks with success; and during all that campaign, and the subsequent one of 1797, he signalled himself by his bravery. In March 1798, he proceeded at the head of a column to the confines of the Valcine, and united that province to the new Cisalpine republic. He likewise preceded Bonaparte when, after the peace of Campo Formio, that general traversed Switzerland and Alsace on his way to Rastadt. Being sent to Rome with Berthier, he marched against the insurgents of Marino, Albano, and Castello, killed a great many of them, and caused to be arrested a considerable number of monks and prelates, reputed enemies of France. When the expedition to Egypt had been resolved on, he declared, that being attached by gratitude to Bonaparte, he would follow him through the world; in fact, he never quitted his chief, and throughout the whole course of that expedition distinguished himself, particularly at Mount Tabor, where, by a series of brilliant charges, he completed the dispersion of the Turkish army, and was rewarded with the rank of general of division. On his return to France with Napoleon, Murat rendered him effectual service at Saint-Cloud, when he changed the form of the government, and took possession of power. It was Murat who, at the head of sixty grenadiers, dispersed the Council of Five Hundred. He was immediately named commandant of the consular guard, and henceforth enjoyed unlimited favour. To draw still closer the ties which united them, Napo- leon gave Murat his sister Caroline in marriage. He also employed him as one of his lieutenants in the army of reserve, and in this capacity Murat entered Milan, occupied Piacenza, and commanded the cavalry at the battle of Marengo. In the following year he commanded the army of observation, and, along with Macheroux, signed at Foggino an armistice between the French government and the king of the Two Sicilies. He then governed, with the title of general, the Cisalpine republic, and repaired to the Consulta at Lyons, in virtue of which he installed the new authorities in 1802. On the 1st of January 1804, he was appointed governor of Paris, with the rank of general-in-chief, and directed the military force when Napoleon was proclaimed emperor. A few days after this event, he was elevated to the rank of marshal of the empire, and in the following year he was raised to the dignity of prince and of high admiral.

On the breaking out of hostilities with Austria in 1806, he passed the Rhine at Kehl with the reserve of cavalry, advanced into Swabia, and, at the moment of the capture of Ulm and the capitulation of Mack, pursued vigorously the Austrian corps under the orders of the Archduke Ferdinand, in their retreat through Franconia towards Bohemia. Having overtaken the corps of Werneck, he forced it to lay down its arms, and, taking the road to Vienna, entered that capital on the 11th of November. He then marched against the Russians in Moravia, and by different charges of cavalry contributed to the victory of Austerlitz. Being invested with the grand duchy of Berg, he assumed the style of a sovereign; figured in the two subsequent campaigns, particularly at the battle of Jena; made his public entry into Warsaw on the 28th of November 1807; and commanded the cavalry at the battle of Eylau, and also at that of Friedland.

In April 1808, he entered Spain at the head of a numerous army, and employed all sorts of artifices to exasperate the differences which already existed in the royal family. Having, by a mixture of intimidation and coquetry, induced them to set out for Bayonne, where Napoleon waited to receive them, he provoked an insurrection in the capital, which, though speedily extinguished, spread the flame of discontent throughout the whole of Spain, and gave the first impulse to that spirit of resistance which, encouraged and supported by Britain, ultimately effected the deliverance of the Peninsula. Being recalled from Spain, where his imprudence had proved so detrimental to the interests of his master, he was, on the 1st of August 1808, proclaimed king of the Two Sicilies, under the name of Joachim-Napoleon. As he succeeded Joseph Bonaparte, whom the Neapolitans despised, the comparison was to his advantage; whilst, by the pomp he displayed, and his martial air and bearing, he won the favour of the people, who are always ready to be caught by appearances. The invasion of Russia in 1812 recalled him under the banners of his former master. Being placed at the head of the cavalry, he took part in all the operations which preceded the capture of Moscow; he also commanded a separate corps at Kaluga, where at first he obtained some advantages, but subsequently experienced great reverses; and after the departure of Napoleon from the army, he was intrusted with the command of it in its disastrous retreat from Smorgon. Fatigued and discontented, however, he also abandoned the army, and took the road to Naples, in the hope of yet supporting a throne which seemed destined to crumble into pieces along with the colossal fabric of the French empire. His whole subsequent conduct betrays the inherent weakness and instability of his character. On his return to his capital, he made overtures to the court of Vienna, with a view to the formation of an alliance with Austria; but the campaign of 1813 soon afterwards opened; and as the first events proved favourable to Napoleon, Murat quitted Naples, and once more repaired to the headquarters of the French army, though with less zeal and parade than formerly, and as if constrained to appear there. After the loss of the battle of Leipzig, he withdrew to his states, and, considering the star of Napoleon as for ever eclipsed, he opened his ports to the English, and renewed the negotiations for the accession of Naples to the European alliance against France. As the price of this defection, he obtained the recognition of his political existence and of his right of conquest to the city of Ancona and the pontifical marches; but his sincerity was justly doubted by the allies, whom he had joined from necessity, whilst Napoleon naturally reproached him with conduct at variance with every principle of loyalty and gratitude.

It is unnecessary to give details of his subsequent proceedings, the account of which belongs properly to the history of the country at the head of which the fortune of war and of conquest had placed him. Though brave as a lion in the field of battle, he showed himself one of the weakest of men when not in presence of the enemy. He had no moral courage. His title of king had turned his head, and he incurred the double reproach of treachery and ingratitude, without deriving the slightest advantage from his dereliction of principle. His invasion of Italy after the return of Napoleon from Elba was in every view a most headlong and irrational proceeding, inasmuch as all the chances were against him, and defeat was certain to be followed by destruction. After the failure of this absurd attempt, he lived for some time in retirement at Plaisance, a country-house near Toulon, where he first learned the tidings of the battle of Waterloo. The news of this disaster sounded as the death-knell of all his hopes. In the space of two months, he had lost his army, his fleet, part of his treasures, his crown, and even his field equipage; and now, after the second abdication of the man in whose fortune alone he could repose any hope for the future, all seemed irrecoverably lost. He escaped to the island of Corsica, where he had many partizans, and began to form new projects. An asylum was offered him in Bohemia, Moravia, or Austria, on condition of his renouncing the title of king, submitting to the laws of the country, and consenting not to quit his residence without the permission of the emperor. But having resolved to make an attempt to recover his power by effecting a landing in Italy, he sailed from Corsica on the 28th of September 1815, with seven transports, containing 250 men; and, on the 8th of October, reached the Gulf of St Euphemia, where one only of his barks had rejoined him, the rest being separated in a gale of wind. When he landed at Pizzo, he was accompanied by only thirty men, and knew not what course to follow. To wait for the other barks, or to make an attempt to raise the country, seemed equally dangerous. He at length decided in favour of the latter course; but all his efforts were vain. The inhabitants flew to arms, and attacked his troop, upon which the two small vessels immediately stood out to sea. Murat attempted to launch a fishing-boat which he found upon the beach; but the task exceeded his strength, and escape was impossible. Having been made prisoner, he was lodged in the castle of Pizzo, tried by a military commission, condemned, and sentenced to be shot. The judgment of the court was carried into execution on the 13th of October, when this singular man, whom death had spared in a hundred battles, fell ingloriously in an obscure town of Calabria, the victim of his own folly and ambition. He appears to have died in a manner worthy of his reputation for courage. He refused to allow his eyes to be bandaged, saw the arms charged, placed himself so as to receive the concentrated fire of the soldiers, and, exclaiming "Sauvez le visage; vissez au cœur," instantly fell dead under the discharge. Murat perished in the forty-eighth year of his age, after having experienced every variety of fortune; indeed he was a man whose destiny may, in some respects, be considered as the most extraordinary in modern times. Sprung from the lowest class of society, and raised to supreme rank, his elevation was the more surprising that he had neither the great qualities nor the great vices which seem to command events. Fortune had so blinded him, that he neither perceived the inevitable dangers with which the fall of Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbons had surrounded him, nor could he turn to account the resources which circumstances still placed in his power.