Joachim, a distinguished French general whom Napoleon created King of Naples, was born on the 25th of March 1771 at La Bastide, near Cahors, where his father was an innkeeper. He acquired some slight degree of elementary instruction at a school in Toulouse, but his taste for dissipation and adventure soon drew him away from his studies. 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, from which he soon afterwards either deserted or was dismissed. Having gone to Paris, he 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 a regiment of chasseurs. 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. Being restored to his rank at the epoch of the 5th October 1795, he served under the orders of Bonaparte, when the latter was employed to disperse the Parisians who had armed against the Convention. Attaching 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. During all that campaign, and the subsequent one of 1797, he greatly signalized himself by his bravery and success. In March 1798 he proceeded at the head of a column to the confines of the Valtelline, 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, Murat, 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 he would follow Napoleon through the world; and throughout the whole course of that expedition he 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 St 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, Napoleon 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 governed, with the title of general, the Cisalpine republic. 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, pursued vigorously the Austrian corps under the Archduke Ferdinand, overcame the corps of Werneck, and entered Vienna on the 11th of November. He then marched against the Russians, and 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 imprudently provoked an insurrection in the capital, which spread the flame of discontent throughout the whole of Spain. Being recalled from Spain, 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, the beau Sabreur readily won the favour of the people. 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 Smorgoni. Fatigued and discontented, however, "the best cavalry officer in Europe," as Napoleon called him, also abandoned the army, and took the road to Naples. 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. 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.

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. 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 invasion of Italy after the return of Napoleon from Elba was in every view a most headlong and irrational proceeding. 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. Resolved to make an attempt to recover his power, he sailed from Corsica for Italy on the 28th of September 1815, with seven transports, containing 250 men, and on the 8th of October reached the Gulf of St Euphrates, 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. Having attempted to raise the country, 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 exclaimed "Sauvez le visage, visez au cœur," instantly fell dead under the discharge. Murat perished in the fortieth 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. Springing 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.