Elizabeth Bonaparte was born on February 6, 1785, in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the daughter of William and Dorcas (Spear) Patterson. Her father emigrated to that city from County Donegal, Ireland, in 1766, dealt shrewdly in arms and munitions during the Revolution, and as merchant, banker, and landowner became one of the wealthiest men in Maryland.
Elizabeth was early famous for her beauty, and was ambitious and headstrong as well as beautiful. She made a conquest of the nineteen-year-old Jerome Bonaparte when he visited Baltimore; and on Christmas Eve, 1803, with the reluctant consent of her father, she married him. Expecting trouble, her father tried to protect her by a special marriage contract and, though himself a Presbyterian, had the ceremony performed by the ranking Catholic ecclesiastic in the United States. The father's foreboding was justified; Napoleon, refusing to recognize the marriage, ordered his brother to return to France alone.
When the truant finally did return in 1805, it was on a ship of his father-in-law's and accompanied by his wife. At Lisbon they parted, Jerome hastening to Paris to negotiate a reconciliation, while Elizabeth, forbidden to land on European soil, proceeded ultimately to England, where her son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, was born at Camberwell, July 7, 1805. In his brother's presence Jerome's resolution melted. Pope Pius VII declined to annul the marriage, but a French council of state was more pliable, and Jerome as the last reward of his compliance was married to the Princess Catharine of Württemberg and was made king of Westphalia. To his first wife, who wasted no pity on herself, Napoleon gave an annual pension of 60, 000 francs, on condition that she stay in America and renounce the Bonaparte name.
She vegetated in Baltimore until the Napoleonic fabric crashed in 1815. Then she secured a divorce from Jerome by a special act of the Maryland legislature and set out for Europe, where she spent most of her time until 1840, was made much of in society, and found an appreciative audience for her extraordinary beauty, caustic wit, and brummagem royalty. She spent lavishly to educate her son and to clothe herself, but was otherwise parsimonious. The second Jerome finally disappointed her by failing to make a brilliant European match and by condescending to marry a girl from Baltimore, Susan May Williams. With the Bonapartes her relations were prevailingly cordial; Napoleon himself she admired as a man after her own heart. The legitimacy of her son was recognized by Napoleon III but his right to succession disallowed. The last eighteen years of Madame Bonaparte's life were passed in Baltimore. She lived obscurely in a boarding house and by pinching economy and strict attention to her real estate was able to leave a fortune of approximately $1, 500, 000 to her two grandsons.
Elizabeth and Jerome Bonaparte were married on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1803 and the final divorce was received in 1815.
