On August 19, 1815, the brig Commerce, out of Bordeaux, came barreling through the Narrows. She had made an unscheduled nighttime stop on July 24 off the Gironde to pick up passengers from an open boat, including one Comte Surviglieri. He took rooms in Mrs. Powell’s boarding house on Park Place, just off City Hall Park, under the name Bouchard. One afternoon, the man who now called himself Bouchard was strolling down Broadway when a French ex-grenadier who had served with Napoleon’s armies in Spain walked up. The veteran glanced at Bouchard and stopped. Bouchard gazed back politely. Then the old soldier fell to his knees, bawled out “Majesty,” and kissed the hands of Bouchard, before whom he had so often passed in review when he was His Most Catholic Majesty Jose I, King of Spain and of the Indies.

That had been one role played by Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s older brother, who had expected to be a small-time Corsican lawyer. For all the sound and fury, the French Revolution, which began as Joseph completed his studies in 1789, largely involved substituting elites. Thus, much as Napoleon became a general by the age of 25, Joseph was elected mayor of his hometown in 1790, when he was 22, and then a deputy to the National Assembly. More lucrative jobs came through Napoleon, who inveigled appointments for him first in the army and eventually as ambassador to the Vatican. All the while, Joseph enriched himself through insider trading and marriage to an heiress.

Military dictator from 1799, Napoleon was crowned emperor on December 2, 1804. In David’s painting of the coronation, Joseph stands at extreme left in white silk tunic and velvet hat with ostrich plumes. Napoleon made him King of Naples in 1806, where he seemed quite successful. Two years later, Napoleon forced the Spanish kings to abdicate in favor of Joseph, transferring him from Naples as if he were a corporate executive. Most Spaniards loathed Joseph as a foreigner, calling him Pepe Botellas (Joe Bottles) or the Intrusive King. Within days, Madrid was torn by the riots made immortal by Goya. Thus began what Napoleon called “the Spanish ulcer,” the resistance that would bleed France dry.

Joseph tried to do good. He was enough of an old revolutionary to decree universal suffrage, democratically elected legislatures for local and national government, and universal free education for boys and girls (the latter truly revolutionary in Spain). Today, the Prado, Spain’s greatest museum, admits it was founded by decree of King Jose I in 1809.

Only after Napoleon shifted his attention to the 1812 Russian campaign did Joseph take command against the British forces in Spain. He was utterly defeated at Vitoria on June 21, 1813. After a British breakthrough, he ordered a general retreat and, without plans for orderly withdrawal, his soldiers simply ran away. A British cavalryman easily caught Joseph’s slow-rolling coach and fired his pistols into its near window. The Intrusive King extruded himself from the other side and, leaping onto a horse, rode for his life.

Joseph left behind his crown, papers (including love letters that provided considerable amusement when published), and a large silver chamber pot. This last was taken by the 14th Light Dragoons, now the King’s Royal Hussars, who still use it at mess dinners for champagne toasts.

He escaped to France, where, given responsibility for the defense of Paris, he surrendered nearly without a shot and exiled himself to Switzerland, returning only during the Hundred Days to become Napoleon’s prime minister. After the defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, Joseph, whose agents had chartered the Commerce for his own escape, offered to give Napoleon his place on the boat while impersonating the emperor – they had often been mistaken for one another – to buy time. Instead, the emperor surrendered to the British, who imprisoned him on St. Helena until his death in 1821.

New York’s newspapers somewhat excessively lionized Joseph as a heroic figure of the Napoleonic adventure. He purchased an estate at Point Breeze on the Delaware River, near Bordentown, N.J., where his neighbors, whom he frequently entertained, found him polite, unpretentious, and kind. Queen Julie never came to America with their daughters. Nonetheless, Joseph was not lonely during 17 happy years in America. He imported the first company of ballet dancers seen in this country and pioneered serving Champagne at breakfast, for which temperance ladies excoriated him.

When Napoleon’s only legitimate son died in 1832, Joseph became the Bonapartist pretender and, after thanking President Jackson for the hospitality of the American people, returned to Europe. He died at Florence in 1844 with Julie at his side. He was buried in the full-dress of a Spanish captain-general, wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece, Spain’s most noble order of chivalry. He had awarded it to himself.