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The entrance of Joseph Bonaparte into Naples at the head of the French Armée de Naples on February 15th, 1806, marked the beginning of a new era in the far-flung southern corners of Italy. Following the atrocities of the counter-revolution in 1799, the entrance of the enlightened Bonapartist ruler to the capital years later was accepted generally well by the middle and upper classes, and even the troublesome lazzaroni remained quiet on this occasion. Notwithstanding the protests of the clergy, Joseph assumed his official role as King and head of state on the 30th of March by decree of his younger brother, the Emperor. With Joseph’s arrival to Naples also came a tidal wave of French military and civil officials, seeking to enrich themselves on the vast amounts of material wealth in the country.
Fortunately for Joseph, he was not completely alone in the task of reforming and reshaping the old and conservative structure of the Neapolitan Kingdom; on his side presented themselves many capable men, veterans of the French Revolution like Saliceti, Roederer, Dumas and Miot, and insiders to Neapolitan politics such as the Duke di Gallo or Michele Cianciulli who proved themselves ready to set in motion the cogs of reform to an enthusiastic population. While strained under the effort of upkeeping the French troops in the area, the new government soon began to form in a clear way.
 Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples, by Costanzo Angelini. The Ministries of Police and the Interior were among the first to be set up, with Saliceti and Miot appointed as their respective heads. On 3 March the French authorities appointed Police Commissars in each district, supported by Inspectors of police and a force of Gendarmes. The Commissars were given powers to arrest suspected enemies of the state, to impose censorship, control and inspect the mail, issue licenses for carrying firearms, regulate all public meetings, markets, and fairs, and in particular to detain all ‘vagabonds, beggars and unknown persons’. Soon, the Commissariat was also being purged of former royalists.
With the new organisation of the Kingdom, Joseph appointed several key officials among which were Roederer, Dumas, the Duke di Campochiaro, the Princes Cassano-Serra and Pignatelli-Cerchiara, Marquis Cianciulli and the Duke di Gallo as respectively Ministers of Finance, War, the Royal Household, Ecclesiastical Matters, the Marine, Justice, and Foreign Affairs. These powerful men would struggle for many months not only to salvage the remains of the Kingdom’s wrecked economy but to also feed and pay the French troops stationed on their lands; the Emperor himself barely contributed to aiding his new Mediterranean client. However, while the scuffle for money was initially vicious, the situation began to improve in early 1807 and by May of that year, the finances of the new government were beginning to present a satisfactory aspect.
Regarding government policy, the new Kingdom’s ruler and top statesmen shared the intent to abolish without mercy every remaining trace of feudalism. Feudal tenures immediately were abolished on all lands owned by the Crown, while peasants were freed of many feudal restrictions and encouraged in agricultural pursuits. By decree of the 2nd of August 1806 all baronial jurisdiction, all rights to personal services, and all water rights were abolished. A month later a decree was issued providing for the division of feudal land among actual occupiers; furthermore, unused feudal land near villages were given to three main tribunals in Naples that occupied themselves with solving disputes over land, a move that caused many quarrels between the landowners of the ancien régime and the government. These would only be solved in the reign of Joachim Murat (see article).
With the Kingdom in a quite tumultuous state of criminal, political and military disorder, the Ministry of Justice found it necessary to turn to extraordinary and summary judicial processes to quickly get rid of captured Bourbon guerrillas and enemies of the state; some 5,000 prisoners were disposed of in the first four months. In many cases, independent commanders of counterinsurgency units themselves gave verdicts on prisoners, saving the provincial courts the trouble of putting them on trial. In 1806 regular tribunals dealing with brigandage and high treason were established, meanwhile steps were taken to finally recast the law in the format of the Code Napoléon. By the 2nd year of Joseph’s reign, the introduction of imperial legislation to Naples was already quite complete, and administrative matters were recast on the French model.
Accordingly, with the reorganisation of the government, the Neapolitan provinces and districts were also remade; 14 provinces were designated, each governed by an Intendente who managed the province’s affairs, whose subordinates were the Sotto-Intendenti, the prefects of the province’s districts. Each municipality in turn had its own Decurionato, a council that decided on all matters relating to the municipality’s wants, expenses and revenue. Municipal Syndics were elected each year by the council, which had a quarter of its members replaced annually.
On the larger political scale, both the provinces and districts had their own councils, who at the end of each year brought into judgement their elected Intendenti and Sotto-Intendenti, who, if guilty of any financial injustice, would be censured and hence unable to be elected for office again. Such overtures allowed the new French government some breathing space in managing the problem of brigandage by assigning gendarmerie and police to each district, while also maintaining a network of loyal officials in each province that kept the central government in Naples informed about the matters of individual districts and towns.
By any means, the enlightened government of Joseph continually strived to dust off the remains of the traditionalist Bourbon rule in the Kingdom’s social spheres. By far the most dangerous measure taken by the government of Joseph was the suppression of the clergy - while nowhere near abolished, at least two hundred monasteries and property at the estimated value of 150 million francs were seized by the state between 1806 and 1808. Joseph clearly saw the profits of milking religious corporations for money, as he wrote proudly to Napoleon: “I have just suppressed all the rich Orders”. Hence, throughout the French decade, the ultra-conservative Neapolitan clergy remained a source of fomentation that sowed discord among the lower spheres of the Kingdom’s society, notwithstanding the generous pensions granted to dispossessed monks. In 1807 and 1811 was not unusual for brigands in Calabria to hide in religious convents, a clear sign of the masked support the clergy offered to the exiled Bourbons in Sicily.
Overall, however, it can be judged that Joseph-Napoléon’s reign as King of Naples was a largely successful one. While it did not eradicate the brigandage (this would only come with Manhès’s brutal suppressions of 1811), his rule successfully introduced the enlightened policies of the Empire without meeting nor causing any major social opposition in the upper classes, as was the case in the days of 1799. Joseph’s administration set the stage for the expansion of the Army and the creation of a sense of patriotic sentiment for the Neapolitans, while also salvaging the economy and establishing the Kingdom’s position as a major zone of Imperial influence in Italy. While not loved as dearly by his subjects as Murat, the Bonaparte Prince proved to be a capable and cool-headed administrator, who performed precisely what was expected of him by his brother and raised few objections through his directing of the Kingdom’s affairs. References
Joseph Bonaparte's Reign in Naples
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