MURAT, JOACHIM (mii-riV), a French military officer; born in Bastide, Lot, France, March 25, 1771. He was the son of an innkeeper at Cahors, and was intended for the Church, but escap ing from the College of Toulouse, he enlisted as a chasseur, but was shortly after dismissed for insubordination. On the formation of the constitutional guard, he entered it, and displaying an active zeal for revolutionary principles, he was soon advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel. The overthrow of the Terrorists checked his progress for a time, but the Directory made him chief of brigade, and in 1796 he accompanied Bonaparte to Italy as aide-de-camp. Here he distin guished himself by his impetuous cour age as a cavalry officer, and was em ployed as a diplomatist at Turin and at Genoa. He followed Napoleon to Egypt, where he decided the victory over the Turks at Aboukir, and returned as Gen eral of Division. In 1800 he married Marie Caroline, Napoleon's younger sis ter; and in 1804 Murat was made Marshal, Grand Admiral, and Prince of the French empire. His services in the campaign of 1805 against Aus tria, during which he entered Vienna at the head of the army, were rewarded with the grand-duchy of Berg. He continued to share Napoleon's vic tories with such distinction, that, in 1808, the emperor placed him on the throne of Naples. After reigning peace
ably four years, he was called to accom pany Napoleon to Russia, as commander in-chief of his cavalry; and, after the defeat of Smolensk, he left the army for Naples. He next took part with Napo leon in the fatal campaign of Germany; but, after the battle of Leipsic, he with drew, and finding that the throne of the emperor began to totter, concluded an alliance against him. In 1815, however, he again took up arms, and formed a plan to make himself master of Italy as far as the Po, at the very time that Austria and the allies, on his repeated assurances that he would remain true to them, had determined to recognize him as King of Naples. It was too late. Austria, therefore, took the field against him, and he was soon driven as a fugi tive to France. After the overthrow of Napoleon he escaped, in the midst of continual dangers, to Corsica, from which he sailed with a few adherents to re cover his lost throne. A gale, off the coast of Calabria, dispersed his vessels, but Murat determined to go on shore. He was seized, and carried in chains to Pizzo. brought before a court-martial and condemned to be shot. This sentence was executed Oct. 13, 1815.