One funny element of Napoleon’s career is how uneasy, quarrelsome, and divided the entire Buonaparte clan has turned, once Napoleon assumed the supreme power, first over France, and then over Europe.
Napoleon’s brothers became kings, in their own right. His more distant relatives, became mighty and illustrious princes, of immense wealth and power. One could have thought, these guys won in a lottery of life (they absolutely did!). From the destitute nobodies they became princes and kings.
(Just a few years ago, the impoverished Buonaparte sisters were - most probably - prostituting themselves on the streets of Marseille. Ten years later, they were queens, and held their own courts)
One could have imagined, all these Buonaparte kids would be now happy & satisfied
But no. Absolutely not.
They became very uneasy, very restless, very quarrelsome. They envied each other, and constantly cross compared their own benefits, with what the other guy (or a lady) got, and would turn troublesome if the other seemingly received more.
So, they did not compare their current position with their beggary of the old days. They compared it with the glory of other members of the family. Not being satisfied with receiving kingdoms and millions out of nothing, they wanted - specifically - larger kingdoms, and more millions, and loftier titles, than, well, anyone else in the family.
Anyone, including Napoleon. Unbelievable it may sound, but one of Napoleon’s brothers, Joseph, did not contest against other brothers and uncles. He contested against Napoleon himself. Apparently, Joseph believed that it is him and not Napoleon who should be the boss. In fact, it is him, Joseph, who might have a better claim for the imperial throne.
After all, isn’t Joseph the eldest brother in the family, and Napoleon - just his lil bro?
***
And of course, Napoleon’s marriage to Josephine de Beauharnais has complicated the things even further. Josephine did not bear any children from Napoleon (that is good). But she had kids from the previous marriage, who were thus introduced to a broader Napoleon’s clan, and got access to its privileges. Which was un-bearable. Why should these Beauharnais scoundrels have a share in *our* family inheritance?
It seems that Napoleon wanted to merge two families, of Buonaparte and Beauharnais, and basically forced the marriage of his younger brother with Josephine’s daughter. Their kid, Napoleon’s nephew Louis (future emperor Napoleon III) was seen as Napoleon’s heir and successor1. Playing with Louis, he advised the “poor child” to never ever take food his cousins will give him, if he wanted to live.
As they say, every joke has a grain of joke.
***
So, theoretically, if Napoleon’s regime persisted, and kept going on, we should have expected the courts of his own brothers, uncles, nephews, nieces to turn into the hotbeds of opposition (much like it was with the Bourbons and the Orleans dynasty).
Because in fact, they have already did. Within the very short time that Napoleonic empire existed, the houses of his own kinsmen - who received everything from Napoleon and lived off his good graces - turned into the lairs of dissent, and intrigue. It is just that for the lack of time, these tendencies never could really play out to the full.
In fact, I find it quite symbolic that Bernadotte, who nailed the coffin of the Napoleonic empire directing the allied campaigns of 1813, was, essentially, a member of the family (though his marriage). Married to the sister of Joseph’s wife, being so close to Joseph, he was regarded as a member of the extended clan, and that made him untouchable. At no point in his career, was he a friend of Napoleon, so his later betrayal could not have been too much of a surprise. But, he was a part of the family.
And for Napoleon, family mattered
Until Napoleon got a son