The family was descended from Charles-Marie Carlo Bonaparte (1746-1785), an advocate in Ajaccio, Corsica, who in 1764 married Maria-Letizia Ramolino (1750-1836). He had inherited the four-story house. Four years after the Bonapartes' marriage, Corsica was ceded by Genoa to become part of metropolitan France; consequently the second of their eight surviving children, Napoleon Bonaparte, became a military cadet in France. Empress Eugénie refurbished and expanded the house in 1869 in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Napoleon's birth. The house was almost continuously owned by members of the family from 1682 to 1923. In 1967, the house was made into a museum.