Napoleon annulled his brother's Baltimore marriage, and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's son lost his claim to the Bonaparte inheritance in a Paris court

On Christmas Eve 1803 Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of the Baltimore merchant William Patterson, married Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, before Bishop John Carroll. Jérôme was a minor and lacked his mother's consent. Napoleon ordered him home and barred Elizabeth from landing on the continent. In 1805 her ship was turned away at Lisbon, and on 5 July 1805 she gave birth to their son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, in Camberwell, London. Napoleon had the marriage annulled in France by October 1806, though the Pope would not annul it, and married Jérôme to Princess Catherine of Württemberg; they became King and Queen of Westphalia. Elizabeth obtained a divorce by special act of the Maryland legislature in 1815. Her own father's will was the subject of an 1835 legal opinion on "the rights of Betsey Patterson Bonaparte and her son." Jérôme died on 24 June 1860. In 1861 Elizabeth and her son claimed his inheritance in Paris against Prince Napoléon. The Tribunal of the Seine ruled their demands "not admissible." She died in Baltimore on 4 April 1879 with an estate of $1.5 million, during a fight with Maryland over tax on her bonds that the US Supreme Court decided for the state. Her grandson Charles Joseph Bonaparte became US Attorney General.