Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's indomitable sister
According to Napoleon, his sister Pauline was "the most beautiful woman of her time" and "the best of living creatures".Everything led him to such a conclusion.Its beauty was largely put forward by artists such as the sculptor Antonio Canova and the painters Marie-Guillemine Benoist or Robert Lefèvre.His desire to accompany her brother during her first exile on the island of Elba and the many letters which she sent him to overcome his loneliness during her exile to Sainte-Hélène testify to her loyal and generous nature.
In the shadow of his brother
Pauline Bonaparte's life is an adventure.She was born on October 20, 1780 in Ajaccio, sixth of the eight children of the lawyer and politician Charles Marie Bonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino.The political inclinations of his father, paid in the Corsican nationalist cause, put an end to the good economic situation of the family.In 1793, after Napoleon's confrontation with the Corsican nationalist leader Pascal Paoli, the family, expelled from the island, settled in Marseille.The military prestige that Napoleon acquires the social ascent of the Bonaparte and allows them to overcome economic difficulties and to frequent Provencal High Society.
Despite her youth, Pauline already rubs shoulders with her brother's comrades.After a failed idyll with Junot, Napoleon brought her to his side to Milan to put an end to her relationship with the revolutionary veteran Louis Marie Stanislas Fréron.In the Italian city, she meets Charles Leclerc, one of the trusted men of the future emperor.They married the blessing of this on June 14, 1797;A year later was born dermide, the only child of the couple.But marriage does not prevent Pauline from immersing himself in a spiral of festivals and frivolities, where she does not shine by her loyalty.
The Joyeuse widow
In 1801, Napoleon decided to repress the revolt of the insurgents of Santo Domingo led by Toussaint Louverture by sending his Leclerc brother-in-law to the Caribbean at the head of 20,000 soldiers.Against her will, Pauline is obliged to accompany her husband with little Dermide.Arriving in Port-au-Prince, the capital of the island, she knows how to shine as she did in Paris during her first years of marriage.From celebration to celebration, without having to endure the critical gaze of her brother, she becomes the center of the social life of the French colony.The situation of Leclerc is very different.He must not only use his time to suppress the rebellion, but he also sees, helpless, the yellow fever decimate his troops.
This is the first time that Pauline has had the opportunity to show her big heart.She transforms her home into a campaign hospital that she directs herself and forces those who have attended her salons in search of fun to do the same.However, the tragedy will hit her closely.In November 1802, Leclerc contracted fever and died, forcing Pauline to return to France with Dermid and the embalmed body of her husband.After organizing her husband's funeral, Pauline only mourns the necessary time dictated by the protocol.It is not made to be an eternally grieved widow and soon collecting lovers, including François Joseph Talma, a very popular actor in Paris, which triggers an inevitable scandal.
