71. Marie Bonaparte, Part I

“I liked murderers. I thought them interesting. Had not my grandfather been one when he killed the journalist? And my great-granduncle Napoleon, what a monumental murderer he was!” – Marie Bonaparte

Welcome back! After a long break to buy new soundproofing equipment – which may or may not have been successful – we’re back with a new miniseries. I’m excited, as I think we’re covering one of the most interesting subjects this show has ever covered: the heiress, philanthropist and pioneering psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte. Naturally, if we’re going to discuss a pioneering child psychologist we have to go back to the beginning and tell the story of her family – and oh, what a family!

Episode 71: “Marie, The Last Bonaparte”

Transcript

Bienvenue and welcome back to The Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and each month I provide a glimpse into French history and culture. As I’ve settled into my new apartment, it took a little longer than I’d hoped to set up a new recording studio, and I had to order some new equipment. It was a blessing in disguise, as this delay gave me time to really luxuriate in the research of this month’s subject, someone who might be one of my favorite characters ever featured on this show. Marie Bonaparte is what I like to call a fascinating woman, the kind of woman who spends her life being unconventional, pioneering, wildly interesting and getting away with it all by being very rich. Her life story is outrageous, shocking, and almost too on the nose metaphorically: she’s the descendant of the man who swept away the Ancien Regime, and used her inheritance to drag Europe into the modern age. Marie Bonaparte was blessed and cursed with a larger-than-life family, and this obsession with family brought her into contact with the ultimate expert on the subject: Sigmund Freud. From a line of tyrants, murderers and emperors, Marie’s own enduring legacy is that of an advocate for the refugee, the child, and the visionary. While her ancestors traded on their power, their money and their name to acquire more of the same, Marie Bonaparte used her influence to push for newer worlds, broader minds and safer harbors. She experimented with her sexuality, she launched an illustrious career, and she saved the life of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Marie Bonaparte’s life is far too interesting to fit into a single episode. To begin – and with Freud, where else could you begin? – we’ll focus on Marie Bonaparte’s family. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. Along the way, we’ll encounter royal refugees, lions, murderers, Hitler, a seriously weird uncle, Edgar Allen Poe, Queen Elizabeth, Leonardo da Vinci, and more. This month, settle in for the fascinating story of Her Royal Highness, Princess Marie of Greece and Denmark, the last Bonaparte. “I do not believe that any man in the world is more unfortunate in his family than I am.” So wrote Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810, after facing another disappointment from his sprawling, fractious family. To give a little credit to the family in question, Bonaparte was as tyrannical over the dinner table as he was over the continent. In the first year of his empire, Napoleon wrote to one of his lieutenants that he expected absolute loyalty, subservience and obedience from his family if they wanted to share in his glory and power. “I recognize only those who serve me as relations. My fortune is not attached to the name of Bonaparte, but to that of Napoleon…those who do not rise with me shall no longer form part of my family.” Ruling over an enormous band of jumped-up Corsicans was like herding cats, and even General Bonaparte himself could barely manage the task. The easiest cat in the bag was Napoleon’s older brother, Joseph, with whom he had always been close. Joseph was the perfect family ally: smart, obedience, and less ambitious than Napoleon. Sometimes he was too unambitious. On the rare occasion that the brothers clashed, it was almost always because Napoleon was asking Joseph to do something besides sit around in the backyard watering tomato plants. In 1806, Napoleon ordered Joseph to go be king of Spain, which was absolutely the last thing Joseph wanted to do, and Napoleon fired back with that warning: cross me and I’ll scratch your name off the family tree. While Joseph eventually gave in, Napoleon faced stiffer resistance from his younger brother, Lucien. Only sixteen during the French Revolution, in many ways Lucien was the “true believer” of the Bonaparte family. From the beginning, Lucien Bonaparte represented the radical branch of the family, an ominous position which would echo over multiple generations. A self-declared Jacobin, the dramatic teenager vowed to “die with a dagger in his hand” and as long as his older brother represented a threat to the Ancien Regime, Lucien would do anything to support his cause. In 1799, Lucien was elected president of the Council of Five Hundred, and his flair for drama played a pivotal role in securing Napoleon’s rise. On the infamous 18th Brumaire, when Napoleon attempted a coup d’etat, Lucien slipped out of the council room and told the guards that the Council of Five Hundred were being harassed by a bunch of terrorists. Then, in a supremely goth 20-something move, Lucien pointed his sword at Napoleon’s heart, and swore to plunge it through his brother’s chest if he ever betrayed the country. At that moment, Lucien ordered the guards to expel anyone who resisted Napoleon’s coup d’etat. The guards marched in, the opposition marched out, Napoleon became the First Consul, and the French Revolution came to an end. Without Lucien, Napoleon might never have come to power – but the moment he did, Lucien began to wonder whether he had not created a tyrant. Napoleon and Lucien clashed over Napoleon’s iron-fisted rule over Europe – but they exploded when Napoleon extended his rule over Lucien’s private life. Before the French Revolution, the teenaged Lucien disobeyed his parents and married the illiterate daughter of an innkeeper. After bearing him two children, Lucien’s first wife died, and the Bonapartes couldn’t wait to marry their third son off to someone more suitable. Unfortunately for Napoleon and his parents, Lucien already had a new wife in mind: a scandalous young widow named Alexandrine Jouberthon. She was completely unsuitable. Despite the objections of his family, Lucien married Alexandrine, and launched another tradition which would continue down his branch of the Bonaparte family for generations to come: marrying below one’s station. Only Mama Bonaparte recognized her son’s marriage – nobody else was willing to risk Napoleon’s anger. Despite a civil ceremony, Napoleon refused to recognize Lucien’s second marriage, or the child it produced, and in 1803 Napoleon made good on his threat and sent Lucien, his wife, and their children into exile. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend – and Napoleon had a lot of enemies, so it didn’t take long for Lucien to make wealthy, powerful friends, including the Pope. In 1804, Napoleon rose once more from First Consul to Emperor. Napoleon issued a reminder to any members of the Bourbon family who still had heads on their shoulders: don’t even think about trying to reclaim your throne, and he issued a proclamation outlining the Bonaparte line of succession. Lucien Bonaparte, without whom Napoleon might never have risen to power, disappeared from the official Bonaparte family tree. A few years later, Napoleon offered Lucien another chance: divorce your wife, and I will welcome you back into the line of succession, and recognize your children as my family. You can even keep Madame Jouberthon as your mistress, so long as you bend the knee and apologize for what you did. Lucien rejected the offer, and tried to escape the continent altogether. Sailing for the United States, Lucien and his family were captured by the British, who allowed him to live the life of an English country gentleman. Napoleon was convinced Lucien was conspiring against him, when in truth the former Jacobin spent most of his time geeking out about telescopes and writing terrible poetry about Charlemagne. After Napoleon’s fall from power, Lucien moved back to Italy, where his friend the Pope granted him the title Prince of Canino. With oodles of money and a dozen children to occupy his time, Lucien spent his days scribbling more mediocre writing and excavating his backyard for Roman ruins. To the last, Napoleon couldn’t stop telling his little brother what to do, and even from his exile on the remote island of St Helena, Napoleon wanted Lucien to “cease writing poetry and to busy himself with writing a history of the Revolution and the Emperor’s reign.” Napoleon died before reconciling Lucien to the official family tree, and the Bonaparte line of succession soon became a headache which would rattle Europe for the next century. Napoleon’s legacy was supposed to be a child of destiny. In 1810, desperate for an heir, he’d married the great-niece of Marie Antoinette, a neat little way to tie up loose ends and bad feelings. The couple could barely stand one another, but they did their duty well enough to produce Napoleon Junior. In 1814, he reigned as Napoleon II for two weeks – and before you scoff, what did you accomplish as a three year old? Not for the last time, the Bonaparte family made a home in Vienna, where Napoleon spent his time twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing of importance and then dying of tuberculosis at the age of 21, without an heir. Napoleon’s older brother Joseph had died without having any sons, so the line of succession should have passed to Lucien, old but still kicking around the Italian countryside. But since Napoleon had erased Lucien and all of his children from the Bona