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Pauline Bonaparte: Dead Cool
Napoleon’s hot, profligate sister shagged like a man, shopped like a Madoff, and wooed a Borghese. The Daily Beast’s Simon Doonan breaks down her many splendors.
There is no celeb today who is as horny, outrageous, and spend-aholic as Napoleon Bonaparte’s gorgeous sister Pauline. She makes Kim Kardashian look like Anne of Green Gables. She makes Victoria Beckham look like she took a vow of poverty and abstinence. Simply put, Pauline was a one-woman walking, talking, shagging, shopping, drop-dead gorgeous tour-de-force.
Let’s dial back.
Pauline was cool because, in an age when women were treated like mules, she was a liberated, self-determining, pushy broad who called the shots and the shags and the shekels.
Pauline was born in Corsica in 1780 with an itch to scratch. By the time she was Miley Cyrus’ age, she was already married to an über-butch army general named Emmanuel Leclerc. A friend of the groom’s described Pauline as, “ a singular mix of all that was most complete in physical perfection, and most bizarre in moral qualities. Although she was the most beautiful person one could imagine, she was also the most unreasonable.”
When her husband was shipped off to Haiti to quell a slave rebellion led by the fabulously named black rebel, Toussaint l’Ouverture, Pauline kicked and screamed and refused to go to. Napoleon solved the matter by ordering his officers to stuff her into a litter and carry her aboard by force.
After two years in the tropics—the new bride kept boredom at bay by strapping on her husband’s subordinates—General Leclerc caught the yellow fever and kicked the bucket. Teflon-Pauline survived, of course, cutting off her hair and flinging it into her husband’s coffin in a tabloid-friendly gesture of grief.
Time is a great healer. After a nanosecond of mourning, Pauline returned to society and the important task of mesmerizing le tout Paris with her fabulous and outrageous behavior: When she needed a foot-rest at the opera, she discovered that the neck of her lady-in-waiting was exactly the right height. When she felt too languid to schlep down the hall for her daily bath of fresh milk, she hired a large black dude named Paul to carry her, and keep track of her loofah.
In August 1803, she hit the mother lode and married Prince Camillo Borghese. She moved into the Borghese Palace in Rome and swanned about in transparent-ish frocks striking Grecian attitudes. Adorned in the famous Borghese diamonds, she was able to achieve a long-held goal: to triple-snap and upstage her sister-in-law, the Empress Josephine.
Pauline hated Roman society and her husband turned out to be more interested in wearing her clothes than tearing them off her body. On one of her many fun-seeking trips to Paree, she lingered in Florence long enough for the great Canova to capture her likeness in one of his marble masterpieces. The resulting Venus gives woodies to teenage boys in the Villa Borghese to this very day.
When it came time, at the age of 44, to pop her cloggs, cancer-stricken Pauline looked fearlessly in a mirror and said, “I am not afraid to die. I am still beautiful.” Work it out, sister!
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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Writer, fashion commentator and window-dresser, Simon Doonan, is known for his provocative "Simon Says" column in the New York Observer. He has written four books: Confessions of a Window Dresser, Wacky Chicks, a memoir entitled Nasty and a tongue-in-cheek style guide entitled Eccentric Glamour to be published in paperback in mid-April. Nasty is to be re-released as Beautiful People. A comedy TV series entitled Beautiful People, produced by Jon Plowman, will debut on LOGO in May.
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Writer, fashion commentator and window-dresser, Simon Doonan, is known for his provocative "Simon Says" column in the New York Observer. He has written four books: Confessions of a Window Dresser, Wacky Chicks, a memoir entitled Nasty and a tongue-in-cheek style guide entitled Eccentric Glamour to be published in paperback in mid-April. Nasty is to be re-released as Beautiful People. A comedy TV series entitled Beautiful People, produced by Jon Plowman, will debut on LOGO in May.
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Writer, fashion commentator and window-dresser, Simon Doonan, is known for his provocative "Simon Says" column in the New York Observer. He has written four books: Confessions of a Window Dresser, Wacky Chicks, a memoir entitled Nasty and a tongue-in-cheek style guide entitled Eccentric Glamour to be published in paperback in mid-April. Nasty is to be re-released as Beautiful People. A comedy TV series entitled Beautiful People, produced by Jon Plowman, will debut on LOGO in May.
DakLak
It appears that the 'author' Simon Doonan was in his window-dresser mode when he scratched out these unprovable, likely unfounded musings.
Must be a slow season for material, even for the Beast.
ChinLee3
Blah, Blah, Blah, Chillax ... Cute article with a twist of an ending.
gwhiz4
DakLak has a point - Doonan doesn't quote any sources. Boring!
whipmawhopma
Ah yes, but do any of us actually know whether or not Doonan was Pauline in a previous life?
joymars
He's just a silly writer.
"Shag"? "Cool"? Where does The Beast get fools like this?
whipmawhopma
England.
dterrydraw
Dear Mr. Doonan,
You should enjoy knowing of Pauline Borghese's romps at La Mignarde (an estate outide of Aix). She foisted herself, for several months, onto the owner (how do you say 'no' to the Emperor's sister?) in order to pursue her affair with a neighboring marquis. Predictably enough, she took over the ground floor of the chateau. And, yes, she demanded her milk baths. This being Provence (not exactly dairy country), however, she was given ass's milk....which she promptly had scented with lavender. Unfortunately, the "used" (to say the least) milk was resold on the Aix market, where the taste was found to be.....odd? Finally, town officials, having launched an investigation into the tainted milk, discovered the source and issued a decree forbidding the sale of milk from the Mignarde estate until such a time as the Princess moved on to take her baths elsewhere.
A true, if slightly icky story.....
Sincerely,
David Terry
www.davidterryart.com
joymars
Nice site.
Thanks for your well-written historic insight -- unlike this fool blogger.
djanimaequeen
Where's the shagging? Tease.
This user is no longer registered.
n--Y--Xertruknickmagoo
This "writer" is a tool. What a horrible woman this was - "cool?" Maybe to people who never met her, but if you had to work within her sphere it must have been hell on earth. Let's see, physically abusive, adulterous, just plain foul behavior to subordinates, and as you say "self-serving bitch." How you equate that with "cool" is beyond me.
dterrydraw
Dear "NickMagoo",
Quite aside from your comment concerning the author...you're utterly correct regarding the woman. I neglected to add that, while Pauline (having uninvitedly taken over the first floor of the chateau at La Mignarde) was boinking a neighboring Marquis, her husband (The Prince Borghese) came to see her. Recall that a Prince of the House of Borghese had never exactly been straining at the bit for a chance to marry some nymphomaniac Corsican commoner. In any case, he arrived, she made it clear that she didn't care one way or another, and the furious/humliated owner of La Mignarde (a procurement officer for Napoleon) had to spend the ENTIRE night pacing back & forth under the front windows with the also-furious/humiliated (but what could he do about it?) Prince Borghese....while Pauline Borghese got her rocks off with the Marquis de Forbin (whom she later and predictably dumped, also). Many people make a great fuss of admiring Pauline's loyalty to her brother after his downfall. My good guess is that, following 20 years of her having self-servingly exploited her relation to him, there weren't exactly a lot of folks who wanted her back. That said?....you're right in your assessment of her; knowing her was, for most people, a fete worse than death.
Level Best,
David Terry
www.davidterryart.com
Bubikon
Thanks for the memories. Of course, Josephine was no slouch when it came to philandering and spending her husband's wealth, but it is interesting that his sister sought to emulate things. Also interesting is the Haiti history, as Josephine was from Barbados and the French Royalty ensconsed there. This is NOT irrelevant, and bears repeating as an interesting sidelight to Napoleon's influence. His siblings often let him down, and bickered among themselves to no end. His sister however seemed to pilot her won ourse of excess and freedom. she is obviously a mixed message today, but one that has meaning to our world.
dterrydraw
to "Daklak" and "Joymars"...
I used to be underpaid to talk about literature and don't (as a general rule these days) intend to begin doing so again for free....BUT (and in regard to your comments about this article?)......you'd do well to equip yourself with the critical phrase "Pisseur de Copie" (google the phrase for Muriel Spark's amusing and productive use of the phrase).
In any case....I think you're both right. I read that article and thought "This guy's more full ofshit than a Christmas goose....AND he doesn't actually KNOW anything about his subject...."
I've only recently become a reader of "the Daily Beast", and I may very soon stop being one if this sort of sophomoric, "Aren't I SHOCKING, And WITTY!... AND WILD, and just sooooo MAD!?!?!??!?!?!?!?" derivative-drivel is to be expected.
the author's tone reminds of that scene from the movie "Cabaret" (I know, I'm dating myself), in which Sally Bowles comes down her front stoop, extends her hand to the naive protagonist.....and he sees her GREEN FINGERNAIL POLISH (!!!!)...and she affectedly asks "Oh...do I SHOCK you?!?!?!?!".......and he pauses for a moment before muttering "Well....no?"
Bemusedly as ever,
David Terry
www.davidterryart.com
keemia
I loved this article! Very cool and fun to read. What's with everybody on this site. Chill OUT!
Thank you.
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