December 8, 2008
A force of nature as uncontrolled by her brother Napoleon as the Russian winter, Pauline Bonaparte captivated her peers with her beauty, boundless quest for passion, diamonds and imperiousness. The narrative by British biographer Fraser (Beloved Emma
) fleshes out the privileged and politically unstable world of Pauline, who both commissioned and modeled nearly nude for Canova's symbolic marble statue Venus Victorious
as a testament to herself. Pauline's raison d'être was the joyful pursuit of astonishing variety in her love affairs, which Fraser asserts may have been a source of her invalidism throughout her adult life. But her life showcased the dangers in Napoleonic France as well as its pleasures: she faced death from yellow fever and insurrection in French colonial Haiti. Fraser's narrative provides insight into the permissive culture of the French Empire and glimpses into Napoleon as a protective and exasperated older brother while simultaneously engaged in politics, invasions and his eventual fall from power. Pauline, for her part, survived her setbacks with style—“I am the sister of Bonaparte. I am afraid of nothing”—expressing a spirit that Fraser clearly admires without being blinded by her subject's seductions. 12 pages of color illus.
January 15, 2009
Fraser ("The Unruly Queen"), a prolific biographer in the tradition of her mother, Antonia Fraser, tells the story of Napoleon's favorite sister, a fiercely independent woman who was an internationally heralded celebrity in her time. Reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Europe, she is best remembered today as the model for the semi-nude "Venus Triumphant" by Antonio Canova. Born Paulina and titled the Princess Borghese after her second marriage to a wealthy Italian revolutionary with papal connections, she was renowned for her fierce devotion to her brother, lavish lifestyle as a fashionista of the time, tempestuous love affairs, and scandalous personal behavior, which allegedly included interracial, lesbian, and incestuous trysts. Using Paulina's personal correspondence, the Bonaparte family papers, and other archival sources, Fraser reconstructs Paulina's story, with the rise and fall of her brother's political fortunes as backdrop. Aiming to separate scandal mongering from the reality, Fraser places Paulina's behavior within the context of the Bonaparte family, her clannish Corsican background, and her era, marked as it was by a libertine code of sexual conduct among the aristocracy. A lively and engrossing narrative; highly recommended for libraries serving general readers fascinated by royalty or the political maneuverings of the Napoleonic period.Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 1, 2009
Scarlet women of Regency England (The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline, 1996) have inspired entertaining biographies from Fraser, who now crosses the Channel to survey the scandal-strewn stories about Princess Borghese, Napol'ons youngest sister. Like her brother, Pauline battled her way through a society that condescended to her as a parvenu, but the weapons of her campaigns were her couture, soir'es, and beauty. Men melted at her feet, and treated her whims as their commands. One, second husband Prince Borghese of Rome, paid to immortalize her in a voluptuous statue titled Venus Victrix, the fleshly model of which defeated a series of rumored votaries to the goddess of love. Fraser jauntily judges the likelihood or not of Paulines affairs while giving reign to the gossip they prompted, which included accusations of incest with Napol'on. True or not, the stories drew on Paulines loyalty to her history-making brother, whom she followed into exile on Elba. Discovering practical-minded steel inside the frivolities of this dictatrix of the boudoir, Fraser portrays with panacheher feisty, flighty character.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)