Pauline Bonaparte (1780-1825) was the sister of Napoleon, Duchess of Guastalla, an imperial French princess & princess consort of Sulmona & Rossano. She was once described as being “an extraordinary combination of perfect physical beauty & the strangest moral laxity”

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From a young age, Pauline had no interest in education and devoted herself to fashion, frivolity & flirting instead. At 17, Napoleon swiftly arranged for her to be married to Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, one of his officers, after he caught them having Sex in his study.

Pauline gave birth to a boy, Dermide Louis Napoleon, on 20 April 1798.

In 1801, Leclerc was posted to the French colony of Saint-Domingue on Hispaniola to put down a rebellion, and a very reluctant Pauline went with him.

Her health suffered greatly & she caught yellow fever several times. This didn’t stop her taking many lovers, including several of her husband's soldiers. People were starting to talk about her "Bacchanalian promiscuity.”

In November 1802, Leclerc died. Pauline cut all her hair off and placed it in the coffin with her husband - and then returned to Paris. She wrote to her brother, “I have brought with me the remains of my poor Leclerc. Pity poor Pauline, who is truly unhappy."

Her son Dermide sadly died in 1804 and was buried with his father in the grounds of the Château de Montgobert. Pauline was distraught.

Whereas few people washed regularly at this time, Pauline was fanatical about washing. Every day she had a black servant carry her to the bath of water & milk, & lower her in.

She would regularly entertained men while she was in the bath & shocked other guests by changing her clothes in front of them. She wore sheer dresses and rouged her nipples for maximum impact.

Eight months after the death of her first husband, pauline married prince Camillo Borghese. Many were shocked she was marrying again so soon, but Camillo was was of the richest men in Italy & Pauline was quickly installed at the Villa Borghese in Rome.

The marriage was deeply unhappy and Pauline was soon up to her old tricks. As Pauline herself put it in a letter to her uncle: ‘I would rather have been Leclerc’s widow on just 20,000 francs a year than be married to a eunuch.’

Pauline decided she wanted a sculpture of herself, posed as Venus. She sought out the Italian master Antonio Canova, who has been employed by Pope Clement XIV. Poor Canova was shocked that Pauline wanted to pose nude, but went ahead anyway. https://www.italymagazine.com/italy/arts-and-culture/canova-moulded-paolina-s-breast

When people asked her how she could do such a thing, Pauline liked to joke that it wasn’t all that bad because “the fire was on.”

The statue of Pauline as Venus Victrix so appalled her husband that he stashed it in an attic. Pauline headed back to Paris without him.

She had affairs with Philippe Auguste de Forbin, Colonel Armand Jules de Canouville, Félix Blangini, and the leading actor of the day, François Talma - to name but a few.

When Pauline started to experience considerable gynaecological pain, her physician, Dr. Peyre, told her this was due to sexual overindulgence. Dr. Halle agreed and diagnosed Pauline as suffering from "furor uterinus," furious uterus, an abused cervix and vaginal canal.

None of this stopped Pauline, who kept sneaking her lovers in, like contraband.

Pauline may have been frivolous, but she was fiercely loyal to her brother and followed him into exile. She funded his final campaign by liquidating her assets. When he died in 1821, she was overcome with grief.

With the help of the pope, Pauline was reconciled with her husband just before she died. Legend has it that, on her deathbed, she asked a servant for a mirror. She looked into it, and said “I’m not afraid to die. I am still beautiful.”

She was just 44.

She was buried in a closed coffin and Canova’s nude statue of her was displayed in the church. The statue is now on show in the Villa Borghese, where she continues to give crowds of men the horn to this very day.