Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From acclaimed biographer Flora Fraser, the brilliant life of Napoleon's favorite sister, with color photos, paintings, and illustrations.
Considered by many in Europe to be the most beautiful woman at the turn of the nineteenth century, Pauline Bonaparte Borghese shocked the continent with the boldness of her love affairs, her opulent wardrobe and jewels, her decision to pose nearly nude for Canova's sculpture, and her rumored incestuous relationship with her brother, the Emperor Napoleon—the only man to whom she was loyal. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba, Pauline was the only sibling to follow him there, and after the final defeat at Waterloo she begged to join him at Saint Helena.
In Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire, Flora Fraser casts new light on the Napoleonic era and crafts a dynamic, vivid portrait of a mesmerizing woman.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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' tre 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.
