Caroline Moorehead

Poule de luxe

‘Pauline was as beautiful as it was possible to be’, the Austrian statesman Metternich once observed.

issue 06 June 2009

‘Pauline was as beautiful as it was possible to be’, the Austrian statesman Metternich once observed.

‘Pauline was as beautiful as it was possible to be’, the Austrian statesman Metternich once observed. ‘She was in love with herself alone, and her sole occupation was pleasure’. Metternich was not quite fair. Pauline, as sculpted in Canova’s famous statue of the barely clad reclining princess, was indeed extremely beautiful. But along with her undisputed love of herself, she was also devoted to her brother Napoleon, delighting in his victories, and fretting over his defeats. She went with him into exile on Elba, sought to join him on Saint Helena, and campaigned frantically to have the punitive conditions under which the British kept him ameliorated. When Napoleon died, she was devastated. Loyalty was probably her nicest trait.

Born in Corsica in 1780, the sixth of eight children, Maria Paoletta was 11 years younger than Napoleon, and was his favourite sister.

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