Customer Reviews

Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was thoroughly bored for most of the book. I attribute this to the rather inconsequential subject, though perhaps it is the writing. This is the first book that I have read by Fraser, and I am not sure that I will bother with any others, although she writes about a time period that interests me. I don't feel that I know anything significant for having finished the book.

People who are historically fairly unimportant can make interesting subjects for biographies. Often, one gets a better feeling for the time period because the author has the space to include the details of personal and social life that are scanted in dealing with major figures. Ann Wroe used her biography of Perkin Warbeck, The Perfect Prince: Truth and Deception in Renaissance Europe, to great effect to discuss the time, the making of history and the nature of identity. Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son by Beverly Murphy gave us a much better look at the rearing of a high-born man that any of his father's biographies ever could. I felt a conflict with this book because Fraser seemed to think that Pauline was interesting and important in her own right and I certainly don't agree.

Fraser kept the book very narrowly focused on Pauline: I wondered what happened to her widower Prince Borghese after his liberation. I think that it would have added to the interest of the book if Fraser had gone into the family history a little more, although perhaps she feels that given Napoleon's fame, this has been adequately covered elsewhere. Fraser also fails to carefully consider Pauline's various pronouncements on religion. Just after her brother's coronation, she tells Pope Pius VII that he will have to live to be very old if he is ever to see her as a member of his flock. Later, we are told, without explanation or evidence, that she was at heart a believer, and made a good impression on the Pope.

Fraser quotes Metternich: "Pauline Bonaparte was as beautiful as it was possible to be ... She was in love with herself alone, and her sole occupation was with pleasure." She actually did concern herself with other people, like her exiled brother Napoleon, on rare occasions, and Fraser tends to react as if such ordinary feelings are an example of heroism. In short, Pauline was the sort of famous person that I never heard of so often chronicled in Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, People, and society pages: de-fiefed aristocrats, hard partying celebrities, idle children of the wealthy. As such, I would have to admit that there are no doubt many people who will find her fascinating.

Pauline Bonaparte was apparently extremely beautiful and alluring, and she was the favorite sister of Napoleon. This allowed her to devote her trivial life to truly obnoxious behavior, one of the most striking instances being requiring her ladies to lay on the floor so that she could rest her feet on their throats, in lieu of a footstool. If Pauline charmed British aristocrats and the Pope and Cardinals by her beauty, the more fool they, in my opinion. Some people are intrigued by such power, inconsequential though it tends to be in the long run, and I recommend the book to them. Beauty seems to be enough for Fraser: apparently Pauline's chief claim on our attention is being the scantily-clad model for the famous Canova statue. I could see this as an article in a magazine, but spread over a couple of hundred pages, it wore thin fast.

I enjoyed this book, though not from my Historian standpoint. Fraser is a enjoyable, lucid writer. Frankly, the life of Pauline has alot of empty spaces where we lack the requisite documentary evidence, such as letters, to really write a complete life of her. The Auther did the best she could with what she could dig up, a talent Fraser has always had. Nice read, I read it in one evening. A must for all Franco-philes and, of course, Napolenic buffs.

Prior to this "biography" of Pauline Bonaparte the only thing I knew of Fraser's work was a quick run through her book on Caroline of Brunswick - it wasn't enough to get a feel for Fraser's idea of what biogrpahy is - so even before I got through the first page of the prologue for Pauline Bonaparte my heart sank.

This was going to be the type of "modern" biography that takes its literary cue from the gossip magazines such as US. Initially I honestly hoped it was just the prologue, that it would get better, that she would settle down and actually approach Pauline as if she had been a real woman, in a tremendously complex socio/political period (ie. aftermath of the French Revolution, unlikely rise of her brother Napoleon from artillery general to tyrannical Emperor of the French, the endless malicious excesses of men such as Fouche, Talleyrand and Metternich, the vast changes in French life and then there was the military slaughter that stains anything Napoleon could claim to have accomplished, not to mention abandoning his army, not once, but twice) - anyway, Fraser apparently thought Pauline Bonaparte was the Marilyn Monroe of her day and could scarcely contain her interest in the woman's only known image: sexual scandal. Much as popular culture doesn't know what to do with Monroe, aside from making money on the image (Warhol's satire notwithstanding) Fraser also has no idea what to do with this woman.

Anyone with serious background on the Napoleonic period, from any perspective, would ask first, why Pauline? She may well be the one eye witness (okay, we can add Laure Permon Junot, duchesse d'Abrantes), who lived through an era of unrelieved warfare and a continent that was meant to be remade in exactly the image of Napoleon, without ever having uttered or wrote a single coherent or intelligble statement, position or observation. Mme Germaine de Stael she is not.

One can forgive the original Pauline, who chose not to be involved with politics or any intellectual pursuits (even trivial or decorative interests), that was apparently the result of her temperament and natural inclinations; she cannot be judged as we would consider either Eliza or Caroline, her two sisters who both had rigorous acumen and were saavy counterpoints to the suffocating presence of their brother Napoleon.

But one cannot forgive Fraser for wasting an opportunity to find something, anything, worth revealing about Pauline. If ever a subject was ill served by their biographer it remains the curious situation of Pauline Bonaparte. Was she intellectually stunted due to the way she was raised? did she decide to go through life on her looks alone rather than follow, say, the example of Mme Recamier? was she simply a very weak and passive woman who was easily overwhelmed by the events around her and as such just shut down? In her letters she has a charm, lacking the odious malice of Laure Junot - perhaps she was as uncomplicated as she "sounds" in her letters? We will never know if we attempt to read the Fraser "biography."

Somewhere someone will attempt - heaven knows why - a full investigation into the truly puzzling example of Pauline Bonaparte.

But for all of those Amazon reviewers who found Fraser's material a transport of perfection I would suggest that they would just love slogging through the endless (and ghost written) volumes of Laure Junot's "memoires" - in these literary wonders of witnessing the greatest upheaval in European modern history one can happily read what Junot did provide as information: who wore what gown, who she thought was sleeping with whom, whose complexion was suffering, etc.

At least with Junot, a bitterly unhappy woman, passed over by Napoleon, married to a mentally unstable general, who was herself both unattractive physically and in her personality, we have some idea why she spent the "Wars" consumed with gossip, targeting her long gone enemies for destruction. With Fraser we never find out what makes Pauline, Pauline.

My own guess is that Napoleon preferred women to be subservient, eyes downcast, walking on eggshells for fear of upsetting him, misbehaving in all those adorable childlike flaws he saw all women invested with; women like Pauline, Josephine, Marie Walewska, etc. Conversely, he detested Mme de Stael and went into every discussion with his sisters Eliza and Caroline with trepidation: they both possessed his political acumen and the aggressiveness to get what they wanted, and they always won their "battles" with him (his term).

Perhaps most disappointing about this work is that Fraser does not respect her subject, she is just so amused with Pauline as a pretty and vacuous and tasty piece of gossip for today's apparently undiscriminating reader.

Simply, magisterial. This is an example of a work that can simultaneously function as a wickedly well-written airport lounge read and a deeply-researched contribution to 18/19th c. French scholarship. I always thought the Galleria Borghese with its Canova was beautiful, but the experience of visiting Pauline will now be nothing short of splendid.

My book club is going to shift into high gear as we add this astounding work to the top of our list, along with several others of Fraser's. We are feeling the Flora Frenzy!

I can only wish that I had a sister as fierce as Pauline.

This is a good book--not the most entertainingly written biography I've read, but what a seat in the grand theatre of the French Revolution. What is it about power that leads to such wretched excess? I haven't finished the book, actually, but it's definitely recommended.

The only thing more astonishing than the story so beautifully and compellingly told by Fraser is the fact that this story has not been told yet. I cannot recommend heartily enough. Truly, the best thing I've read this year. I'm now looking to read all of Fraser's work. Pauline is a fascinating figure in her right and also provides an unique window in Napoleonic history. A must for the Napoleon ingenue or the experienced reader.

I have had the honor of meeting Flora Fraser, and was so impressed with her that I was actually quite impatient for the release of "Venus of Empire." Ms. Fraser did not disappoint. I knew almost nothing about Pauline Bonaparte except rumors of her torrent love life. I was very moved by Fraser's portrait, moved to discover a woman so fierce, so passionate, and so loving. I recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding Napoleon's world, learning about French history, reading about a fabulous woman, or just looking for a wonderful historical biography. A true pleasure to read. Thank you, Flora Fraser.

Ms. Fraser can't be faulted for her research, it was excellent. The question is how she let herself become so enthralled by her subject.

Pauline was notable for two reasons: first, she was Napoleon's high-profile younger sister, and second, she was reckoned a spectacular beauty in her day, though the latter is disputable if the portraits and famous reclining nude sculpture included in the book are true likenesses.

Mostly, Pauline was the notorious sister of a notorious dictator and hence the courtiers and tabloids of the day were fixated on her, which she adored and whom she provoked by deliberately salacious conduct.

Ms. Fraser seems not to mind that Pauline was also vapid, vain, rampantly promiscuous and utterly obnoxious. For some reason she found this histrionic nincompoop meaningful enough to waste years of research and an entire book on her.

Pauline, born in 1780 into a large peasant Corsican family, lived an early life of appalling instability that included political eviction from her childhood home and the resulting emigration into French poverty, a controlling mother, competing siblings, illiteracy, and more attractiveness than was good for her.

Predictably, she was romantically inclined and, after being thwarted in a tweenie love affair with a bounder, ended up married at age sixteen to one of her brother's military men, Monsieur LeClerk, with whom she traveled to Haiti, had a baby boy, got infected with yellow fever, and came home a widow at twenty-two. Fraser posits that a gynecological disorder from a bad birth left Pauline sterile and physically vulnerable.

In fact, early in her marriage Pauline had already started on a life-long excursion into sex and power that didn't end until her own witheringly ugly death 45 years later. Her constant medical problems were likely a result of an early onset of venereal disease.

Upon her return from Haiti the fresh-faced Pauline quickly made an opportunistic re-marriage to a handsome, rich and dull Italian aristocrat, Prince Borghese, for whom, within months of marrying, she felt nothing but contempt. She bored easily, you see, but now she was a princess and rich and beautiful and, with an emperor for a brother, Pauline was a serious player in European social circles.

She slept with every good-looking male within winking range, fancied herself in love then immediately tired of her lovers, but was mostly obsessed with her appearance, clothing, fans, hair, and jewels. And she, astute business woman that Fraser portrays her, procured numerous properties and furniture and paintings - all with her husband's money. The clever minx!

Apparently no one was able to resist this woman. Careers fell and men died in her service. Ceilings were drilled so she could enjoy a milk shower. People even lay down, literally, do she could use their bodies as footstools. Not just servants mind you, but even a venerable Scots duke. Her little feet were cold! Pauline strutted and commanded and all obeyed. She was invincible. Beautiful. Amazing. She was Pauline!

And when her antics alarmed Napoleon or if a political situation needed tough handling, she slithered off to a spa, ostensibly to cure that old gynecological problem. Trolling for new lovers was a secondary benefit and always indulged in.

According to Ms. Fraser, Pauline's legion of lovers were wholly ensorcelled and even those who merely sought her august company became hers, body and soul. Few were willing or able to publically pierce the veil of her character, and if they did Pauline's vengeance was profound. The unacknowledged rule was adore her or lose your career or even your life, as several military men actually did.

Fraser fails to see Pauline as the madwoman she was, she honestly seems to find Pauline just charmingly outre and somewhat medically disabled.

One of Pauline's few contemporary nay-sayers was her former American sister-in-law, Elizabeth Peterson, who found Pauline capricious, vicious and too deranged to be normal.

She was right, but Fraser states that Mrs. Peterson was just a woman who just "spat venom". The possibility that Pauline was in the tertiary stage of cerebral syphilis should have been explored, but was ignored by her embarrasingly adoring biographer.

Seven years after her brother's ignominious death on St. Helena, Pauline died alone, ill and unloved and mostly forgotten, with a mirror in her hand - a fitting end to an empty life.

"The most beautiful woman in Europe" is now the subject of one of the most beautifully written books of the year. Fraser tells the illustrious and enchanting tale of a woman so relevant to the history of Europe as well as so unique to her own society.

Napoleon has met his match, not just in the dramatic life of his sister, but in Fraser herself.

I don't read much, and when I do, it's typically historical stuff. I just like things that actually happened-- Waterloo, Atlantis, Rasputin. And boy, did Pauline Bonaparte happen. Flora Fraser's new book about her is a fascinating portrait of a real person whose life was extraordinary. The most interesting parts were when Pauline goes to Haiti and when she sleeps around with a bunch of soldiers. It was fantastic stuff. I've never read any of Fraser's other work but if it's anything like this then you should really check out, because I know I will. Five stars.