1. Princess Marie Bonaparte, known as Princess George of Greece and Denmark upon her marriage, was a French author and psychoanalyst, closely linked with Sigmund Freud.
27 Facts About Marie Bonaparte
1. 2.
Marie Bonaparte's wealth contributed to the popularity of psychoanalysis and enabled Freud's escape from Nazi Germany.
3.
Marie Bonaparte was a great-grandniece of Emperor Napoleon I of France.
4.
Marie Bonaparte was the only child of Roland Napoleon Bonaparte, 6th Prince of Canino and Musignano and Marie-Felix Blanc.
5.
Marie Bonaparte was born at Saint-Cloud, a town in Hauts-de-Seine, Ile-de-France and called Mimi within the family.
6.
Marie Bonaparte-Felix died of an embolism shortly after Marie Bonaparte's birth, leaving half of her FF 8.4M dowry to her husband and half to her daughter.
7.
Marie Bonaparte lived with her father, a published geographer and botanist, in Paris and on various family country estates where he studied, wrote and lectured, leading an active life in Parisian academic circles and on expeditions abroad, while her daily life was supervised by tutors and servants.
8.
Marie Bonaparte admitted that, contrary to what he knew were her hopes, he could not commit to living permanently in France since he was obligated to undertake royal duties in Greece or on its behalf if summoned to do so.
9.
Marie Bonaparte came to admire the forbearance and independence of Valdemar's wife under circumstances which caused her bewilderment and estrangement from her own husband.
10.
For months at a time, George was in Athens or Copenhagen, while Marie Bonaparte was in Paris, Vienna or traveling with the couple's children.
11.
From 1913 to early 1916, Marie Bonaparte carried on an intense flirtation with French prime minister Aristide Briand, but went no further because she did not want to share him with his mistress, the actress Berthe Cerny.
12.
Marie Bonaparte identified women with a short distance who reached orgasm easily during intercourse, and women with a distance of more than two and a half centimeters who had difficulties while the were in between.
13.
Marie Bonaparte considered herself a and approached Josef Halban to surgically move her clitoris closer to her vagina.
14.
Marie Bonaparte modeled for the Romanian modernist sculptor Constantin Brancusi.
15.
Marie Bonaparte's sculpture of her, "Princess X", created a scandal in 1919 when he represented her or caricatured her as a large gleaming bronze phallus, although he declared this a misunderstanding as he meant the sculpture to suggest her desire and vanity.
16.
In 1925, Marie Bonaparte consulted Freud for treatment of what she described as her frigidity, which was later explained as a failure to have orgasms during missionary position intercourse.
17.
Robed in the diplomatic immunity of a member of a reigning European royal family and possessed of great wealth, Marie Bonaparte was often able to help those threatened or despoiled by World War II.
18.
Marie Bonaparte was instrumental in delaying the search of Freud's apartment in Vienna by the Gestapo in early 1938, and helped him obtain an exit visa to depart Austria.
19.
Marie Bonaparte smuggled out some of his savings in a Greek diplomatic pouch, provided him with additional funding to leave the country, and arranged for the transport to London of some of his possessions, including his analytic couch.
20.
In 1938, Marie Bonaparte proposed that the United States purchase Baja California and turn it into a new Jewish state.
21.
Freud refused to take what he called her "colonial plans" seriously, but Marie Bonaparte nonetheless authored letters to William Christian Bullitt Jr.
22.
Bored with the pageantry, Marie Bonaparte offered a sampling of the psychoanalytic method to the gentleman seated next to her, the future French president Francois Mitterrand.
23.
Marie Bonaparte practiced as a psychoanalyst until her death in 1962, providing substantial services to the development and promotion of psychoanalysis.
24.
Marie Bonaparte authored several books on psychoanalysis, translated Freud's work into French and founded the French Institute of Psychoanalysis in 1926.
25.
Marie Bonaparte translated it into French as, meaning in English roughly "Ego must dislodge Id", which according to Lacan is directly contrary to Freud's intended meaning.
26.
Marie Bonaparte died of leukemia in Saint-Tropez on 21 September 1962.
27.
Marie Bonaparte was cremated in Marseille, and her ashes were interred adjacent to Prince George's tomb at Tatoi, near Athens.