Emperor Napoleon I might be the most famous Bonaparte, but his sisters Elisa, Pauline,  and Caroline were also pretty epic.

This episode of Footnoting History is all about their  dynamic personalities and fascinating exploits.

Hey everyone, Christine here to talk all  about Napoleon Bonaparte’s sisters Elisa, Pauline, and Caroline.

These three women  had extremely different personalities, but they all enjoyed being put in places of  power and influence, living extravagant lives, and they had a penchant for giving  Napoleon a headache.

But, before I start, please note that we have captioned versions  of this episode on FootnotingHistory.com and YouTube.com/FootnotingHistory.

Also, as a  disclaimer, I apologize in advance.

Languages are my forever weakness, and while I always do my  best, I know there might be pronunciation slips.

So, Napoleon’s sisters.

In order to understand  them and their place in the world, let’s start by considering the family as a whole.

The  Bonaparte family’s roots were on Corsica, an island that could be described as both off the  coast of France and off the coast of Italy.

The patriarch of the family was Carlo, also called  Charles.

He supported Corsica’s independence, but eventually accepted French control.

Charles  passed away in the 1780s, before Napoleon rose to power.

Charles’ wife, the formidable matriarch,  was named Letizia.

She would not only ride the wave of Napoleon’s success, she also had no  problem telling him when she thought he was wrong, and outlived him by over a decade.

From these parents the world received the

8 Bonaparte siblings.

In birth order, they were:  Joseph (born in 1768), Napoleon (born in 1769), Lucien (born in 1775), Elisa (born in 1777), Louis  (born in 1778), Pauline (born in 1780), Caroline (born in 1782), and Jerome (born in 1784).

So,  Napoleon rose up through the French military, originally seizing power in 1799 from the unstable  government formed in the aftermath of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.

He was initially  part of a new government called the Consulate, where he and two others were supposed to  serve as consuls for specific terms.

Only, Napoleon rather quickly made himself Consul for  Life, and then became Emperor in 1804.

At that point, every single Bonaparte sibling was under  the age of 37.

That is a young ruling family.

What, then, did all of this  mean for Napoleon’s sisters?

Let’s start with Elisa.

Although Elisa was  originally Maria-Anna, she was known as Elisa for the vast majority of her life.

As I mentioned,  Elisa was born in 1777.

As a child, her father secured her a spot at an elite school in France  that had been founded ages prior by Madame de Maintenon, a mistress of King Louis XIV.

While  there, Elisa learned to read and write, a bit of history, how to dance and make herself look good,  all the things you would expect.

When the French Revolution began, that’s where Elisa was and  Napoleon visited.

He found she had an aristocratic air to her that made him suspect that had she  known he supported the Revolution, she might not have wanted to see him.

When violence was erupting  as the Revolution gained momentum and being in any way aristocratic was not a good thing, Napoleon  removed her from the school for her own safety.

A few years later, Elisa turned to Napoleon  for a dowry.

She wanted to marry a man named Felice or sometimes Felix Bacciochi.

He  was from a prominent Corsican family.

And, well, that was pretty much all he had going  for him.

He also liked playing the violin, but allegedly wasn’t very good, nor was his  personality exciting.

Still the couple married in June of 1797.

Although Napoleon technically  approved of it, once he successfully launched his coup and took over control of things in 1799, he  lamented the situation.

Elisa being married meant he couldn’t arrange a better match for her now,  and according to Napoleon’s stepdaughter Hortense, despite Felix being, “of good family, honest, and  kind, he did not come up to the Consul’s wishes.” Elisa is often called the brightest  sister, but also the least pretty and definitely not the nicest.

The thing is, all the  Bonapartes—literally, all of them—had the ability to be vicious and petty.

For example, none of the  sisters liked Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine, and they didn’t hide it.

Famously, when Napoleon  and Josephine were crowned Emperor and Empress, the sisters threw fits about having to carry  Josephine’s train.

They mostly, though, could also turn on the charm.

However, Elisa  was known for being very selective about who she turned on the charm for and, as a result,  she had a reputation for being unlikable.

When Napoleon became Emperor in 1804, his  sisters made it known that they would accept nothing less than fancy titles and treatment.

Embracing elitist attitudes was not a problem for these ladies.

Napoleon complied and made  them Imperial Highnesses.

Elisa was the first to get a station for foreign influence and power,  which riled up jealousy in her younger sisters, but, the thing is, Elisa had a genuine interest  in governing, and so Napoleon made use of it.

He placed her in modern Italy, by making her  Princess of Piombino and Lucca.

And when I say, he gave her control, that’s truly what I mean.

Felix  was in no way the one in charge.

Anyway, Elisa did love governing and she owned no less than five  palatial residences, making significant updates to them.

She built up an enormous entourage and  household so it was sure to impress.

And she made a lot of changes, including creating a bank,  roads, bridges, schools and she named a lot of things after herself.

She also liked to hold large  parties, welcoming literary and musical persons of importance to fill out her social circle.

My favorite thing that Elisa did though, is that she took an interest in marble.

She knew  there were marble quarries in her control now, and she oversaw their revitalization.

Under  her watch, they became a Napoleon bust-making powerhouse.

In historian Philip Mansel’s book  The Eagle in Splendour, he talks about this, stating that the marble works were “devoted to  the mass production of busts and statues of the Emperor.

Over 12,000 busts of Napoleon I were sold  to municipalities throughout the Empire at a huge profit (for the princess, not the sculptors).”  I’ve read a LOT about the Bonaparte family over the years, and for some reason the idea of  Elisa as, like, the one to turn her hand to making money off of her brother’s image has always  stayed with me and I can’t explain it, but I find it to be a truly entertaining bit of information.

Elisa’s influence expanded in 1809, when Napoleon made her Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

It didn’t take  long for Elisa and Felix to make their way to Florence.

There, Elisa didn’t have as much freedom  to govern as she did in her original holdings.

It was extremely well known that she was going to  be Napoleon’s Person on the Ground, if you will.

Still, she tried to make a proper Court there,  and govern similarly to how she did elsewhere, but she never truly succeeded in becoming popular.

Behind the scenes though, throughout all of this, Elisa and Felix lived quite the  interesting “private” (there’s air quotes implied there) lives.

Although  they outwardly appeared as a united front, both of them had lovers.

For Elisa it included  people like famous composer and violinist Paganini and her Grand Equerry.

For Felix there  were rumors that some of the women he took as lovers were actually chosen for him by his wife.

When, eventually, Napoleon’s hold on the Empire began to crumble as Allied forces looked poised  to win, his family members took different tactics to stave off also being defeated, but ultimately  everyone suffered.

Initially, Elisa was run out of Florence and she tried to keep a hold of her  own power by cutting ties with France.

Still, when Napoleon was exiled to Elba, much of the  furniture he had there came from his sister, so she certainly hadn’t forgotten him.

Nevertheless, Elisa could not retain control.

Her family had to accept their glory  days were over, and they settled in Trieste.

In 1820, Elisa—who had been in bad health for some  time, was dealing with weight issues, lost hair, etc.—well she caught a fever and passed away at  the age of 43.

Her husband passed away much later, in the early 1840s.

Although the couple had  several children together, only one, a daughter named Napoleone-Elisa, lived to what we would  call older age.

I mention her largely because, she lived until the age of photography, so we have  a picture of her, and I am going to link to it on our site because the first time I saw it, I did  a triple take.

She looked exactly like what I would imagine Napoleon looked like if he’d been  around in the age of photography, but in a dress.

The likeness was so uncanny as to be unsettling!

Now, if Elisa was the one who wasn’t the prettiest but might have been the most interested  in governing, the next sister, Pauline, was regarded as an absolute stunner and she could  not have cared less about the mechanics of ruling.

Born in 1780, Pauline (who went by other names at  times, such as Maria Paola/Paoletta and Paulette), is often regarded as Napoleon’s favorite sister.

Her looks were always a topic for commentary.

However, she was the least educated of the  three sisters, and entered her teen years with a reputation for acting like a silly school girl and  indulging in inappropriate romantic dalliances.

Although an initial marriage match for Pauline  fell through, in June of 1797—on literally the same day and in the same location as her elder  sister Elisa, surprise!—she married French military officer Victor Emmanuel LeClerc.

He was  both in love with Pauline and loyal to Napoleon, two things that worked in his favor.

Soon, Pauline  gave birth to a son.

He would, unfortunately, die of a fever when he was still quite young—around  age 6—and would also be Pauline’s only child.

The small family remained in Europe during Napoleon’s  rise to the Consulate, but once he was in power, he had a big move in store for them.

As Consul, he turned part of his attention to the French colonies in the Caribbean.

One,  Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti, wasn’t as under control as Napoleon wanted.

He told LeClerc  to go there to prevent Toussaint Loverture from continuing to rile up the population and erode  French control in favor of control of the Haitians by actual Haitians.

The family and the force  backing Pauline’s husband arrived in 1802 and, understandably, immediately faced resistance.

For  Pauline, life there was terrible and uncertain and dangerous.

Ultimately, it also cost her husband  his life.

He faced off against Toussaint Loverture and the result was that the Haitian leader was  arrested and sent to France.

But any glory he felt was to be short-lived, for before he had been in  the colony a year, he was felled by yellow fever.

A distraught Pauline was back in France, widowed,  with her son, in early 1803.

In her mourning she placed her hair with him in his coffin.

She also  had his heart placed in an urn upon which part of the inscription read that she, “enclosed in  this urn her love with the heart of the husband with whom she shared dangers and glory.” However sad she might have been, Pauline would not be lonely, because she hated being  bored and she hated the restrictions of being in formal mourning.

Quickly she was married  again, this time to Prince Camillo Borghese, of a long, high-standing family from Rome.

This  union was, well, financially lucrative and it came with a lot of established connections,  but that razzle dazzle couldn’t make their personalities a long-term match.

Although  Pauline initially joined her husband in Rome, the cracks in their relationship (and her firm  belief that Rome’s society was severely lacking in comparison to Paris’) meant they weren’t bound to  live in close quarters for long.

Napoleon told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to behave,  but Pauline decided to not do that and the pair spent the majority of their time living apart.

The marriage was, however, the reason for

arguably the most enduring image of Pauline: an  impressive marble statue called Venus Victrix.

It depicts Pauline as Venus, breasts  on full display, reclining on a chaise, and holding an apple.

Her husband had commissioned  the artist, Antonio Canova, to create it early in their marriage.

Pauline chose to be depicted  as Venus and the statue became famous quickly.

I’ve linked to that on our site, too.

The rift in Pauline’s marriage occurred not far in time from her brother becoming Emperor  in 1804.

She was, you’ll recall, there for the coronation and to complain about having to carry  Josephine’s train.

She did not complain, however, when earlier that year she was made an Imperial  Highness or when Napoleon gave her husband a new position, centered at Turin, which made him quite  far removed from her geographically.

In fact, she quite liked the distance and rebuffed  Napoleon’s efforts to get her to go to him, though she did at least briefly visit.

Most of Pauline’s time was spent entertaining.

She had a list of lovers that’s so long I  couldn’t remember all the names if I tried, though I will say it included her Chamberlain  and Talma, the celebrated actor of the day.

When Napoleon divorced Josephine and married  Austria’s Marie-Louise, Pauline showed that she hadn’t changed at all.

She protested against  carrying Marie-Louise’s train at her wedding and then was seen making faces behind the new empress’  back.

Pauline was flirtatious and could also be cruel.

There are accounts, though I suppose  they might not be reliable, that say Pauline was seen using the neck of her lady-in-waiting  as a footstool.

Unfortunately, her love affairs and making of her own rules meant that she was  perpetually the subject of scandalous rumors, not the least of which was that one of her lovers  was none other than Napoleon himself.

Yes, people absolutely went there, and you can see it in  political illustrations of the time.

While Pauline was never in an incestuous relationship with  her brother, we do know that at least once she provided him entertainment in the form of one of  her ladies-in-waiting becoming one of his flings.

Pauline’s glamorous life was also regularly  plagued by health issues including severe pain in the abdomen and pelvic region.

It  has been speculated by biographers that she had a run-in with venereal disease, possibly  something like gonorrhea.

It also appears as though a large part of it was inflammation,  especially of her fallopian tubes.

It was, no matter what, extremely painful, and  debilitating.

Certainly, some people blaming her overly-sexual nature didn’t make her feel  good, and a true, lasting, help was never found.

When Napoleon’s reign ended the first  time, in 1814, and he was exiled to Elba, Pauline was the only sister to join him there.

She was seen as responsible for the revival of any form of fun and frivolity.

Marchand,  Napoleon’s valet, said of Pauline during her time on Elba that she “lent an air of gallantry  and mirth to all who surrounded her” and that, “Nothing was as perfectly beautiful as this  princess.” She remained there until Napoleon left to retake France, and then she returned to  the Continent.

When Napoleon was exiled again after the defeat at Waterloo, Pauline again  wanted to follow her brother, but her requests for permission to go to the far-away, utterly  unappealing island of St.

Helena were ignored.

As a result of her family’s fall from grace,  Pauline remained in Italy.

But, she did support her brother from afar—even sending her cook down  there to serve him.

She was fortunate, at least, that she was able to live comfortably due to  savings and money she had accrued through the sale of her homes and jewelry.

When she learned of  her brother’s death in 1821, she was inconsolable.

During this period, though, she managed to  somewhat revive her marriage.

Although her husband was now in an established relationship elsewhere,  her health was deteriorating and with some help from the pope, she convinced him to return  to her.

It was a reunion based on obligation, but it appears that he took good care of her.

She  passed away in June of 1825, at the age of 44.

So, if Elisa and Pauline were polar opposites,  where does that put the youngest sister, Caroline?

Caroline, originally Maria Nunziata,  was born in 1782.

Her youngest years were spent with the family on Corsica, but once the  family had followed Napoleon to France, she attended Madame Campan’s school.

The school  was a respected one, as Madame Campan had been in service to Queen Marie Antoinette once upon a  time.

Also at the school was my favorite person from the Napoleonic era, Josephine’s daughter  Hortense.

I think, today, they would be considered “frenemies.” Anyway, Hortense’s memoirs said  Caroline had NO interest in being at school.

Caroline told Napoleon that Hortense was not  only purposely showing off to make her look bad but also encouraging other girls to humiliate  her.

When word of this got back to Hortense,

she confronted Caroline and received a confession:  Caroline wanted to get out of the school and marry Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon’s fellow military  men, and would say whatever she needed to do it, even if it meant throwing Hortense under  the bus.

Hortense says she forgave Caroline for this, but I’m not sure I would have!

Nevertheless, Caroline got what she wanted.

In January of 1800, she married her man.

The  couple would have four children together, and as

an interesting aside, at least to me: two of them  ended up moving to the United States.

Although the flamboyantly showy Murat was seen as a wonderful  soldier who was devoted to Napoleon, he had humble origins and Napoleon believed Caroline could  do better.

Nevertheless, his brother-in-law was a good military companion, serving dutifully for  Napoleon’s cause with distinction for a long time.

Caroline and her husband rose along with Napoleon,  and it is she who is famously documented as pushing for high titles for the sisters when  Napoleon became Emperor, and she certainly was part of the contingent who complained  about all the train carrying that went on.

In 1806, the couple was given the Grand Duchy  of Berg and Cleves, but then in 1808 they were elevated to King and Queen of Naples.

They  would spend significantly more time and effort focusing on Naples than they ever did  on Berg and Cleves.

Like Elisa with Tuscany, Caroline and her husband were intended to be  Napoleon’s representatives on the ground.

As such, they modeled much of their court after what  was happening in Paris, though of course with their own spin.

They redecorated and filled  their courts with desirable people, embracing their status both in the sense of being lavish and  trying to take care of Naples by creating schools, a naval academy, and other improvements.

Now, if Elisa was unlikeable but useful and smart and Pauline was beloved and beautiful but  frivolous, Caroline was somewhere in the middle, though she did share their penchant for taking and  discarding lovers.

She was considered pretty and, also, like Pauline, she provided Napoleon with  access to a mistress.

Only in Caroline’s case that mistress got pregnant and gave birth to one  of Napoleon’s illegitimate children—an event which she likely was pleased helped sow seeds of discord  in Napoleon’s marriage to Josephine, as she could no longer have children.

When tasked with painting  a portrait of Caroline and her daughter, famed artist Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun complained  that, “The interval between sessions was so long that she had sometimes changed her hairstyle .

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so that I was obliged to scrape off the hair I had painted around the face.” Meanwhile, Hortense  reflected, tellingly, that “To be sure, at times a little claw emerged beneath the velvety touch  of her caress, but a most carefully calculated abandon and the most gracious manner promptly  cured the wound and captivated you anew.

Proud, brave, persevering, passionate, careless, and  variable as were her moods, the same charms which attracted people to her could not mask  her desire to secure all power for herself, nor her jealousy of the success of others.” So,  Caroline could charm but she could also harm.

Still, she did have an interest in reforms,  renovations, and discovery.

During her time as Queen of Naples, Caroline developed a true  admiration for archaeology.

She loved to tour archaeological sites like Pompeii and is  regularly credited with pushing to expand the efforts at the site, while also proposing new  approaches.

Plus, we know that she liked to take some of the findings and display them where  she resided, uh, creating almost a personal little museum of some of her favorite finds.

Hortense was right, though, about Caroline’s desire to hold and maintain power.

She often acted  as a mediator between her husband and her brother, but there were multiple occasions when her husband  was away on military campaigns and she ruled Naples solo, and did a great job at it.

Still,  the husband and wife didn’t trust each other much at all, which often caused issues.

At one point,  too, Caroline was associated with a plot to put her husband (and by extension, herself) on the  throne of France should Napoleon be killed.

And, when the cracks in the Empire started to show,  Caroline and her husband really didn’t want to go down with the sinking ship.

They began to  put out feelers for joining the Allies who were fighting against Napoleon.

There was  even a treaty signed with Austria in hopes that if Napoleon was defeated, the Allies  would let them hold on to their kingdom.

However, you rarely win when you play both  sides, and what happened to Caroline’s husband proves that point.

His negotiations with the  Allies did absolutely nothing to secure his throne permanently, neither did his attempts to go  back to Napoleon when he briefly reclaimed power, nor did a try at using Italian unification to  rally support from the Italians.

Ultimately, when he made the bad decision to try and return  to Naples with a small group to retake the place, he was summarily captured and  executed in October of 1815.

Following her husband’s death and brother’s  defeat at Waterloo, Caroline was looked down upon by her mother for betraying Napoleon and  her station in life sank considerably.

She had been living in Austria, certainly under watch by  their government, but was eventually allowed to move to Italy.

Money problems that didn’t plague  her sisters so much, plagued Caroline a lot, to the point where it has been said she needed  to sell gold embroidery removed from her formerly fancy clothing.

Caroline wasn’t alone though,  she entered into a long-term relationship with General Francesco MacDonald, though he predeceased  her.

She passed away in 1839, at the age of 57.

And with that, we reach end of our look at  the lives of Napoleon’s sisters.

I really, really love talking about them and would love  to have been a fly on the wall when they were all in the same space, because imagine the  personalities and the drama!

I hope this made you find them fascinating, too.

Thank you so  much for joining me for this triple biography, probably the first one I’ve done!

Don’t forget  to check out my further reading suggestions on FootnotingHistory.com and to spread the word  that the best stories are in the footnotes.