Sex, psychoanalysis, intimate operations and a winning way with flashers – how eye-popping Marie Bonaparte put even her maverick nephew, Prince Philip, in the shade…
The Duke of Edinburgh was a larger-than-life character, but even he paled in comparison to his colorful Aunt Marie.
A relative of Napoleon Bonaparte, she was a fascinating character, famous for her all-consuming interest in sex and psychoanalysis, her friendship with Sigmund Freud and her unconventional lifestyle.
She also had a very effective way of dealing with strobes…
Born Marie Bonaparte in 1882, Marie was the great-granddaughter of Napoleon I’s rebellious younger brother Lucien.
Princess Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon’s niece, was Prince Philip’s aunt. She led a colorful and independent life
Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger brother, was the father of Princess Marie Bonaparte
Prince George of Greece with his wife Marie Bonaparte. George seems to have had little interest in the opposite sex
A portrait of Prince Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenburg, taken in 1927. Philip would have been five or six years old at the time
She was fabulously wealthy thanks to her maternal grandfather, François Blanc, who made his fortune in real estate development in Monaco and bought 97 percent of the casino in Monte Carlo.
Her wealth made it possible for her to finance Prince Philip’s family after they had to flee Greece at the end of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922.
(It was Marie who paid for Philip to be educated at The Elms, an American school in Paris. Paradoxically, she sent her own children, Prince Peter and Princess Eugénie, to the local state lycée, because she felt it was important that they should mix with children from all backgrounds.)
In 1907, Marie married Philip’s paternal uncle, Prince George of Greece.
George has a footnote in history for saving future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia from assassination during a visit to Otsu, Japan in 1891.
The Tsarevich was attacked by a police officer with a sword, who turned out to be a former Samurai with a grudge against Westerners. George managed to knock him to the ground with his stick.
George seemed to have little interest in the opposite sex. Indeed, he was passionately in love with his own uncle, Prince Valdemar of Denmark, youngest brother of Britain’s Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII).
It was no surprise that George and Marie’s marriage was relatively passionless.
The groom never allowed his new wife to kiss him on the lips and after the honeymoon she wrote: ‘You took me that evening in a short, brutal gesture, as if you were forcing yourself. You said, “I hate it as much as you do. But we have to do it if we want children.”
Marie would look for love elsewhere and having built up a long list of willing sexual partners, Marie documented them in her unpublished 1918 memoir, ‘The Men I Have Loved’.
Marie enjoyed an equally fulfilling life outside of bed.
She was a close friend of Sigmund Freud, who stimulated her interest in psychoanalysis and who once memorably asked her, “What does a woman want?” – presumably the feeling that if anyone knew it would be the princess.
She conducted her own research on frigidity under the pseudonym AE Narjani.
Her theory was that the closer the clitoris was to the vagina, the more likely a woman was to have an orgasm.
To prove this, she personally measured this crucial distance on 243 women.
Satisfied that she had discovered the truth, she had her own clitoris surgically shifted a few inches in what she thought was the right direction. Unfortunately, both this and a subsequent operation failed in the ultimate goal.
She was so focused on the benefits of psychoanalysis that, when she was once spotted in the Rue de Boulogne, she handed the bewildered perpetrator her card and the offer of a free session on her analyst’s couch, a gesture that made him run away.
Marie also had an interest in the criminal mind, describing Jack the Ripper as “a super murderer and a super anarchist.”
In 1934 she published The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psycho-Analytic Interpretation with a foreword by Sigmund Freud.
The princess’s writings also provide a vivid picture of some of Prince Philip’s relatives.
She described his mother, Princess Alice, as “a beautiful blonde Englishwoman with plenty of flesh, who laughs a lot and doesn’t say much because she is deaf.”
She also left us a fascinating vignette of Queen Alexandra, whom she found aged 63 [in 1907], surprisingly young, enamelled skin. Disturbing when youth covers old skin. She seems kind and friendly, but also insignificance personified.”
Prince George and Marie maintained strong ties to the British royal family, especially after Prince Philip joined what George VI called “the firm.”
They represented the King of Greece at the coronation of George V in 1911 and half a century later they took the place of King Paul at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
They were also present at Westminster Abbey to witness the wedding of their niece Princess Marina of Greece to Prince George, Duke of Kent in 1934 and again 13 years later for Philip’s wedding to Princess Elizabeth.
Prince Andrew of Greece, fourth son of King George I of Greece (and a cousin of Queen Alexandra) with his fiancée, Prince Alice of Battenberg. Andrew and Alice were the parents of Prince Philip
Princess Marie Bonaparte and her children Pierre and Eugenie of Greece
Marie Bonaparte with husband Prince George of Greece and Denmark. They are photographed at the Paris Opera in 1954
Philip remained in contact with Marie for the rest of her life and she was present with George when the Greek royal family was reunited at Tatoi, the summer palace near Athens, for a private visit by Elizabeth and Philip in December 1950.
The Queen and Prince Philip enjoyed several dinners with George and Marie, both private and formal.
Marie wrote to a friend: ‘Great dinner at court for Elizabeth and Philip, decorations, tiaras, horror!’
The most unconventional princess remained an outsider until the end.