Princess Marie Bonaparte
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Princess Marie Bonaparte (2 July 1882 - 21 September 1962) was a French psychoanalyst, closely linked with Sigmund Freud. Her wealth contributed to the popularity of psychoanalysis, and enabled Freud's escape from Nazi Germany.
Marie Bonaparte was a great-grand-niece of Napoleon I of France. She was a daughter of Roland Bonaparte (19 May 1858 - 14 April 1924) and Marie-Félix Blanc (1859-1882). Her paternal grandfather was Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte, son of Lucien Bonaparte, and nephew of Napoleon. Her maternal grandfather was François Blanc, the principal real-estate developer of Monte Carlo.
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[edit] Early life
She was born at Saint-Cloud, a town in Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France. Her mother died of an embolism induced by giving birth to Marie.
On 21 November 1907 in Paris, she married Prince George of Greece in a civil ceremony, with a subsequent religious ceremony on 12 December 1907, at Athens. She was thereafter officially also known as Princess Marie of Greece and Denmark. They had two children, Peter (1908-1980) and Eugénie (1910-1988).
[edit] Freud
Marie first consulted Freud for treatment of what she descried as her frigidity, which was later described as a failure to have orgasms during missionary position intercourse.[1] After conducting research on women's orgasms, she concluded the reason was the distance between clitoris and vagina.[1] She then attempted to "cure" her own failure to orgasm by having her clitoris moved, surgically, closer to her vagina; although the removal worked, the reattachment was not successful.[1] It was to Marie Bonaparte that Sigmund Freud remarked, "The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’". She later paid Freud's ransom to Nazi Germany, and preserved Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess despite Freud's wish that they be destroyed.
Despite what she described as sexual dysfunction, she later conducted affairs with Freud's disciple Rudolph Loewenstein, and Aristide Briand, the Prime Minister of France.
On 2nd June 1953, Marie and her husband Prince George represented their nephew, King Paul of Greece, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London. Bored with the pomp and ceremony, Marie offered to psychoanalyse the gentleman seated next to her who was the future French president François Mitterrand. Mitterrand obliged Marie and the couple barely witnessed any part of the coronation, but found their activities far more interesting than the lengthy and formal ceremony.
[edit] Career
She practiced as a psychoanalyst until her death in 1962, providing many services to the cause of psychoanalysis. She founded the French Institute of Psychoanalysis (Société Psychoanalytique de Paris SPP) in 1926. In addition to her own work and preservation of Freud's legacy, she also offered financial support for Geza Roheim's anthropological explorations.
She died of leukemia in Saint-Tropez, was cremated in Marseilles, and her ashes were interred in Prince George's tomb at Tatoï, near Athens.
[edit] 2004 film
Her story of her relationship with Sigmund Freud and how she helped his family escape into exile was made into a movie, released in 2004. Princesse Marie was directed by Benoît Jacquot and starred Catherine Deneuve as Marie Bonaparte, and Heinz Bennent as Sigmund Freud.
[edit] References
- Bertin, Celia, Marie Bonaparte: A Life, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1982. [ISBN 0-15-157252-6]
- Loewenstein, Rudolf, Drives, Affects and Behavior: Essays in Honor of Marie Bonaparte, 1952
- ^ a b c Katharine Mieszkowski, "Getting It On for Science: Interview with Mary Roach", Salon.com, April 4, 2008 (describing research from Mary Roach, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex).
[edit] Works
- Topsy - 1940 - a love story about her dog.
- The Life and Works of E. A. Poe - 1949
- Five Copy Books - 1952
- Feminine Sexuality - 1953
