. After Napoleon III, Empress Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial, let’s add yet another profile of a Bonaparte who imprinted their personal style on 19th-century Paris: Princess Mathilde. If you were to design the exemplary French princess of that time, you probably wouldn’t come up with Princess Mathilde Bonaparte. For one thing, she had an […]
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After Napoleon III, Empress Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial, let’s add yet another profile of a Bonaparte who imprinted their personal style on 19th-century Paris: Princess Mathilde.
If you were to design the exemplary French princess of that time, you probably wouldn’t come up with Princess Mathilde Bonaparte. For one thing, she had an unfortunate habit of saying exactly what she thought. This in Parisian high society was about as welcome as bringing a skunk to perfume testing. For another, she smoked cigarettes in public which was shocking for a proper lady. A gifted painter, she exhibited her artwork at the prestigious Paris Salon. This was highly unusual for a woman of her social standing. She also lived openly with her boyfriend while still technically married to someone else. In short, she was splendidly unsuited to her role, which might explain why she was so remarkably good at it.
Born in 1820, the daughter of Jerome Bonaparte – then King of Westphalia – Mathilde seemed destined for a properly royal life. At 17, she was engaged to her cousin Louis-Napoleon, who later became Napoleon III. This might have led to her becoming Empress of France, except that Louis-Napoleon inconveniently attempted his second coup d’état just then. Nothing ruins a good engagement quite like your fiancé trying to overthrow the government and failing spectacularly at it.
Instead, Mathilde married Count Anatole Demidoff, a Russian aristocrat who turned out to be, putting it mildly, a cad. It was a stormy existence. The marriage reached its dramatic conclusion when Demidoff slapped her in public. He forgot that his wife had high connections across Europe and her mother was Tsar Nicolas I’s first cousin. The crown prince, the future Tsar Alexander II, stepped in to arrange a separation. The terms of the separation announced by the Tribunal in Saint-Petersburg forced Anatole to pay annual alimony of 200,000 French francs.
Princess Mathilde Bonaparte in her Studio by Charles Giraud, 1865. By exhibiting her artwork, she positioned herself alongside professional artists, challenging traditional expectations for women, particularly those of her aristocratic background
Rather than retiring to a quiet life of embroidery and regret, as a proper aristocratic woman might have done, Mathilde set up shop in Paris at 20 rue de Courcelles. Her home became the sort of salon where you might find Louis Pasteur discussing bacteria over canapés while tripping over one of her many dogs, or Gustave Flaubert defending his latest scandalous novel while sharing an armchair with a particularly entitled poodle.
Speaking of dogs, Mathilde’s pets were legendary in Parisian society. If you were invited to her salon – and everyone who was anyone was – you had to accept that her dogs had better social standing than you did. They had free rein of the furniture, and guests were expected to simply work around them. One can only imagine the sight of elegantly dressed aristocrats trying to maintain their dignity while gently negotiating with a sleeping spaniel for a piece of chair.
Perhaps her most trying moment as a hostess came during a visit from the Shah of Persia who installed his smelly portable toilet in her elegantly appointed residence. This, despite the fact that Mathilde had what was reputedly one of the most luxurious bathrooms in Paris. The princess, who hosted foreign rulers and artistic geniuses with equal aplomb, finally met her match. One can only imagine the expression on her face when this particular piece of luggage was brought in.
Lunch for ten guests at Princess Mathilde’s (1854)
When her cousin Louis-Napoleon finally succeeded in his regime-reversing hobby and became Napoleon III, Mathilde found herself in an interesting position. She was now cousin to the Emperor, former fiancée to the same, and a princess in her own right. While waiting for her imperial cousin to marry, she stepped into the role of First Lady. She might have been expected to behave with more decorum. She did not. Instead, she took up with the curator of the Louvre, Count Alfred-Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, and lived with him openly for twenty years. In an age when aristocratic women were supposed to conduct their affairs with discretion and complicated lying, Mathilde’s attitude seemed to be, “Yes, and?”
Her relationship with the new empress, Eugénie, was as warm as a wine cellar in January. Where Eugénie was conservative, Catholic, and proper, Mathilde was liberal, artistic, and couldn’t care less about proper conduct. The two women maintained a civility so icy you could have used it to chill champagne.
When the Second Empire collapsed in 1870, most Bonapartes fled France faster than you could say “political liability”. Not Mathilde. While others ran off to England or various other spots on the map where French republicans weren’t sharpening their metaphorical guillotines, she simply stayed put. When asked about the new republican regime, she reportedly said, “At least they leave me in peace with my dogs and my friends,” which might be the most pragmatic approach to regime change ever recorded.
She continued to hold her salon until her death in 1904. In an age of rigid social rules and political upheaval, Mathilde Bonaparte created her own unique way of being royal. It involved rather less curtsying and rather more dog hair than usually expected, but it worked remarkably well.
Historians often struggle to explain how this woman, who broke all social rules, managed to maintain her position through multiple regime changes. Perhaps the secret was that she simply couldn’t be bothered to fail. After all, she had paintings to paint, dogs to pamper, and guests to shock. Who had time for exile?
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