BORGHESE, Marie Pauline (PanrcEss), sister of Napoleon: b..Ajaccio 20 Oct 1780; d. 9 June 1825. When her first husband, General Leclerc, was sent to Saint Domingo with the rank of captain-general, Napoleon ordered her to accompany her husband with her son. She embarked in December 1801, at Brest, and sup ported with courage the hardships of a cam paign that ended in the withdrawal of the French troops. After General Leclerc's death she married, at Morfontaine in 1803, the Prince Camillo Borghese. Her son died at Rome soon after. With Napoleon she had many disputes and as many reconciliations, for she would not always follow the caprices of his policy. Yet even the proud style in which she demanded what her brothers begged made her the more attractive to her brother. Once, however, when she forgot herself toward the Empress, whom she never liked, she was obliged to leave the court. She was yet in disgrace at Nice when Napoleon resigned his crown in 1814. Before
the battle of Waterloo she placed all her dia monds, which were of great value, at the dis posal of her brother. They were in his carriage which was taken in that battle, his intention having been to return them to her. She lived afterward separated from her husband at Rome, where she occupied part of the palace Borghese and where she possessed, from 1816, the Villa Sciarra. Her house, in which taste and love of the fine arts prevailed, was the centre of the most splendid society at Rome. When she heard of the sickness of her brother Napoleon, she repeatedly requested permission to go to him at Saint Helena. She finally obtained her request, but the news of his death arrived im mediately after. A marble portrait statue by Canova, representing her as Venus, is now in the Borghese collection at Rome.