Désirée Clary
Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary (born November 8, 1777 in Marseille , France, † December 17, 1860 in Stockholm ), married in 1798 Désirée Bernadotte , became Queen of Sweden and Norway in 1818 under the name Desideria .
ancestors
The name Clary is common in different provinces. Many researchers have tried unsuccessfully to prove an origin. So far it has not been possible to clarify clearly where the Clary family in Marseille came from. Some researchers suspected the origin in the Dauphiné , others in Albi . Under the Ancien Régime , the Clary family had no claim to nobility. During the First Empire , fortunes and relationships were such that the family managed without a brilliant pedigree.
In 1940, a researcher who lived in Nice believed that he had found the “cradle” of the Clarys: in a small village (Péone) in the Maritime Alps, there are many people who bear the name Clary. However, the entries in the Catholic church registers and other documents do not allow any correct conclusions to be drawn about the relationship with the Clary family from Marseille.
The marital records of the city of Marseille consider Jacques Clary to be a real ancestor. He was the son of Antoine and Marguerite Canolle. On November 24, 1690 he married Cathérine Barosse in the church of St. Martin in Marseille. A common son was baptized in the name of Joseph (1693-1748). He married Francoise-Agnès Amauricc on February 27, 1724. From this connection came François Clary, Désirée's father (1725–1797). Her mother was Françoise-Rose Somis (1737-1815).
childhood
The father François Clary was born on February 24, 1725. He ran an import and export business from and to Constantinople in Marseille . He made a considerable fortune trading coffee and colonial products. François Clary was married twice. His first wife was Gabrielle Flechon, whom he married on April 13, 1751. This marriage had four children, François-Joseph, Marie-Jeanne, Marie-Thérèse-Catherine and Etienne-François. Gabrielle died on May 3, 1758, four months after giving birth to the last child. The following year, on June 26, 1759, François Clary entered into a second marital union with Françoise-Rose Somis, who gave birth to nine children in the course of their marriage and so did the family around the members Nicolas-Joseph, Joseph-Honoré, Rose, Lucie , Justinien, Honorine, Julie , Basile and Désirée advanced.
The youngest and thirteenth child, Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary, was born on November 8, 1777 in Marseille. The girl was baptized in the Saint-Ferréol church the day after she was born. The godparents were her mother's sister, Bernardine-Cathérine de Somis, and the husband of her half-sister Jeanne, Louis Honoré Le Jeans.
The Clary family expanded even further in the following generations. The descendants of François Clary ultimately consisted of 13 children, 19 grandchildren, 39 great-grandchildren and 59 great-great-grandchildren.
Youth and engagement to Napoleon
Little is known about Désirée's youth. She only attended school for a few years, after which she lived with her two oldest siblings (Etienne and Julie Clary), her mother and the housemaid Marie in Marseille. In her diary she describes both the French Revolution and her private life. In 1793 Eugénie, who later called themselves Désirée, met the poor Corsican emigrant family Buonaparte (later called Bonaparte ) when they tried to free their older brother Etienne from prison and met Joseph Bonaparte there by chance . She introduced this to her older sister Julie, because she was still unmarried. In August 1794 Julie married Joseph Bonaparte, who later became King of Naples or, subsequently, King of Spain. The wedding took place on the part of Joseph not least because of Julie's high dowry. Eugénie fell in love with Joseph's brother Napoleone and the two became a couple. In the period from April 1795 to 1796 Désirée was engaged to the young, still insignificant General Napoleon Bonaparte , who later became Emperor of the French. Since Napoléon later met the influential widow Joséphine in Paris and married in 1796, the two never married. By another coincidence, Desirée met Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte on the same day .
Marriage to General Bernadotte and Queen of Sweden
On August 17, 1798, she married General Bernadotte, a friend of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte , who were both groomsmen. Her son Oskar was born on July 4, 1799 , although the sponsorship of the son is controversial. Napoleon later boasted of them on Saint Helena , while Bernadotte, meanwhile Charles XIV. John of Sweden, denied this and Joseph Bonaparte can be considered the likely godfather, since Napoleon was in command of the Egyptian expedition at that time and the Bernadotte family are close friends with the Josephs family was.
In 1810 Bernadotte - who had meanwhile become Marshal of France (1804) and Prince of Ponte Corvo (1806) - was adopted by the childless Swedish royal couple as Crown Prince under the name of Karl Johann, and Désirée became Queen of 1818 with the coronation of her husband under the name of Desideria Sweden and Norway . Although her husband and son lived in Sweden from 1810 and Bernadotte led the Northern Army in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon in 1813 and 1814 , she traveled back to France and lived there until 1823, mostly under the pseudonym Countess of Gotland . The reasons for this are both health - she could not cope with the Nordic climate in 1810 - and her aversion to the stiff Swedish royal court. On the occasion of her son's wedding on June 19, 1823, she came to Stockholm with the bride Josephine von Leuchtenberg . Her coronation took place in Stockholm on December 21, 1829. In Norway she could not be crowned as a Catholic because the Evangelical Church was anchored in the Norwegian constitution as the state religion. However, the insignia had already been obtained and is now in Trondheim Cathedral . However, she lived separately from her husband at Rosersberg Castle near Sigtuna .
On December 17, 1860, Desideria went to Stockholm to see a production of Calderón's drama Life is a Dream . After going to the theater, she suddenly died on the stairs of the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Her son Oskar succeeded his father on the throne. Today's Swedish royal family still bears the family name Bernadotte .
reception
In 1951 the novel Désirée by Annemarie Selinko was published , which became a world bestseller translated into numerous languages. 1954 came a film adaptation of the novel with Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons in the leading roles in the cinemas. Sacha Guitry filmed the fate of Désirée Clary in Le destin fabuleux de Désirée Clary as early as 1941 .
literature
- Gabriel Girod de L'Ain: Désirée Clary - A picture of life after their unpublished correspondence with Bonaparte, Bernadotte and their family. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1961, French Original edition 1959
- Annemarie Selinko : Désirée. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1951
Movies
- Le destin fabuleux de Désirée Clary. France 1941, directed by Sacha Guitry , actors: Jean-Louis Barrault as Napoleon
- Désirée . USA 1954, production: 20th Century Fox, director: Henry Koster, script: Daniel Taradash based on the novel by Annemarie Selinko, actors: Marlon Brando as Napoléon, Jean Simmons as Désirée Clary; 2 Oscar nominations (equipment and costume)
Web links
- Literature by and about Désirée Clary in the catalog of the German National Library
- The story of Desiree (German)
- Désirée Clary. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).
annotation
- ↑ de l'Ain p. 13.
- ↑ de l'Ain p. 14.
- ↑ de l'Ain p. 14 f.
- ↑ Gabriel Girod de l'Ain: DÉSIRÉE - you and married! Der Spiegel from August 9, 1961
- ^ Nils Petter Thuesen: Keyword “Desideria” in Norsk biografisk leksikon
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Hedwig of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf |
Queen of Sweden 1818–1844 |
Josephine von Leuchtenberg |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Clary, Désirée |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Clary, Bernardine-Eugénie-Désirée (full name); Desideria |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Queen of Sweden and Norway |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1777 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Marseille |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 17, 1860 |
| Place of death | Stockholm |