Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary (;Hofkalendern 1815 p. 1 8 November 1777 – 17 December 1860) was Queen of Sweden and Norway from 5 February 1818 to 8 March 1844 as the wife of King Charles XIV John. Charles John was a French general and founder of the House of Bernadotte. Désirée Clary, the mother of Oscar I, was the one-time fiancée of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was also the sister of Julie Clary, the queen consort of Spain and Naples. Her name was officially changed in Sweden to Desideria although she did not use that name.
Background and education Désirée Clary was born in Marseille, France, the daughter of François Clary (Marseille, St. Ferreol, 24 February 1725 – Marseille, 20 January 1794), a wealthy French silk manufacturer and merchant, by his second wife (m. 26 June 1759) Françoise Rose Somis (Marseille, St. Ferreol, 30 August 1737 – Paris, 28 January 1815). Eugénie was normally used as her name of address.Ulf Sundberg in Kungliga släktband p 206 Her father had been previously married, at Marseille on 13 April 1751, to Gabrielle Fléchon (1732 – 3 May 1758).
Clary had a sister and brother to whom she remained very close all her life. Her sister, Julie Clary, married Joseph Bonaparte; she later became Queen of Naples and Spain. Her brother, Nicolas Joseph Clary, was created Count Clary. He married Anne Jeanne Rouyer, by whom he had a daughter named Zénaïde Françoise Clary (Paris, 25 November 1812 – Paris, 27 April 1884). Zénaïde would marry Napoléon Alexandre Berthier (the son of Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier) and have several children, among them the first wife of Joachim, 4th Prince Murat.
As a child, Clary received the convent schooling usually given to daughters of the upper classes in pre-revolutionary France. However, when she was barely 11 years old, the French Revolution (starting in 1789) took place, during which convents were closed. Clary returned to live with her parents, where she was perforce home-schooled thereafter. Later, her education was described as shallow. It has been observed by several historians that Clary was devoted to her birth-family her entire life.
Meeting the Bonapartes In 1794, Clary's father died. Shortly after, it was discovered that in the years before the revolution, he had made an appeal to be ennobled, a request that had been denied. Because of this, Désirée Clary's brother Etienne, now the head of the family and her guardian, was arrested. Désirée Clary went to talk on his behalf and seek his release from the holding. In the process, she met Joseph Bonaparte, inviting him back to their home. Joseph was soon engaged to her elder sister Julie, while Napoleon was engaged to Désirée Clary on 21 April 1795. In 1795–1797, Clary lived with her mother in Genoa in Italy, where her brother-in-law Joseph had a diplomatic mission; they were also joined by the Bonaparte family. In 1795, Napoleon became involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais and broke the engagement to Clary on 6 September. He married Joséphine in 1796.
In 1797, Clary went to live in Rome with her sister Julie and her brother-in-law Joseph, who was French ambassador to the Papal States. Her relationship with Julie remained close. She was briefly engaged to Mathurin-Léonard Duphot, a French general. The engagement has been assumed to be Napoleon's idea to compensate her with a marriage, while Duphot was attracted to her dowry and position as sister-in-law of Napoleon. She agreed to the engagement though Duphot had a long-term relationship and a son with another woman. On 30 December 1797, on the eve of their marriage, Duphot was killed in an anti-French riot outside of their residence Palazzo Corsini in Rome. In later years, Clary vehemently denied that her engagement to Duphot had ever existed.
Madame Bernadotte
After her return to France, Clary lived with Julie and Joseph in Paris. In Paris, she lived in the circle of the Bonaparte family, who sided with her against Josephine after Napoleon had broken off their engagement. She herself did not like Josephine either, as she has been quoted calling her an aged courtesan with a deservedly bad reputation, but she is not believed to have shown any hostility toward Josephine as did the members of the Bonaparte family. She received a proposal from General Junot, but turned it down because it was given through Marmont.Lindwall, Lilly: (Swedish) Desideria. Bernadotternas anmoder.[Desideria. The Ancestral Mother of the Bernadottes] Stockholm. Åhlén och Åkerlunds Förlag A.-B. (1919) Clary eventually met her future spouse, Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, another French general and politician. They were married in a secular ceremony at Sceaux on 17 August 1798. In the marriage contract, Clary was given economic independence. On 4 July 1799, she gave birth to their only child, a son named Oscar.
During the coup of 1799, when Napoleon took power, she was exposed to manipulation from both the Bonaparte family, who wanted Bernadotte to support Napoleon, and the Bernadotte faction, who wanted him to take action for himself. Both sides tried to use her to influence Bernadotte and extract information from him about his attitudes. Aware of this, he did not tell her of his plans, but he was later to say that it was because of family influence that he had been passive during the coup. During the coup, the couple were forced to take refuge in the country villa of General Sarrazin at Villeneuve St. Georges: she apparently dressed as a man during the escape. She kept in contact with Julie all the time, and Napoleon accepted Bernadotte apparently because of her.
In 1800, Désirée Bernadotte was present at a failed assassination attempt on Napoleon, when a bomb exploded between the carriage of Napoleon and the carriage where she and Caroline Bonaparte were sitting. She was not interested in politics, but her good connections made her a puppet in the hands of her husband and Napoleon, who both used her to influence each other and to pass messages. In 1801, her husband had her interfere in favor of General Ernouf through Joseph. In 1802, a conspiracy against Napoleon was discovered. Napoleon suspected Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, and interrogated his wife, who naively told him that her spouse had not been involved, though he had met Moreau in their home and mumbled his name as well as the word conspiracy in his sleep. After this, Napoleon appointed her husband governor of Louisiana. The couple was ready to sail, when the appointment was retracted.
On 19 May 1804, her spouse was made Marshal of France, which gave her the equivalent position. However, she was described as indifferent to social position, like her sister Julie. Napoleon gave her an allowance, and a house in Rue d'Anjou Saint-Honoré, where she resided for the rest of her life when in Paris. At the Coronation of Napoleon on 2 December 1804, she followed Josephine, whose train was carried by her sisters-in-law, carrying the handkerchief and veil of Josephine on a pillow.
Her spouse was a leading general in the French army under Napoleon, and normally absent from Paris. He liked her to be a member of high society, and had her take lessons in dance and etiquette from an instructor Montel. Bernadotte had a good relationship with the Bonaparte Imperial family. Upon the request of her spouse, she did not have to be a lady-in-waiting, and did not participate in court life. She lived in the circle of the Bonaparte and Clary family and also participated in high society, where she enjoyed music, theater and dance, while she spent her summers at spas or her country villas at La Grange and Auteuil. It is believed that she may have had a romantic relationship with the Corsican Ange Chiappe, who often acted as her escort. She is described as pretty and pleasing and a skillful dancer, but fairly anonymous. She lived mostly separated from her spouse in Paris during his absence. She informed him about political events in Paris by correspondence.
During her husband's time as governor of the Hanseatic cities and governor of Hanover, Désirée visited him in Hamburg with her son a couple of times but she never stayed long; each time she soon returned to Paris. She was not happy living anywhere but Paris. In 1806, she was forced to accompany Empress Josephine to Mainz. When her spouse was made Prince of Pontecorvo in 1806, she worriedly asked if she would be forced to leave Paris, but was happy when she was assured that she would not. In 1807, she visited him in Spandau and in Marienburg in East Prussia, where she nursed him during his illness.
In August 1810, Bernadotte was elected heir to the throne of Sweden and she heiress, now in that position being given the official name of Desideria. She initially thought this was to be similar to the position of Prince of Pontecorvo, and did not expect to have to visit Sweden more than she had been forced to visit Pontecorvo: "I thought, that it was as it had been with Ponte Corvo, a place from where we would have a title." She was later to admit, that she had never cared about any other country than France and knew nothing of foreign countries nor did she care about them, and that she was in despair when she was told that this time, she would be expected to leave Paris. Desideria delayed her departure and did not leave with her spouse. She was delighted with the position she had received at the French court after her elevation to crown princess (she had been invited to court events every week), and she was frightened by the stories of her reluctant French servants, who tried to discourage her from leaving by saying that Sweden was a country close to the North Pole filled with Polar bears. Finally, she left Paris and traveled by Hamburg and Kronborg in Denmark over the Öresund to Helsingborg in Sweden.
Crown Princess
On 22 December 1810, Desideria arrived with her son Oscar in Helsingborg in Sweden, and the 6 January 1811, she was introduced to the Swedish royal court at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. She had been met in Helsingborg by her appointed Mistress of the Robes Countess Caroline Lewenhaupt and the maid of honor Mariana Koskull. The Swedish climate was reportedly a shock for her: she arrived during the winter, and she hated the snow so much that she cried. Her spouse had converted upon his election as heir to the Swedish throne, and upon their arrival, her son was also to do so, as was required, and was taken from her to be brought up a Lutheran. There was, in accordance with the Tolerance Act, no demand that she should convert, and a Catholic chapel was arranged for her use. Desideria was not religious, but the Catholic masses served to remind her of France, and she had the birth of Napoleon II celebrated by a Te Deum in her chapel.
Desideria was unable to adapt to the demands of formal court etiquette or participate in the representational duties which were required of her in her position of Crown Princess. Her French entourage, especially Elise la Flotte, made her unpopular during her stay in Sweden by encouraging her to complain about everything. She did not have a good relationship with Queen Charlotte, though the Dowager Queen Sophia Magdalena was reportedly kind to her. In her famous diaries, Queen Charlotte described her as good hearted, generous and pleasant when she chose to be and not one to plot, but also an immature "spoiled child", who hated all demands and was unable to handle any form of representation, and as "a French woman in every inch" who disliked and complained about everything which was not French, and "consequently, she is not liked." Queen Charlotte, who wanted to remain the center of attention at her own court, was not pleased with Desideria and also influenced King Charles against her.