Passionate about psychoanalysis, the eventual descendant of Bonaparte forced the discipline to emerge in France. A friend and supporter of Freud, he helped him escape from the Nazi regime. Story told by Virginia Giraud*.
Marie Bonaparte is less famous than her famous great uncle Napoleon. However, he had an atavistic audacity. And Sigmund Freud and French psychoanalysis owe a lot to him. Marie Bonaparte, born in 1882, married Prince George of Greece at the age of 25, to whom her father introduced her. Georges, a homosexual, will remain a “faithful companion”, the father of their two children, while also loving his uncle, the Dane Valdemar. To avoid it all, Marie frequents intellectuals, including science popularizer Gustave Le Bon, author of a famous book on crowd psychology. It was he who introduced her to psychoanalysis, a discipline then shunned in France, even though Freud was at the height of his fame in Austria.
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intellectual passion
Thanks to a friend, the princess was introduced to the master, and there she began intensive analysis in Vienna in September 1925. In a few months he was convinced of Freud’s genius and, back in France, immediately became a champion of psychoanalysis. In particular, with five doctors, including René Laforgue, one of the pioneers of the field, in 1926 he co-founded the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, a learned society for reflection on Freudian concepts and their application in the medical world. The group communicates through the Revue française de psychanalyse, a press organ largely funded by the princess, who also publishes her own research there. Marie Bonaparte gained fame in the industry and translated Freud’s works into French.
A friend is in danger
When Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany, Marie realizes that the Jew Freud, whom she has become a pen pal, will soon be in danger. He invites her to move in. The father of psychoanalysis initially refused, then came to terms with the facts after the Anschluss in 1938. His beloved daughter Anna, heir to his work, was interrogated by the Gestapo. He understands that his notoriety will not be able to protect his family for long. Marie Bonaparte moved to the branch of the Greek Embassy in Vienna to organize the Freuds’ emigration to England. The Nazis demanded high taxes to get them out of German-controlled territory. Without hesitation, Marie paid the huge “ransom”, which Freud returned in the following months, in 1939. shortly before he died in England in September. During World War II, the princess went into exile with the Greek royal family, heading to Cape Town, South Africa. , where he works as a therapist. He ends his activities in France and therefore will never participate in the collaboration attempts of some of his colleagues, such as Laforgue.
“Freud said…”
When he returned to France in 1945 at the age of 63, the new psychoanalysts, including Jacques Lacan, departed from what they saw as the custodians of Freudian orthodoxy. The most important ones call it “Freud Said…”. Suffering from leukemia, “the last of the Bonapartes” died in 1962 in Saint-Tropez. Even if his work had been denigrated by a large number of therapists, French psychoanalysis probably would not have had the success we know without it.
Read: “Marie Bonaparte/Sigmund Freud, Complete Correspondence, 1925-1939”, Éditions Flammarion.
* Virginia Giraud holds a doctorate in history. Find him on the podcast At the heart of the story From Europe 1 Studio, on your favorite listening platform.
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Source: Le Figaro
