After Napoleon's Fall
In 1806, Napoleon made his sister sovereign Princess and Duchess of Guastalla; however, she soon sold the duchy to Parma for six million francs, and keeping only the title of Princess of Guastalla. Pauline fell into temporary disfavour with her brother because of her hostility to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise, but when Napoleon's fortune failed, Pauline showed herself more loyal than any of his other sisters and brothers.
Upon Napoleon's fall, Pauline liquidated all of her assets into cash and moved to Elba, using that money to better Napoleon's condition. She was the only Bonaparte sibling to visit her brother during his exile at Elba.
After Waterloo Pauline moved to Rome, where she enjoyed the protection of Pope Pius VII (who once was her brother's prisoner), as did her mother, Letizia (then at a palace on the Piazza Venezia), and other members of the Bonaparte family. Pauline lived in a villa near the Porta Pia, that was called Villa Paolina after her and decorated in the Egyptomania style she favoured. Her husband, Camillo, moved to Florence to distance himself from her and had a ten-year relationship with a mistress, but even so Pauline persuaded the Pope to persuade the prince to return to her, only three months before her death from pulmonary tuberculosis in the couple's Palazzo Borghese.
Read more about this topic: Pauline Bonaparte
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