Pauline was but a child (in her thirteenth year) when the Buonapartes first settled at Marseilles; but when the success of her brother drew the family to the capital, she was blooming in all the pride of womanhood. As her personal charms were of a superior order, she had many offers of marriage. The preference was given to the infamous Freron; and the union was about to be celebrated, when who should arrive but a wife of that revolutionary ruffian, a woman whom he had abandoned, and whom he doubtless repented not having silenced by the guillotine, as he had silenced some thousand others in his time. This was awkward enough; but she had soon a husband provided her in General Leclerc, whom, however, she cordially hated. She refused to accompany him in an expedition to St. Domingo, when, by the command of her brother, she was forcibly carried on board, and thus, compelled to go. To her great joy, he fell a victim to the climate, and the beautiful widow returned to the dissipations of Paris. Her conduct, in fact, was so loose, that in the hope of her reformation, Napoleon procured her another husband, Prince Camillo de Borghese, a Roman noble. But this expedient had no good effect: she continued dissipated and worthless as ever; and became so notorious for her gallantries, that her husband carefully shunned her society.

The hotel which Pauline inhabited in Paris was capacious enough for her real wants, but not for her inclinations. She learned that the apartments of the adjoining house were exactly on a level with her own, and requested the proprietor either to sell her the whole or let her a part of it. She even offered a sum far beyond its actual value. As his circumstances, however, were easy, and as he was attached to a residence in which his life had been passed, he refused. The subject was dropped, but not forgotten by her. The first time he went into the country, she caused a communication to be opened between the first floors of the two houses; piled the old gentleman's furniture on the stairs, laid on an arm-chair the address of her notary, carefully closed every communication with the rest of the house, and took possession of her new apartments. On his return the owner was not a little surprised to find himself thus forcibly dispossessed of his own house. In a fury he resolved to try what justice he could obtain from the laws, but the lawyers hinted to him, that to commence proceedings against the sister of the emperor would be highly imprudent. After some reflection, he concurred in their opinion, waited on the notary, received a sum with which he had reason to be satisfied, and signed the contract of sale.

During Napoleon's residence in Elba, Pauline visited him, and became his most ready and useful instrument in the accomplishment of the designs he had formed. She it was who waited on some of his most active agents, and concerted with them the leading events which followed. She exhibited more attachment to her fallen brother than she had ever done in his most prosperous state. She returned him a magnificent chain of diamonds with which he had presented her when the wealth of Europe was within his grasp; she insisted on his accepting her most costly ornaments, to defray some of the expenses attending his rash enterprise; and even after his exile to St. Helena, she continued to send him proofs of her affection. This is the more creditable to her when contrasted with the selfish indifference exhibited towards the fallen chief by others of his relatives, who were much better able to serve him.

Madame Borghese detests her present husband as much as the first; indeed she could never love the man whom, she was required to obey. She is, however, as cordially execrated in return. She occupies one wing of his palace at Rome; the greater part of his time is passed at Florence, and he has caused all communication between the two sides of the palace to be carefully closed, that he may not be cursed with the sight of his wife when he visits the Eternal City. Still she is not unnoticed by the fashionable society of the place. Her vivacity, her manners, her rank, and above all the friendship of the late Pope, have apparently destroyed all remembrance of her former irregularities, especially in a country where conjugal infidelity is scarcely considered a crime. That a pontiff so good as Pius VII. should have deigned to notice such a woman, might occasion much surprise, were it not known that during his residence, or rather imprisonment, at Fontainebleau, she showed him frequent attention, and loaded him with many personal obligations. This she did, not, if report be true, from pity, and certainly not ftom devotion, but in the hope of securing a protector in case of her brother's ruin. "Who knows what may happen?" was her only reply to a lady who once ventured to ask the reason of her conduct in this case. She seems to have shared all along in the ominous apprehensions of her mother Letitia, and to have considered the emperor's power fully as precarious as it was splendid.