Queen Desideria (1777-1860)


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I just read ' Rites of peace' by Adam Zamoyski a few weeks ago, Desiree Clary gave me a good laugh. When she heard she actually had to go to Sweden she eclaimed 'but I thought it was one of these titles that we didn' t had to move!' (considering all Napoleontic generals got one new title after another).
 
That would be the one. Thanks, EmpressRouge!

The film is based on the wonderful novel "Desiree" by Austrian/Danish author Annemarie Selinko, who wrote it as the diary of Desirée and completely from her perspective, portraying her as a very romantic and kind person with courage and humour but not overly much interest in politics, so it has a kind of naive/fairytale tone to it which makes it a fabulous read.

I later found that Selinko based a lot of her facts about Desirée's later life as queen in Sweden on a biography of her daughter-in-law Josephine de Beauharnais of Leuchtenberg, daughter of Eugène de Beaharnais and Bavarian princess Amalie which appeared from the bibliography to be well researcheds os it could have been in fact like that.
 
I just read ' Rites of peace' by Adam Zamoyski a few weeks ago, Desiree Clary gave me a good laugh. When she heard she actually had to go to Sweden she eclaimed 'but I thought it was one of these titles that we didn' t had to move!' (considering all Napoleontic generals got one new title after another).

I'm not sure that she actually said that. It's one of the central scenes in the "Desirée"-book by Selinko but I wonder how this exclamation could have been reported - by whom? I recall a discussion about that in a biography that I read years ago and the author thought it was very untypical for Desirée to say something like that.It was known that Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was spied on by Fouché and that some of these reports are still available in the archives in Paris. I seem to recall that they found one about a scene where Napoleon seem to have said to Bernadotte that even his wife doesn't want to go to Sweden in order to sway him and this could be the source for that quote. But it's obviously not sure if Desiree really said it or if it was invented for Napoleon.

Of course, one can assume that it was not easy for a lady from the south of France who had lived most of her life in fashionable Paris as a high-society lady to move to teh cold backwaters of Stockholm and that she didn't look forward to it when her own sister Julie Bonaparte lived in comfort in Paris wearing the "crown" of Spain.
 
in movies about napoleon is she a character in those movies?
 
in movies about napoleon is she a character in those movies?

I could find the film "Napoleon" by Sasha Guitry from 1955 where Dany Robin played Desirée and the film "Napoleon" by Able Gance from 1927 where Annabelle played Desiree.

There was a film "Le Destin fabuleux de Désirée Clary" by Sasha Guitry from 1942 where Gaby Morlay played the adult Désirée.
An Italian film "La Sposa dei Re" by Duilio Coletti from 1938 with Elsa di Giorgi as Desiree.
 
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Josephine,

Queen Desideria (Desiree) is burried in the Riddarholmen church (Riddarholmsskyrkan) in Stockholm where most of the Swedish Kings and Queens are burried.

Desideria means desired and she didn't feel very desired in Sweden when she arrived.
 
She was really French and missed France terribly. In fact, she went back to France and stayed there for many years, even though her husband and her son stayed in Sweden. But somehow, she didn't manage to return to France again after that.
 
Some images:

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I loved some of the anecdotes about her life in Sweden that I found in Wikipedia: Désirée Clary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems Queen Desideria was a bit of an eccentric, partly because of her character and partly because she never really felt at home in Sweden.

"She never became very popular at the royal court and never learned to speak Swedish, and there are many anecdotes of her attempts to speak the language. She kept her French personal staff. She spent her summers at Drottningholm Palace, (a residence her husband disliked) or Rosersberg Palace, and often visited Swedish spas, such as Ramlösa spa. She visited Norway a couple of times, the first time in 1825. The court was astonished by her informal behaviour. Every morning, she visited her husband in her nightgown, which was shocking, as her husband usually conferred with members of the council of state in his bed chamber at that time. Otherwise, they met only on formal occasions. In 1826, because she was always late at dinner, he stopped having his meals with her. She went to bed late, and woke up late."

"In 1844, her husband died. In 1853, she wished to return to Paris, but her fear of sea travel made it impossible. After becoming a widow, she grew more and more eccentric. She went to bed in the morning, got up in the evening, ate breakfast at night, and drove around in a carriage through the streets, in the courtyard, or wandered around the corridors of the sleeping castle with a light. An anecdote illustrates this: in 1843, a palace guard saw the queen fully dressed on the palace balcony in the middle of the night. When he came home to his wife, he told her, that she was lazy in comparison to the queen, who had gotten up hours before sunrise. He had thought Queen Désirée was up earlier than anyone else in town, but, in fact, she had not yet gone to bed - she would eventually get up from bed at three or four in the afternoon. She enjoyed making unannounced visits and, sometimes, she would take in children from the streets to the palace and give them sweets: she could not speak to them, but she would say "Kom, kom!", which is Swedish for : "Come come!" There are other stories about people having been awakened by her carriage when she drove through the streets at night; the carriage sometimes stopped. She would sleep for a while, and then she would wake and the carriage would continue on its way. Sometimes she drove in circles around the royal palace: this habit was called 'Kring Kring', one of the few Swedish words she learned, which means 'around and around'. On the last day of her life, she entered her box at the opera just as the performance had ended."


I can just picture her in her carriage going "Kring! Kring!" :lol:
 
Yes, I've heard those stories too. She became really eccentric by the years. But I also believe, that she was unhappy, so it was her way to let her some of her frustrations out.

I didn't know, that she was afraid of sea traveling, and that was why she never returned to France again. Thanks for letting me know that!
 
She was a simple, practical, Frenchwoman, thrust onto the world stage and then into a foreign country, where she never felt at home. In fact, when he husband was elected to the Swedish throne, she came once and returned to France until he became king, as she was disliked by her adoptive mother-in-law and the court and, so, she returned as Queen rather than as Crown Princess. She was a devoted wife and mother, although, she kept her distance from Sweden.
 
I have recently been reading about Queen Desideria and I find her to be in interesting queen. Can someone please tell me why she went under the name of Countess of Gotland when giving parties in Paris?

I find her and Queen Kristina two of Europes most interesting queens. There must have been something in the Swedish water!
 
I have recently been reading about Queen Desideria and I find her to be in interesting queen. Can someone please tell me why she went under the name of Countess of Gotland when giving parties in Paris?

I find her and Queen Kristina two of Europes most interesting queens. There must have been something in the Swedish water!

The title Countess of Gotland was her official alias when she wished to remain incognito. She carried a passport signed by the Swedish King Carl XIII when she went back to France after her short visit to Sweden 1810-11.

In Paris she used her official title Crown Princess later Queen of Sweden. The official explanation for her taking residency in Paris were health reasons.
 
When Desiree Bernadotte became a mother in 1799 she asked Napoleon to be godfather. Napoleon asked that the boy be called Oscar after Ossian. Ossian was the hero of the Macpherson epic. Desiree named her son Oscar. :baby::napoleon::fleurdelis:

Napoleon I penned a romance novel titled Clisson et Eugenie.
Clisson et Eugenie may be based on Napoleon's relationship with Eugenie Desiree Clary.
 
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The title Countess of Gotland was her official alias when she wished to remain incognito. She carried a passport signed by the Swedish King Carl XIII when she went back to France after her short visit to Sweden 1810-11.

In Paris she used her official title Crown Princess later Queen of Sweden. The official explanation for her taking residency in Paris were health reasons.

She hated Sweden. The Vasa Queen and Princess Albertine didn't like her much either. She wanted her husband to succeed at this new "job". She returned to France and did not return until she was queen. Remember, she was Eugenie Desiree Clary, daughter of a silk merchant, in Marsailles. She was a republican at heart. She was engaged to Napoleon at one time, but he moved on to richer waters, to the then Countess De Beauharnais, Josephine. Desiree married Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, who founded the present dynasty. He, too, was a republican. Funny where life takes you.
 
Desirée never liked Sweden, no. She appearantly hated the cold winters and called the country "the land of the wolves". Desirée remained French in heart and never learned how to speak Swedish (then again, her husband hardly did either). You might be right also about her actually being a Republican, having grown up during the time of the French revolution. And even though she was allowed to remain a Catholic (her husband and her son had to convert to the Lutheran faith), she doesn't seem to have been as religious as her daughter-in-law Josephine, another queen who had been allowed to keep her Catholic faith.

I think I even read somewhere that Jean Baptiste Bernadotte had a tatoo saying "down with all kings"! :whistling:
 
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Queen Desideria returned to Sweden to attend her son's wedding. She hoped to return to France once the ceremony was over. She was given a coronation ceremony.
 
Popular historian Herman Lindqvist at his chronicle in Svensk Damtidning about queen Desideria

Some people are distinctive evening people, others are early risers. The same goes for royal families. King Carl XVI Gustaf is rarely really awake before ten o'clock in the morning, but all the better after ten o'clock in the evening.
The very first in the House of Bernadotte, Karl XIV Johan and Queen Désirée, were not good morning persons. Over the years, the king and queen met more and less frequently. They did not eat meals together. The Queen's morning rises became ever later in the day and gradually approached the time of the afternoon tea.
Her whole day was postponed so that she used to go on her morning ride with horse and carriage at the dinner time in the evening. She ate the supper after midnight and then she could sit up all night and have a good time with her ladies-in-waiting. The ladies, however, didn't always have a nice time.
They tried to stay awake in different ways, sometimes simply by knitting each other with the needles in the needlework. No one could retire for the night until the Queen had done so. Queen Désirée wanted to walk in the garden in the summer night, but was afraid of the bats, so she let her ladies-in-waiting walk first wearing white dresses to attract the animals.
The Queen spent many summers at Rosersberg Palace in Uppland. There she sat with her ladies-in-waiting on the veranda and had a nice time the whole night. When the first peasants came at five to deal with today's chores, they could see the Queen of Sweden on the balcony and admire her for being such an early bird. They didn't know that she would only soon go to bed.
Herman Lindqvist_ _Désirée var en morgontrött drottning_ _ Svensk Damtidning
 
Popular historian Herman Lindqvist at his chronicle in Svensk Damtidning about queen Desideria

Some people are distinctive evening people, others are early risers. The same goes for royal families. King Carl XVI Gustaf is rarely really awake before ten o'clock in the morning, but all the better after ten o'clock in the evening.
The very first in the House of Bernadotte, Karl XIV Johan and Queen Désirée, were not good morning persons. Over the years, the king and queen met more and less frequently. They did not eat meals together. The Queen's morning rises became ever later in the day and gradually approached the time of the afternoon tea.
Her whole day was postponed so that she used to go on her morning ride with horse and carriage at the dinner time in the evening. She ate the supper after midnight and then she could sit up all night and have a good time with her ladies-in-waiting. The ladies, however, didn't always have a nice time.
They tried to stay awake in different ways, sometimes simply by knitting each other with the needles in the needlework. No one could retire for the night until the Queen had done so. Queen Désirée wanted to walk in the garden in the summer night, but was afraid of the bats, so she let her ladies-in-waiting walk first wearing white dresses to attract the animals.
The Queen spent many summers at Rosersberg Palace in Uppland. There she sat with her ladies-in-waiting on the veranda and had a nice time the whole night. When the first peasants came at five to deal with today's chores, they could see the Queen of Sweden on the balcony and admire her for being such an early bird. They didn't know that she would only soon go to bed.
Herman Lindqvist_ _Désirée var en morgontrött drottning_ _ Svensk Damtidning
Poor ladies-in-waiting! Then again, I don't believe that Queen Desideria was too happy with her situation either.
 
Today in Royal History is the 190th Anniversary of Queen Desideria's Coronation as Queen Consort of Sweden and Norway.
 
I have recently been reading about Queen Desideria and I find her to be in interesting queen. Can someone please tell me why she went under the name of Countess of Gotland when giving parties in Paris?

I find her and Queen Kristina two of Europes most interesting queens. There must have been something in the Swedish water!


In the water? Something very unpleasant then, because both Kristina and Desirée went into exile to the South...(where in summer all city water were notorious for their odeur..)
 
The following video has nice pictures of Queen Desiree. Also there are some pictures from the movie Desiree.
 
There is a newer English novel about Desirée called "The Queen's Fortune" by Allison Pataki, but not imho as literary or as enjoyable as Selinko. (The most annoying thing in my memory is how she has Desi say "my name means desire" which... it doesn't and really should have been not written by the author or gone uncaught by the editor...?)

She was really "Eugenie Bernardine" Desirée; does anyone know when or why she switched, or was she renamed by Bonaparte as well?
 
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