Marie Bonaparte

Marie Bonaparte was a great-grandniece of Emperor Napoleon I of France. She was the only child of Roland Napoléon Bonaparte, a geographer and botanist, and Marie-Félix Blanc, a heiress of a casino fortune. She inherited a large fortune from her mother, who died shortly after her birth. She spent much of her youth in seclusion, reading literature and writing personal journals. She married Prince George of Greece and Denmark in 1907, but their marriage was unhappy and she had several affairs. She became interested in psychoanalysis and met Sigmund Freud in 1925. She became his patient, friend, and benefactor. She translated his works into French and helped him escape from Nazi Austria in 1938. She also wrote several books on psychoanalytic topics, such as female sexuality, Edgar Allan Poe, and Topsy, a chimpanzee she adopted. She died of leukemia in 1962 at the age of 80.