The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People

by David Wallechinsky

  When Napoleon fell, Pauline was the only one of his siblings to join him in exile—for four months—on the isle of Elba.

  SEX LIFE: At 15 she fell in love with 40-year-old Louis Fréron, an intelligent but unscrupulous political adventurer who was called the “king of the dandies.” He gave up his mistress, a Parisian actress, to devote himself to Pauline. “I swear to love but you alone,” Pauline promised in return. Napoleon was ambivalent about the match, but their mother, Letizia, was certain Fréron was wrong for her daughter and he was sent away. With Fréron eliminated, Pauline began to flirt with most of Napoleon’s general staff. In order to end this, Napoleon sought a husband for Pauline. He found one in an army comrade. Charles Victor Leclerc was blond, clean-cut, and serious, the son of a wealthy miller. Napoleon handed him Pauline and a promotion to brigadier general. Pauline accepted Leclerc’s proposal amiably, and they were married in June, 1797. While she had no great passion for Leclerc, he satisfied her in bed and that was enough. The next year, when she was 17, Pauline bore her husband a son, whom Napoleon named Dermide. (The child would die in his sixth year.) In 1801, when the rich French colony of St. Domingue—now Haiti—in the Caribbean was threatened by the Spanish, the English, and soon enough by the independence-minded Toussaint L’Ouverture, Napoleon sent Leclerc at the head of 25,000 troops to restore order. Pauline was forced to accompany her husband. Just as Pauline was beginning to enjoy the social amenities of Haiti, her husband came down with yellow fever and died in November, 1802.

  Back in Paris, Pauline’s mourning was short-lived. She wanted to play. To prevent this, Napoleon found her a second husband. He was 28-year-old Prince Camillo Borghese, an attractive, dark-haired, empty-headed, elegant Italian who owned one of the world’s biggest diamond collections and countless properties, including the art-laden Villa Borghese in Rome. Pauline was not terribly interested in Borghese, but she liked the wealth and the title that came with him. A papal cardinal officiated at their wedding in August, 1803. From the wedding night on, their sexual union was a disaster. What ruined their coupling for Pauline, as one biographer put it, was that Prince Borghese “somewhat disappointingly had a very small penis. Pauline, whose nymphomania was periodic but intense, scorned all but very large ones.” Disgusted, Pauline wrote an uncle, “I’d far rather have remained Leclerc’s widow with an income of only 20,000 francs than be married to a eunuch.”

  After that, she separated herself from Prince Borghese and went on a hunt for men of the proper proportions. By 1806 she had found what she wanted in Paris. A tall, muscular, society painter, Louis Philippe Auguste de Forbin was 30 years old and mightily endowed. Pauline made him her royal chamberlain and copulated with him daily—endlessly. This ceaseless fornicating at last began to affect Pauline’s health, and at the urging of her doctors and mother, Forbin left to enlist in the French army. Long after, he became director of the Louvre.

  Despite her physical exhaustion, Pauline’s sexual activity rarely abated in the next 15 years. In Nice she took up with a mild-mannered young musician, Felix Blangini. She hired him to “conduct her orchestra.” She had no orchestra, but she had her bed, and there they enjoyed duets. In 1810 she tried out an aide to Napoleon’s chief of staff, a sensual ladies’ man aged 25. Her affair with Col. Armand Jules de Canouville was passionate and wild. To nip any potential scandal Napoleon had the colonel transferred to Danzig. In 1812 he was killed near Moscow, a locket containing a miniature of Pauline pressed against his chest. For days Pauline sobbed with grief. Finally, she distracted herself with other affairs, including a loveless one with the celebrated actor François Talma. After Waterloo and St. Helena, she had a brief reconciliation with Prince Borghese, and in the Villa Borghese, mirror in hand, she died of cancer at 44. Her last wish was that her coffin not stand open at her funeral, but that the Canova nude be brought out of storage to represent her.

  MEDICAL REPORT: Pauline Bonaparte’s case was an unusual one—that of a woman suffering from excessive sexual intercourse. The problem first appeared during her mating with Forbin, whose organ was so often inside Pauline that she suffered acute vaginal distress. Her unhealthy state, said one biographer, “was based on nothing but undue friction, mostly brought on by M. de Forbin, who was endowed with a usable gigantism and very hard to get rid of.” When Pauline’s vaginal distress worsened, her doctor called in France’s leading gynecologist, Dr. Jean-Noël Hallé, to have a look at her. Hallé did so twice and then wrote the following memorandum to Pauline’s physician.

  Her general appearance indicates … exhaustion. The womb was still sensitive, but somewhat less so; and the ligaments still exhibited signs of the painful inflammation for which we prescribed baths last Thursday. The present condition of the uterus is caused by a constant and habitual excitation of that organ; if this does not cease, an exceedingly dangerous situation may result. That is the source of her trouble, and I hinted at its causes when speaking to the Princess last Thursday. I blamed the internal douches, and spoke in a general way of possible causes of an irritation of the womb…. The douche and its tube cannot always be held responsible. One is bound to assume a continuous cause for such exhaustion in the case of a young and beautiful woman living apart from her husband. If there is anyone who shares the fault for these indulgences, this person would not accuse himself. We would be blamed for seeing nothing and permitting everything. I’ve no wish to pass for a fool nor be accused of base and stupid complacency. But quite apart from that, there is the necessity of saving this unfortunate young woman.

  The doctors acted. Forbin was sent away. And Pauline rested—but not for long. Soon the inflammation reappeared, as it would continue to do for the rest of her life.

  —I.W.

  No Horsing Around

  CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA (Apr. 21, 1729-Nov. 6, 1796))

  HER FAME: Catherine the Great, a German princess with a French education, ruled the vast Russian empire as an autocrat for 34 years.

  Catherine at 15

  HER PERSON: Married at 16 to her 17-year-old cousin Peter, who was the nephew and heir of Russia’s reigning Empress Elizabeth, Catherine was under notice to produce children. (Elizabeth was herself childless.) Unfortunately, Peter was crazy, impotent, and sterile. Catherine contemplated suicide, then sought escape in voracious reading and long strenuous hours on horseback. At last, after nearly 10 years of marriage, she gave birth to a son—probably by her first lover, Sergei Saltykov, a young Russian nobleman. Since Peter was growing crazier and more unpopular each day, Catherine’s own chances of succession looked hopeless too; moreover, Peter was threatening to divorce her. She decided that she could and would plan a coup d’état. In June, 1762, Peter had been emperor just six months and was absent planning an insane war against Denmark. Catherine donned a lieutenant’s uniform, rode into St. Petersburg (then the Russian capital) at the head of a detachment of imperial guards, and had herself proclaimed empress. Peter, shattered by the news, was quickly arrested and murdered. Catherine’s chief accomplices had been her lover Count Grigori Orlov and his two brothers, all officers in the Horse Guards. In the course of her long reign she broke the power of the clergy, put down a major rebellion, reorganized the civil service, forced the Ukrainian peasants into serfdom, and added more than 200,000 sq. mi. to Russian territory—at the expense of the 95% of the population which worked the land.

  SEX LIFE: Catherine before marriage was innocently sensual; at night she masturbated with a pillow between her legs. To her bridegroom, however, bed was where one played with toys. At 23 she was still a virgin.

  One stormy night on an island in the Baltic Sea her lady-in-waiting, very likely on the empress’ instructions, left Catherine alone with Saltykov, a hardened young seducer. He had promised her rapture, and she was not disappointed. Neither was Empress Elizabeth. The affair with Saltykov unleashed Catherine’s sexuality. After two miscarriages, Catherine again became pregnant and this time was ordered to take life easy. No sooner had her son Paul been born than the em
press snatched him away. Catherine lay unattended in a drafty room while Russia celebrated. Her second child, also officially Peter’s, was a girl, who died soon after the actual father, a young Polish nobleman employed by the British ambassador, was sent home in disgrace. Peter was overheard muttering, “I don’t know how it is that my wife becomes pregnant.”

  Catherine’s three remaining children, all boys, were fathered by Grigori Orlov. They were born in secret, Catherine’s hoop skirts having successfully concealed each pregnancy. The first birth occurred while Peter was still alive. In order to lure him away from the palace as she went into labor, Catherine had a faithful servant set fire to his own house, which was nearby. (Peter never could resist a good fire.) The other two children, brought up for a while in the homes of servants, were not introduced into the court nursery until they were at an age where nobody could be certain whose they were. These maneuvers were necessary because Catherine, not wanting to end the Romanov dynasty, had refused to marry Grigori. He retaliated by making the ladies of the court his harem. Nevertheless, Catherine stayed faithful to him for 14 years and turned him out only when he seduced his 13-year-old cousin.

  Catherine was now 43. Her thick brown hair, expressive blue eyes, and small, sensual mouth had lost none of their appeal, while her figure was more voluptuous than in her youth. One of her protégés and original supporters, a cavalry officer named Grigori Potëmkin, had already declared his loyalty to her and then retired to a monastery (he had once studied to be a priest). Potëmkin was canny enough not to return to secular life until Catherine promised to appoint him her “personal adjutant general” (i.e., official favorite); first, the current favorite had to be dismissed. For two years thereafter the empress and her 35-year-old lover enjoyed a tumultuous affair, filled with quarrels and reconciliations. When the sexual passion died, Potëmkin, willing to give up Catherine but not his influence at court, convinced her that her favorites could be replaced as easily as any other servants. To make sure that they were, he added, he would select them himself.

  Amazingly, the new system worked quite well until Catherine was 60. A potential favorite was first examined by Catherine’s personal physician for signs of venereal disease. If pronounced healthy, he was then given a different kind of “physical”; his virility was tested by a lady-in-waiting appointed for that purpose. The next stage, if he reached it, was installation in the favorite’s special apartment, located directly below Catherine’s and connected to it by a private staircase. There he would find a large monetary gift. Repeat performances with the empress brought additional rewards and honors, while his main job remained that of being her adjutant general and “emperor of the night.” On dismissal he might receive anything from additional money to an estate complete with 4,000 peasants. In this way Catherine ran through 13 men and a great deal of public money in 16 years. Growing old at last, the 60-year-old empress succumbed to the wiles of 22-year-old Platon Zubov, an officer of the Horse Guards, whom Potëmkin disapproved of because he was too ambitious. Zubov was her main sexual interest until her death at 67. Contrary to the age-old rumor that she died while attempting intercourse with a horse, Catherine expired two days after suffering a massive stroke.

  SEX PARTNERS: Peter’s impotence seems to have been due to an operable malformation of the penis. One story is that Saltykov and his friends, having got Peter drunk, persuaded him to undergo corrective surgery and so become accountable for Catherine’s pregnancies. But we do not know whether Peter ever had sex with her, though he did begin having mistresses. Polish Count Stanislas Poniatowski, Catherine’s second lover, was caught leaving her country retreat in disguise. When Peter accused him of having intercourse with Catherine, he indignantly denied it, whereupon Peter dragged her out of bed. Later he forced the lovers to join him and his mistress at supper. In 1764 Catherine had Poniatowski made king of Poland, as Stanislas II, but when he proved unable to control the Polish nationalists, she wiped the country off the map by annexing part of it and giving the rest to Prussia and Austria. He seems to have loved her deeply.

  Grigori Orlov, a baby-faced colossus, flourished on physical danger but went to pieces as a courtier. He became a political liability to Catherine after mishandling some important peace negotiations with the Turks; his sexual exploits, however, had already become more than Catherine could stand. He died mad, haunted by Peter’s ghost though it was his brother Alexei who had planned the murder. Of Alexei Vasilchikov, Grigori’s amiable replacement, Catherine wrote to Potëmkin: “If that fool had stayed with me another year and you had not come … it is quite likely that I should have grown used to him.” Potëmkin was a potbellied, hypocritical, one-eyed boor who wolfed huge midnight snacks in the palace sauna after frolicking there with Catherine in the steam. Perhaps he and Catherine were secretly married; she certainly called him “husband” in her letters. (She also called him such names as “my marble beauty” and “golden rooster” and “wolfbird.”)

  There is little to be said about Potëmkin’s handpicked successors, except that they were all handsome guard officers in their 20s and none lasted. The gentle Alexander Lanskoy, Catherine’s favorite of favorites, died of diphtheria after undermining his health with aphrodisiacs. Ivan Rimski-Korsakov—grandfather of the composer—disgraced himself by returning to the “virility tester,” Countess Bruce, for additional “tests.” The countess subsequently was replaced by an older woman. Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov was allowed to resign in order to marry a very pregnant court lady; Catherine sulked for three days, then gave them a generous wedding present. Most of the royal favorites enjoyed successful careers in later life.

  HER THOUGHTS: Catherine wrote in her memoirs: “I was attractive. That was the halfway house to temptation, and in such cases human nature does the rest. To tempt and be tempted are much the same thing.” Her favorite toast was “God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly.”

  —J.M.B.E.

  Old Rowley Himself

  CHARLES II (May 29, 1630-Feb. 6, 1685)

  HIS FAME: Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was the “Merry Monarch” who returned after 14 years of exile during Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan rule to create the cultured, witty, and often decadent “Restoration” court.

  HIS PERSON: Charles’ first adviser and tutor, the Earl of Newcastle, told the teenage prince that he would learn more from men than from books. The lessons that the boy learned during the tumultuous, dangerous years of his teens and twenties were lessons of intrigue, political maneuvering, and all the other skills needed to survive as an exiled, uncrowned king. In 1646, during England’s bloody civil war, Prince Charles took his father’s advice and fled, first to the Scilly Islands and then to Jersey and France. While in exile in 1649, he learned that his father had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell’s forces.

  His years of waiting and plotting were rewarded when, in 1660, he returned to take advantage of the struggle between Cromwell’s successors. Britain welcomed him back. He was crowned and married to Catherine of Braganza, the daughter of the king of Portugal. The queen was never able to bear children, but Charles steadfastly refused to divorce her.

  He was a shrewd politician, a charming man who was loved by most of his subjects, much interested in horse racing, fishing, and naval matters, and even tolerant of rival religions. The “Merry Monarch” was, all in all, a good king.

  SEX LIFE: The Puritans chose to represent Charles as a sexual monster, but in the intervening years, especially in biographies written in our own time, another picture of the “Merry Monarch” emerges. The man did indeed enjoy sex enormously; he was good at it, well equipped for it, pursued it vigorously, and, as a handsome man and king, was never short of willing partners. He didn’t, however, cross the fine line between being very active and being compulsive. His standards were high; he did not bed every available woman. And despite his energetic extramarital sex life, he was always attentive to Catherine, who quickly learned that forbearance and tact were the best means of e
xerting influence on her husband. Although they had no heir, it was not through lack of trying. They made love regularly, and Catherine was said to have suffered two miscarriages in her futile attempt to provide him with legitimate offspring.

  Charles’ code of sexual ethics was summed up in his belief that God would never damn a man for “allowing himself a little pleasure” and that “to be wicked and to design mischief is the only thing that God hates.” He lived up to his code, allowing himself much more than a little pleasure and yet not causing intentional harm to any of his partners. Where other powerful men discarded their mistresses, Charles pensioned his off with an income and a title and did the same for their children.

  He loved what might be called elaborate sexual games, little dramas incorporating more or less consciously arranged role-playing, with Charles himself as the central character. He loved to see women dressed as men, a taste which did not hint at all at homosexuality but sprang rather from the many “breeches parts” written into Restoration plays, roles intended to allow shapely young actresses to scamper about the stage in tight-fitting breeches rather than skirts. Charles loved it on stage and in the boudoir.

  As part of the game playing, he was in a position to indulge in the creation of complex sexual “menus.” Two mistresses at the same time, for example, in separate residences, one of whom was a highly sexual and sensual libertine, and the other a coy virgin playing with dolls and whetting the king’s appetite but refusing to satisfy it. Or an elegant lady and a saucy actress. Charles’ sex life seems to have been one in which, literally, there was never a dull moment. When boredom did threaten, the king relied on Will Chiffinch, his trusted private messenger, to arrange for the secret nocturnal visits of nameless but highly attractive wenches.