Clary

Desiree
(Marseille, 1777 - Stockholm, 1860)

An obscure daughter of merchants realized a prodigious destiny: first affianced to Bonaparte, she became by her marriage to Bernadotte queen of Sweden.

In the beginning of 1794 Desiree Clary, daughter of a wholesaler of Marseille, met Bonaparte, who had been promoted to inspector general of the coasts after the siege of Toulon. The two young people became engaged on April 21, 1795, in spite of the reticence of the Clary family: "It's enough to have one Bonaparte in my family!" exclaimed Desiree's mother. Actually Julie, Desiree's sister, was already married to Joseph Bonaparte.

Bonaparte, who left for Paris after the engagement, intended to hasten the marriage and to obtain the immediate consent of Desiree's relatives. His meeting with Josephine (whom he married on March 8, 1796) put an end to the engagement.

Two years later, in 1798, Desiree Clary married Bernadotte, a relative of her bother-in-law, Joseph. In February of 1818 Bernadotte became king of Sweden. Desiree was not permanently installed in Sweden until 1823, at the engagement of her only son with Josephine of Leuchtenberg, daughter of Eugene de Beauharnais.

Officially crowned un 1829, the new queen of Sweden passed the last years of her life in increasing isolation. She lost her spouse (1844), then her sister(1845), and she passed away in 1860 at the age of eighty three, a year after the death of her son. She rests in the main Lutheran church in Stockholm at the side of her spouse.