Sex, psychoanalysis, intimate operations and a winning way with flashers - how ... trends now
The Duke of Edinburgh was a larger-than-life character, but even he paled to next to his colourful aunt, Marie.
A relative of Napoleon Bonaparte she was a fascinating character, famed for her all-consuming interest in sex and psychoanalysis, her friendship with Sigmund Freud and her unconventional lifestyle.
She also had a highly effective way of dealing with flashers...
Born Marie Bonaparte in 1882, Marie was the great-granddaughter of Napoleon I's rebellious younger brother Lucien.
Princess Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon's niece was Prince Philip's aunt. She led a colourful and independent life
Lucien Bonaparte younger brother of Napoleon was father of Princess Marie Bonaparte
Prince George of Greece with his wife, Marie Bonaparte. George appears to have had little interest in the opposite sex
A portrait of Prince Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenburg taken in 1927. Philip would then have been aged five or six
She was fabulously rich thanks to her maternal grandfather François Blanc who made his fortune on real-estate development in Monaco, buying 97 percent of the casino in Monte Carlo.
Her wealth made it possible for her to bankroll Prince Philip's family after they were forced to flee from Greece at the end of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922.
(It was Marie who paid for Philip to be educated at The Elms, an American school in Paris. Paradoxically she sent her own children, Prince Peter and Princess Eugénie to the local state-run lycée feeling it was important they should mix with children of all backgrounds.)
In 1907, Marie married Philip's paternal uncle Prince George of Greece.
George has a footnote in history for saving the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia from assassination during a visit to Otsu, Japan in 1891.
The Tsarevich was attacked by a policeman with a sword who turned out to be a former Samurai with a grudge against westerners. George managed to knock him to the ground using his cane.
George appeared to have little interest in the opposite sex. Indeed, he was passionately in love with his own uncle, Prince Valdemar of Denmark, the youngest brother of Britain's Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII)
It was unsurprising, then that George and Marie's marriage was relatively passionless.
The groom never allowed his new wife to kiss him on the lips and after the honeymoon she wrote: 'You took me that night in a short brutal gesture, as if forcing yourself. You said “I hate it as much as you do. But we must do it if we want children“.'
Marie would seek love elsewhere and, accruing a long list of willing sexual partners, Marie documented them in her
