Marie Bonaparte—1882-1962

This is the first meeting of the International Psycho-Analytical Association since 1927 at which Marie Bonaparte is absent. It is the measure of her devotion to psychoanalysis that neither illness nor any other consideration ever kept her away.

By becoming a member of the International Psycho-Analytical Association she fulfilled a longstanding dream of hers. In her youth she had wanted to become a physician. Her revered father, Prince Roland Bonaparte, himself a brilliant man of science, forbade it; at that time, a daughter of a princely family could not possibly be allowed to study medicine. Thus, she was proud and happy when at forty-five she was received into the ranks of a professional association devoted to scientific investigation and to therapy. It was with the explicit approval of Freud that she gained membership in this Association.

Several years earlier she had read Freud's writings, and had become so intensely interested in psychoanalysis that she decided to be analyzed. In 1924 she consulted Dr. René Laforgue, who was then one of the very few analysts in Paris. She remained grateful to him for having referred her to Freud for analysis. When I first met her in Paris, early in 1926, she had just returned from Vienna. Freud had advised that she join the small group of practicing analysts in France in founding a psychoanalytic society. Some months later the Société Psychanalytique de Paris was organized with Marie Bonaparte as a charter member, and the next year, at the Congress in Innsbruck, the new society and its members were admitted into the International Psycho-Analytical Association.

Although she had been barred from formal study at a university, Marie Bonaparte came to our profession well equipped. From her father she must have gotten her absorbing interest in the natural sciences. She was deeply versed in natural history, biology, and medicine. (Some years ago, during a