The recent publication of the voluminous correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Marie Bonaparte has highlighted the importance of the latter’s archives. From Paris to Washington, via Texas, tens of linear metres are now available. These are not only technical texts related to her scientific production, but also and above all, biographical documents: letters, personal diaries and children’s productions. This French pioneer of psychoanalysis and firm believer in the psychobiographical approach has left us with all the material necessary to examine her personal psychic life. Despite the undoubted interest of this approach, this article invites us not to yield too quickly to this psychobiographical temptation, and to consider her archives as a construct rather than as a raw testimony.