Of the many guests welcomed through the centuries by Palazzo Chiablese, the most interesting was certainly Napoleon's eccentric sister, Paolina Bonaparte, who took residence here in 1808 after her husband Camillo Borghese had been appointed by Napoleon as Turin's governor general. Paolina, however, wasn't well-received by local noblewomen; not just because she had posed in the nude for Antonio Canova not three years earlier, sparking widespread scandal, but also because the beautiful French lady was of restless and transgressive character, ill-suited to the company of Queen Mary Theresa's pious ladies-in-waiting. On Paolina's part, at any rate, the feeling was quite mutual: to the end of her days, she fiercely hated that bigoted Turin which had shut its doors in her face.