She preferred to stay separated from him in Mortefontaine, however, and was ceremoniously treated as queen in the Imperial court of Paris.

[citation needed] In France, she was regarded as the representative of Joseph and his kingdom and ceremoniously treated as the queen of Spain at the French Imperial court of Napoleon.

During the war, Julie gave refuge to her sister Desirée Clary, who by her marriage to the Crown Prince of Sweden was in fact an enemy citizen, as well as her sister-in-law Catharina of Württemberg, in her home at Mortefontaine, and when the allied troops took Paris in 1814, Julie herself took refuge in the home of her sister Desirée in Paris.

During the Hundred Days in 1815, Julie was among those who welcomed Napoleon to the Palace in Paris; she dressed in an Imperial court robe, alongside his former stepdaughter Hortense.

[2] After the Battle of Waterloo and the second downfall of Napoleon in 1815, the members of the Bonaparte family were exiled, and Joseph bought a property in New Jersey, near the Delaware River, with the proceeds of the sale of Spanish paintings taken from ransacked Madrid palaces, castles, monasteries and town halls; Julie herself, however, did not join him there, but left with her daughters to Frankfurt, where she stayed for six years, separated from her French-American husband.

In 1816, her sister Desiree, who was Crown Princess of Sweden, wished to bring Julie with her upon her return to Sweden; her husband the crown prince, however, thought this unwise, as Julie was a member of the Bonaparte family and her presence might be taken as a sign that he sided with the deposed Napoleon, and in the end, this came to nothing.

The remains of Julie are still at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence beside those of her daughter, Charlotte, who died in Lucca, in Italy, on 3 March 1839, aged 36, giving birth to a stillborn child.