After her mother's death, Paula and her siblings were mainly raised by a slave, a wet-nurse and a statesman whom Pedro I had appointed to take care of his five children. Paula and her siblings were present when her father married his second wife, Amélie de Beauharnais, who eventually became like a mother to the children. After her father abdicated and left, the children were left alone in Brazil, as his father took with him Amélie; the two had a daughter abroad. Paula became severely ill in late 1832 and died in early 1833, at the age of nine. She was buried, at her father's request, in Rio de Janeiro.