Do you have any details regarding how Napoleon reacted to Junot’s death? I haven’t really come across much, which seems strange given how close they’d once been + the extraordinary nature of Junot’s demise.
First of all, I’m SO sorry for the long response time on this ; I’m currently at my Paris appartment and I left the Dubief book and all of my other Junot texts (i.e. three books) back at my country house. So I meant to wait to respond until I could get back and check exactly what he has to say about Napoleon’s reaction to Junot’s death as the most recent/thorough biographer, but I just … havent gone back yet.
And it’s been weeks. 😬
When I do, I’ll be sure to let you know how he - and the other Junot biographers - describe the aftermath, but in the meantime, here are a couple of other sources on Napoleon’s response to the news :
For one, there’s this letter from Napoleon to Savary. And for all the possible partiality of correspondance like this, at least this one probably exists :
« Dresde, 7 août 1813
Je reçois votre lettre du 2 août. J’ai éprouvé une véritable peine de ce que vous m’avez écrit de ce pauvre Junot. Il avait perdu mon estime dans la dernière campagne [celle de Russie], mais je n’ai pas pour cela cessé de lui être attaché. Aujourd’hui il a recouvré cette estime, puisque je vois que sa pusillanimité était déjà l’effet de sa maladie … » (1)
----
« Dresden, 7 August, 1813
I’ve received your letter from 2 August. I was truly pained by what you wrote me about poor Junot. He had lost my esteem in the last campaign [Russia], but I hadn’t ceased to be attached to him because of it. Today he has regained that esteem, since I see that his cowardice was already the effect of his illness … »
My own personal guess is that this is probably pretty close to how he reacted across the board as regards Junot’s death. They might not have been that close anymore by the end, but Napoleon probably regretted the loss of a very old friend, and may have felt bad about how he’d treated Junot, especially in the last years.
And then of course there’s Laure’s side of the story. She says :
« Quand on lui remit la dépêche d’Albert, il la décacheta aussitôt, et, la retenant de la main gauche après avoir en lu les premières lignes, il se frappa violemment le front de la droite ; dans ce mouvement la dépêche lui échappa … il la releva avec la rapidité de l’éclair .. et puis il s’écria, mais avec un accent déchirant d’expression :
- Junot ! … Junot ! … O mon Dieu …
Et il joignit les mains si fortement, que la dépêche en fût toute froissée … Junot ! répétait-il avec cette expression qui venait du cœur, et qui dénotait une douleur réelle ! … Mais, ayant regardé autour de lui, et voyant qu’il était observé, il ne voulut pas être homme devant un œil observateur ! … il sourit avec une expression triste, mais indéfinissable, et dit d’une voix haute, quoique altérée :
- Voilà encore un de mes braves de moins ! … Junot ! … O mon Dieu ! ... »
-----
« When Albert's despatch reached him, he immediately opened it, and, holding it with his left hand after having read the first lines, he struck his brow violently with the right ; in that movement the despatch slipped from his grasp ... he picked it up with lightning speed .. and then he cried out, with a heart-rendingly expressive tone :
- Junot ! … Junot ! … My God …
And he clasped his hands so tightly that the despatch was quite crumpled … Junot ! he repeated with that expression which came from the heart, and which spoke of real pain ! ... But, having looked around, and seeing that he was being watched, he did not want to be a man in front of an observant eye ! ... he smiles with a sad, indefinable expression, and says in a loud, albeit distorted voice :
- There we have it, one fewer of my brave men ! … Junot ! … My God ! … »
I for one am not entirely sure what to make of this - my guess is that it’s pretty much totally fabricated, or at least very, very embellished. For one thing, Laure wasn’t anywhere near Napoleon (or Junot, for that matter) when all of this was taking place - she claims to have had it from a « témoin oculaire [eye-witness] », so even if everyone along the chain is trying to relay the truth in good faith, we’re still one more degree removed than usual with memoires.
And then there’s the fact that just following this scene, she writes that after 15+ minutes of trying to pull himself together, Napoleon manages to push back « ces affections pures et saintes, qui retrempaient son âme et lui donnaient ce charme puissant qu’il perdit au reste en perdant ceux qu’il aimait et dont il était aimé … » at which time he remarks that he now has nobody in Illyria, and that someone will have to be sent to fill the vacancy. Charles Hugh MacKay (the same guy from the Univ. of Florida that @maggiec70 knows) makes the good point that Nap. knew Junot was ill, had him removed from his post in early July, and then placed on the retirement list a week before his death - so he definitely was aware by this point there was no one in Illyria. (... But then, just to play the other side, he could foreseeably have been looking for something official and to-the-point to say at a particularly difficult moment.)
One more thing that’s sort of interesting, which I’ve seen referenced a couple of times, is this apparent order by Napoleon - as soon as he heard about Junot’s death - to send someone to his house and to destroy all of the correspondance that had passed between them. I’ll have to see if Dubief talks about that at all, because the other sources I’ve seen that mention it don’t bother to say where they got that info from. (If anybody’s read all of Savary, you may have heard about this - I think it might have been him that was sent with the order.)
(1) Lettres inédites de Napoléon 1er (An VIII-1815). Publiés par Léon Lecestre. Plon : 1897, tome II, pp. 279-280.
Junot dit « La temp .. hat » ?
Remember that giant portrait of Junot in the Invalides ?
Well it’s been displaced by this almost as giant picture of bucket hats. Apparently the artist was told he could do absolutely whatever he wanted on the theme of Napoleon, and this was the direction he preferred to take :
And it’s even better (worse ?) because the curators chose not to make it particularly clear whether something is or is not part of this temporary installation. So if you’d never been to the Invalides before, you might be forgiven for thinking there’s always just this huge picture of hats in pride of place amidst all the stuff you’d normally expect to find in an army museum.
From the Army Museum, a tiny infantry briquet belonging to the King of Rome. My hand for arbitrary scale ; I’m as close to the glass as I could get without touching it, and I’m 1,69m (RIP 😢). At a guess, I’d say it’s about half the size of a regulation model - maybe a little more - and the length along the guard is proportionally a bit larger.
Anybody going to this ?
New-ish expo at the Musée de l’Armée, open until 31 October. Might be worth a visit (some of you have probably already gone) - here’s the brief English description from the Invalides website :
« To celebrate the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon, the Musée de l’Armée is proposing to examine the major themes surrounding the death of Napoleon by switching perspectives and by calling in new scientific disciplines (archaeology, medicine, chemistry) in order to complete already known historical sources … »
And the trailer video (in French).
More detailed info :
French link : https://www.musee-armee.fr/au-programme/expositions/detail/napoleon-nest-plus.html
English link : https://www.musee-armee.fr/en/programme/exhibitions/detail/napoleon-is-no-more.html
And then there’s this, also at the Army Museum. Which, from the vagueness of the video could be ... just about anything. Who knows.
But you are exceptionally allowed to go at night after the museum-proper closes (so you can brush shoulders with all the people going to see the sound-and-light show happening at the same time and wish you were doing that instead).
Reblogged
Junot’s crisis in 1813
I have come across this online article of “L’estafette”, which quotes from a letter Junot wrote to Eugène in - I assume - 1813. Does anybody happen to know anything more about it? What’s the source? Where is it from? From what date?
English translation:
I don’t want to talk about war, I am thinking only of peace and I have an immense project which I am sure will succeed with the sovereigns of the world and of which the great Napoleon will be the leader. I make you, by my personal authority, king from the Adige to Cattaro. I give you all that the Turks possess in Bosnia, in…, in…, as far as the Trace Bosporus. I give you an island in the Adriatic, one in the Black Sea, one in the Red, one in the Mediterranean, one in the Ocean, one in the Indian. Sixteen portions of the gold, silver and diamond mines are distributed in the following manner; to H. M. the great Napoleon: four to His Imperial Highness the Viceroy [Eugene], whom I make Emperor, or as Napoleon wills: two to the Prince of Neuchâtel [Berthier] whom I make Emperor of Austria, one and a half to the kings of the Confederation, to the Emperor of Austria whom the Emperor will make Emperor of Spain or king as he will, to the King of Naples [Murat], to the King of Holland [Louis], to the King of Westphalia [Jerome], to the king and all the kings whom the Emperor will make again: four to the English, half; and to me: half to govern Brazil, Portugal, half of North America, of which the English shall have the other half, the islands of the South Sea, the great Indies and China, if the Emperor wills. We will take everything and be crowned in the midst of ten million soldiers, all of them friends, in the middle of Peking, and in ten years everything will be executed. I will tell you all the details in person.
Syphilis it is.
@joachimnapoleon , I’ve looked around for the original source of this letter and haven’t had much more luck than you, @josefavomjaaga. Dubief isn’t too helpful here, unfortunately.
Lucas-Dubreton reproduces the whole thing in his Junot dit « La Tempête », but of course next to nothing in there is cited. And while it’s an entertaining book - probably the best one before the Dubief came out - he doesn’t seem to lose any sleep over pulling page upon page straight from Laure and Thiébault’s memoires, and he throws in some stuff from Suzanne de Callias’ crazy Mercure de France article/novel (L’étrange passion de Junot, duc d’Abrantès), which seems to me about as dubious a source as they come.
The letter does show up again as a one-sentence anecdote in a doctoral thesis by Charles Hugh MacKay that’s more about Junot’s career than his personal character. (Any chance you know of him, @maggiec70 ? It was a thesis defended in 1995 at Florida State Univ., and directed by Donald Howard.) He seems to have got it from a 1913 text by Henri Marguy, Un centenaire, la mort de Junot, duc d'Abrantès, 1771-1813, and he gives the date as 6 July, 1813.
And here’s where the trail runs cold, I’m afraid, because that text hasn’t been digitized (at least as far as I can tell). But there’s a copy at Tolbiac, so I’ll see if I can’t have a look at it sometime over the summer.
Dubief himself doesn’t cite the letter in his bio, but he does use both Lucas-Dubreton and Marguy, so I think it’s safe to assume he’d at least heard of it and either simply chose not to use it, or else found its provenance too suspect to be trusted.
As for the cause of Junot’s death, Dubief keeps his options open, landing somewhere between the protracted effects of a bunch of bad head wounds, possible syphilis, and the more recently suggested bipolar disorder (made progressively more debilitating by either one or both of the other two things) as leading up to the jumping-out-of-the-window incident and eventual death from sepsis. He doesn’t rule out the syphilis per se, but he does suggest that it may have been used as a sort of catch-all diagnosis at a time before widespread psychiatric study, to the exclusion of other possible underlying conditions.
The main sources he cites for this bit are a monograph by Henri Jamme from 1910 (Diagnostique sur l’état mental de Junot, duc d’Abrantès), an article by Jacques Poulet from 1972 (« Les troubles psychiques du général Junot, duc d’Abrantès »), and Maxime Cordier’s short bio Junot, qui ne fut pas maréchal d’Empire from 1986.
So, in short, nobody’s really sure what was going on with poor Junot. And a letter that may or may not exist is dated 6 July 1813.
Some trial, some error.
@joachimnapoleon ’s cool Voilà app reminded me so much of that one snapchat filter that I figured I’d run the usual crew through that as well, just for good measure.
Did alright with Les Trois Stooges Mousquetaires :
And some others :
But three things that appear to be beyond its cartoony powers :
- Facial hair of any kind
- Davout in general
- My dog
Reblogged joachimnapoleon
Tabor Bridge incident : Tolstoi edition
Here we go again - this time from War and Peace.
The short version :
The long version :
I can’t even begin to tell how much I love this event. Lannes and Murat at their best! (Even if I still don’t quite understand how Tolstoi’s version fits into historical events. He makes it sound as if the French took the Tabor Bridges first and got into Vienna because of that. But the bridges over the Danube are to the East of Vienna, so they must have conquered the capital first? But I guess Tolstoi’s version makes it sound more dramatic.)
@josefavomjaaga , that’s partially my fault for cutting out all of the context before and after this scene. 😬
The exchange happens in Brünn, after Vienna has already been abandoned and the principal interest for the Russians is now making sure Kutuzov’s army doesn’t go the same way Mack’s did. It’s more or less alright for them if Napoleon ends up taking Vienna, as long as he stays over there.
Prince Andrey arrives the day before this scene, to bring his sort-of-good news from Dürenstein (Kutuzov beats Mortier, who’s on the wrong side of the river with just Gazan’s division, takes some trophies, etc.) to the Austrian Emperor, but by the time he arrives, the news isn’t really that great (nobody captured Mortier, Gen. Schmitt killed in the process, and by now Vienna’s actually occupied).
He gives his report the next morning anyway, and by 5 in the evening the diplomat Bilibin is packing up to leave and gives him the Tabor Bridge update.
But you’re right about the drama - and it doesn’t help that the guy telling Bolkonsky the story just can’t get enough of his own gossip, so he’d rather be flashy than clear. And then gives the whole thing in the present tense.
Reblogged histoireettralala
Found this in an article on Le Figaro. The artist is Fabrizio Fiorentino.
For my part, I’m loving whatever emotion this face is meant to express :
The unassailable logic of Mme Lefebvre
Another banger from the bible of probably-apocryphal Napoleonic anecdotes (Napoleonic Anecdotes, by Louis Cohen) :
« Lefebvre once fell ill of fever, and his attendant, an old soldier, contracted the illness at the same time. The servant got well quickly, but the malady clung to the marshal till it occurred to the wife of his bosom that the doctor had made a mistake — ‘comme un âne’ — by prescribing for the Duke the same doses as for a private soldier. Cheered by this happy thought, she rapidly enumerated on her fingers the different rungs of the military ladder. ‘Tiens, bois! en voilà Pour ton grade,’ she observed decisively, holding a full tumbler to her resigned husband’s lips. The marshal, having gulped down a dozen doses at one effort, was soon, strange to say, on his legs again. ’T’as beaucoup à apprendre, mon garçon,’ she remarked triumphantly to the mystified medico, who felt that science had suffered a severe shock. »
Probably the greatest toy of all time (marshal-approved).
If anyone’s at the end of their rope and looking for a new quarantine pastime, look no further. Get ready for a toy that’s apparently so fun that it managed to keep everyone occupied from 1789 to the fall of the Empire.
This could be you :
The Pitch :
Dans le jardin impérial des Tuileries, dans les majestueuses avenues du parc de Saint-Cloud, comme sous les frais ombrages de la Malmaison, le « jeu du Diable » se jouait à toute heure du jour. Les maréchaux de Napoléon, comme les grands hommes d'Etat, ne dédaignaient pas de lutiner le « Diable » à l'aide de frêles baguettes. Une vieille estampe représente le petit roi de Rome jouant au « Diable ». Ailleurs, une caricature de l’époque, bien certainement de provenance anglaise, représente lord Wellington lançant en l'air, sur la ficelle, Napoléon lui-même. Une autre intitulée Le bon diable, comme il va ! représente une femme qui fait sauter un homme en habit de l'ancien régime, des poches duquel tombe une pluie d'or. Une autre encore, deux hommes et deux femmes qui jouent au « diable à quatre » dans un salon, renversant les meubles, brisant les glaces. Une gravure de 1812 atteste que la vogue n'avait rien perdu depuis 1789. On lit dans un journal d'alors :
La grande préoccupation du moment, ce n'est pas le bruit des préparatifs gigantesques que fait l'Empire pour la campagne de Russie ; ce qui, avant toute chose, est la pensée dominante du moment, l'obsession de tous les esprits, c'est le diable ! non pas le sombre génie du mal, cet impertinent et froid railleur, à la figure maigre, aux traits pointus, aux doigts effilés et au rire strident, non pas le diable de Michel-Ange ou de Milton, mais un joujou, une sorte de toupie à deux têtes, qu'il s'agit de faire tourner rapidement sur elle-même en lui donnant l'élan au moyen d'une corde fixée à deux baguettes. Aux Tuileries, dans les jardins, dans les salons, toutes les dames, tous les enfants sont occupés à faire ronfler le diable. La mode, toujours aux aguets de toutes les folies, ne manque pas d'enregistrer ce nom de plus dans ses fastes .
——
In the imperial gardens of the Tuileries, in the majestic avenues of the park of Saint-Cloud, as under the cool shade of Malmaison, the "Devil's game" was played at all hours of the day. Napoleon's marshals, like the great statesmen, did not disdain to bait the "Devil" at the tips of two frail sticks. An old print shows the little King of Rome playing with a diabolo. Elsewhere, a caricature of the time, certainly of English origin, represents Lord Wellington throwing into the air, on the string, Napoleon himself. Another entitled “The Good Devil, how he goes!” likewise depicts a woman who launches a man dressed in the style of the old regime, from whose pockets a rain of gold falls. In another, two men and two women play « Devil to Pay » [idiomatic trans.] in a living room, overturning the furniture, breaking mirrors. An 1812 engraving attests that the fashionable game had lost nothing of its appeal since 1789. We read in a newspaper of the time:
The great preoccupation of the moment is not the noise of the immense preparations which the Empire makes for the Russian campaign; above all, the dominant thought, the obsession of all minds, is the Devil! Not the dark genius of evil, that impertinent and cold mocker, with his thin face and pointed features, his slender fingers and strident laughter, not the Devil of Michelangelo or Milton, but a toy, a kind of top with two ends, made to turn quickly on itself and propelled by means of a cord fixed to two sticks. In the Tuileries, in the gardens, in the salons, all the ladies, all the children are busy enticing this diabolo to purr. Fashion, always on the lookout for any extravagance, does not fail to mark this name among its splendors.
----
There he goes ...
Text from Les Jouets de France, leur histoire leur avenir by Léo Claretie. (1920)
Welcome to Napoleon’s House - may I or one of my 437 employees take your coat ?
In case anyone’s interested in Duroc’s crazy system of managers, sub-managers, and assistant sub-managers for his catering/interior decorating/personal security service.
Les employés de la Maison obéissaient à une hiérarchie très precise. Au sommet, les grands officiers, l’intendant, le trésorier ou le secrétaire d’État occupaient le sommet de la pyramide. Dans les services particuliers, les officiers civils venaient en second. Ils étaient amenés à commander par intérim ou en raison de leur tour de service. Au quotidien, les employés de base avaient aussi affaire à un chef de service ou à un directeur d’établissement. Chaque service était organisé de manière classique et comprenait selon son importance un chef et un ou plusieurs sous-chefs. L’encadrement était assez important puisque au 1 janvier 1812, on ne comptait pas moins de 18 directeurs, 156 chefs, et 26 sous-chefs. Selon les métiers, une classification pouvait exister entre employés. Il y avait ainsi des cochers de première, seconde, et troisième classe. Au plus bas de l’échelle, de jeunes employés (commis ou garçons) faisaient leur apprentissage. C’était le cas notamment aux écuries pour les élèves piqueurs, les tiers de paye ou les deux tiers de paye.
Les fonctions des employés étaient précisément consignées dans plusieurs règlements, certains généraux, d’autres spécifiques. Les premiers décrivaient la chaîne de commandement et les principales caractéristiques du service (habillement, horaires, cadences de travail, ou punitions). Les seconds s’intéressaient à des aspects particuliers méritant d’être soulignés. Sur le plan réglementaire, la Maison n’avait rien à envier à l’armée. Dans le service de Duroc, il existait un règlement presque pour tout.
-----
The employees of the Imperial Household were subject to a very precise hierarchy. At the top, the Grand Officers, the Steward, the Treasurer, or the Secretary of State occupied the tip of the pyramid. In personal service, the civil officers came second. They were called up on an interim basis, or according to their tour of service. On a day-to-day basis, the lower-ranking employees also answered to a service manager or director. Each department of the household was classically ordered and included, depending upon its scale, a manager and one or several sub-managers. This supervisory staff was fairly considerable ; by 1 January, 1812, there were no less than 18 directors, 156 managers, and 26 sub-managers. Depending on the branch of occupation, a system of classification could also exist between ordinary employees. There were thus first, second, and third-class coachmen. At the bottom of the ladder, the young employees (assistants, etc.) completed their apprenticeships. This was notably the case for the whippers-in [hunters’ assistants who keep the pack in check] in-training, and those on third-pay or two-thirds pay.
The duties of the employees were assigned according to several registers of regulations - some general, others specific. The general regulations laid out the chain of command and the principle characteristics of the occupation (dress, timetables, work rate and hours, or punishments). The specific regulations concerned more distinct aspects of the work that were deemed particularly note-worthy. In terms of organisation, the Imperial Household was every bit as precise as the army. In Duroc’s service, there was a rule or regulation for practically everything.
From Pierre Branda’s article « La Maison de l’Empereur Napoleon Ier » in La cour impériale sous le Premier et le Second Empire (dir. Jacques-Olivier Boudon, 2016)
Pepe-botella rides again.
...
He’s back.
---
In all fairness to Joseph, apparently the Pepe-botella thing (« Jojo-Bottles » ?) caught on because parts of his early legislation had to do with alcohol and gambling, so some of his many detractors started depicting him as a fat, gaming drunk. Which upset him quite a bit, because he wasn’t really any of those things.
See : Jean Tulard, Le Grand Empire : 1804-1815. 1982, p. 161.