Saturday, 13th.—The conversation again fell upon Junot. Of the
considerable fortunes which the Emperor had bestowed, that of Junot, he
said, was one of the most extravagant. The sums he had given him almost
exceeded belief, and yet he was always in debt; he had squandered
treasures, without credit to himself, without discernment or taste, and,
too frequently, the Emperor added, in gross debauchery.
He has been known more than once, after having taken a most copious and
substantial breakfast, in his magnificent _hotel_ at Paris, fired with
anger at the most trifling demand made by the most insignificant
creditor, to threaten to pay the debt with his sword. Every time he saw
the Emperor, said Napoleon, it was to hint at some fresh embarrassment,
be reprimanded and assisted. In the campaign of Austerlitz, he came to
the Emperor at Schönbrun; but this time, said Napoleon, it was not to
intercede precisely for himself. He took at this period a most lively
interest in the beautiful Madame Recamier. He had just arrived from
Paris, and began his conversation with the Emperor by a most virulent
philippic against M. de Marbois, then Minister of the Treasury, who had
been base enough, he said, to refuse M. Recamier a loan of only two
millions, to save him from bankruptcy. All Paris was indignant. This
Marbois, he added, was a wicked man, an unworthy servant, who did not
love the Emperor. He, Junot, had gone to him and had used every
endeavour to persuade him, but to no purpose. He had represented to him
the enormity of his conduct, and had assured him (and such added Junot
was the general opinion in Paris,) that if the Emperor had been in the
capital he would have immediately ordered the money to be given to M.
Recamier. “He was on a wrong scent,” said the Emperor, "for I coolly
replied to this passionate lover who was almost out of his senses: ‘You
and Paris are both mistaken, I should not have ordered even two thousand
_sous_ to be given; and I should have been very much displeased with De
Marbois if he had acted otherwise than he has done. _I_ am not Madame
Recamier’s lover, and I do not come forward to the assistance of
merchants who keep up an establishment of six hundred thousands francs
per annum. Know that, M. Junot, and learn also that the Treasury does
not lend money to those whom it knows to have been long since on the
road to bankruptcy; it has other claims to satisfy.’ Junot," added the
Emperor, “was obliged to calm his emotion, thinking probably that there
were hard-hearted people at Vienna as well as at Paris.”
Junot travelled as fast as the Emperor himself; he had his relays, said
Napoleon, hundreds of horses, and other extravagances of the kind.
The Emperor added that, not so much in his capacity as sovereign, but as
being fond of Junot, and actuated also by a sort of feeling derived from
the similarity of birth-place, he being also originally from Corsica, he
had one day sent for Madame Junot, in order to give her some paternal
admonitions on the subject of the extravagance of her husband’s
expenditure, the profusion of diamonds which she herself had
inconsiderately displayed after her return from Portugal, and her
intimate connections with a certain foreigner, which might give umbrage
in a political point of view. But she rejected this advice, dictated
alone by concern for her interest. “She grew angry,” said the Emperor,
“and treated me like a child; nothing then remained for me to do but to
send her about her business, and abandon her to her fate. She fancied
herself a princess of the family of the Comnenes; and Junot had been
made to believe it when he was induced to marry her. Her family was from
Corsica, and resided in the neighbourhood of mine; they were under great
obligations to my mother, not merely for her benevolence towards them,
but for services of a more positive nature.” The Emperor then gave the
following explanation:
"The Genoese, in evacuating the Morea, had formerly carried a colony of
Maniotes to Corsica and settled them in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio. M.
de Vergennes, while he was ambassador at Constantinople, married a Greek
woman; and, on his return to France, being greatly in favour with Louis
XVI. he took it into his head that he must have married a princess. It
so happened that some political circumstances occurred to favour his
wish; the downfall of Constantinople was believed in at that moment, and
it would have suited France to advance some pretensions to a portion of
that empire. A man of the name of Comnene, a relation of Madame de
Vergennes, was therefore sent for from the Greek colony near Ajaccio,
and, having been brought to Versailles, was soon after, by virtue of
letters-patent of Louis XVI., acknowledged a descendant from the
Emperors of Constantinople. This said Comnene was a large farmer, whose
sister had unexpectedly married, some years before, a Frenchman, a clerk
in the victualling department named P—. After the elevation of the
family, and through the interest of M, de Vergennes, this P—, clerk in
the victualling department, had become a man of great consequence,
having had the contract for supplying the whole army of Rochambeau. The
daughter of the clerk was this very Madame Junot, duchess of Abrantes.
“Junot, in the campaign of Russia, gave me great cause of
dissatisfaction;” said the Emperor, “he was no longer the same man, and
committed some gross blunders which cost us dear.”
After the return from Moscow, Junot, in consequence of the
dissatisfaction he had given, lost the governorship of Paris; and the
Emperor sent him to Venice. However that species of disgrace was almost
immediately softened, by his appointment as Governor-general of Illyria;
but the blow was struck. The frequent incoherences which had been
observed in Junot’s behaviour for some time past, and which had arisen
from the excesses in which he had indulged, broke out at last into
complete insanity. It was necessary to secure him, and to convey him
home to his paternal mansion, where he died miserably shortly
afterwards, having mutilated his person with his own hands. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .