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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MARSHAL LANNES.—MURAT AND HIS WIFE, &C.
Sunday, 14th.—During the dinner, speaking of dress, it was said that, amongst the number of great personages of that time, none had carried extravagance in that point further than Murat, and yet, some one observed, his dress was for the most part so singular and fantastic that the public called him King Franconi.[[28]]
The Emperor laughed very heartily, and confessed that certain costumes and manners sometimes gave to Murat the appearance of a quack operator or a mountebank. It was added that Bernadotte also took infinite pains with his dress, and that Lannes bestowed much time upon his. The Emperor expressed himself much surprised at what he had heard respecting the two latter, and this led him to repeat how sincerely he regretted the loss of Marshal Lannes. “Poor Lannes,” said he, "had passed the night which preceded the battle, in Vienna, and not alone. He appeared on the field without having taken any food, and fought the whole day. The physician said that this triple concurrence of circumstances caused his death, he required a great deal of strength after the wound to enable him to bear it, and unfortunately nature was almost exhausted before.