Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

In his personal habits he was neat to the point of being fastidious. If ever he wasted any time at all, it was the hours he spent in the bath. Simple in his dress and in his tastes, no gentleman was ever more scrupulously clean. Generally he wore the uniform of a colonel of his guard; and his plain gray overcoat, and plain little hat with its cheap tricolor cockade, formed a vivid contrast to the gaudy dress of foreign diplomats, or of his own officers.

He pretended that anger with him never reached his head, that he had his passions under perfect control. This was all nonsense. His temper frequently burst all bounds, and for the moment he was as insane as other men in a passion. Madame Junot states that when he fell into one of these fits of anger, he was frightful.

Upon at least one occasion of this kind he kicked the dinner table over, and smashed the crockery; at another he put his foot, in a violent and tumultuous manner, against the belly of Senator Volney.

It was rumored around the palace, on his return from Spain in 1809, that he gave Talleyrand a “punch on the nose”; and once when the jealous and watchful Josephine came upon him as he was enjoying himself with another woman, he sprang at her in such a fury that she fled the room in terror.

At Moscow while the Emperor was in his blackest mood, everything going wrong, and a general crash impending, Roustan, kneeling before him to put on his boots, carelessly got the left boot on the right foot. The next instant he was sprawling on his back on the floor. Napoleon had kicked him over.

It is said that he threatened Berthier once with the tongs, and Admiral Bruix with his riding-whip. On the road to Moscow he rode furiously into the midst of some pillaging soldiers, striking them right and left with his whip, and knocking them down with his horse.

But these occasions were rare. His control of himself was almost incredible, and he learned to endure the most startling and calamitous events without a word or a change of expression.

If you would see far, far into the heart of Napoleon, study his relations with Junot. Not much brain had this Junot, not much steadiness of character; but he was as brave as a mad bull, and he had shared his purse with Napoleon in the old days of poverty and gloom. More than this, he had believed in Napoleon at a time when Napoleon himself had well-nigh lost heart. So it came to pass that Junot was the beloved of the chief, and remained so in spite of grievous faults and sins. Junot gambled, and Napoleon abhorred gaming; Junot drank to excess, and Napoleon detested drunkards; Junot was a rowdy, and Napoleon shrank from rowdyism; Napoleon loved order, and Junot was most disorderly; Napoleon loved a strict relation between income and outgo, and Junot was a marvel of extravagant prodigality. Napoleon loved success, and Junot brought failure upon him where it hurt dreadfully—in Portugal, in Russia. Yet through it all Napoleon never flagged in his indulgence to Junot. He made the hot-headed grenadier Governor of Paris, Duke of Abrantes, lapping him in honors and wealth. Sometimes Junot would be angry at his chief, and Napoleon would coax him back to good humor, as a father would a child. Sometimes Junot would run to Napoleon with his griefs; and the busiest man in the world would drop everything, take his suffering friend by the arm, walk him up and down some quiet room or corridor, soothing him with soft words, with caresses. One day when Junot had taken to his bed, because of a fancied slight at the palace, Napoleon, hearing of it, slipped away from the Tuileries, went to the bedside of his old comrade, comforted him, reassured him, and stood by him until he was himself again.

When Madame Junot is in the throes of child-birth, it is to Napoleon that the distracted husband flies. At the Tuileries he is soothed by Napoleon himself, who sends off messengers to inquire after the wife; and when the ordeal is safely over, it is Napoleon who congratulates the now radiant Junot, finds his hat for him, and sends him off home to the mother and babe.

At last there did come something like a rupture between these two—and why? Junot had brought scandal on Napoleon’s sister while the brother was off with his army in Germany. “To bring shame upon my sister—you, Junot!” and the great Emperor fell into a chair, overcome with grief.