bougre d'âne

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)

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« 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 ! ... »

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« 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.)

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 : 

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).

@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

Here we go again - this time from War and Peace.

The short version :

The long version :

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. »

Napoleon runs into trouble post-Thermidor. Some handle it better than others. From the new Junot bio by Sylvain Dubief : JUNOT, Premier aide de camp de Napoléon (1771-1813). French and my translation under the cut.

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 .

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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.

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There he goes ... 

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.

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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.

...

He’s back.

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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.