Jester of Heaven

(a rewrite of a post I made a while ago - thank you @wenzhulong for reminding me!)

I imagine a lot of people may think that the idea of Jean-Andoche Junot having romantic or sexual feelings for Napoleon Bonaparte is the degenerate fantasy of chronically online fujoshis. But on the contrary, this is an idea that has been explored in both fiction and non-fiction since the early 20th century. A notable example is ‘L’étrange passion de Junot, Duc d’Abrantès’, published in the ‘Mercure de France’ magazine in 1926, a fictionalised account of Junot’s life based on oral history passed down to the author from her ancestor who was friends with Junot, and in this story the author proposes quite explicitly that Junot was bisexual. I also think it’s worth noting in discussions of historical queerness that the way we view sexuality today is very different to how it was viewed historically: statistics show that a much higher proportion of Gen Z identifies as lgbtq+ than any other generation, but that doesn’t mean that more queer people are being born today than in the past, it just means that in older generations people felt a greater pressure to perform heterosexuality and were far less willing to accept the possibility of being queer. In many cases, historical people could be both gay and homophobic (for example, William III of England was widely rumoured to be bisexual but also approved of anti-sodomy laws). I do not think that Junot would have identified as queer, because he evidently presented himself as fitting the mould of traditional heterosexual masculinity and did not feel that his intense feelings about male friends were in any way “deviant”. I do not think that Junot ever knowingly engaged in explicitly homosexual activity, however I do think there is a case to be made for his feelings for men being romantic and sexual as well as platonic, whether he would have acknowledged that or not.

The main example of Junot’s possible bisexuality is his close attachment to Napoleon, however I would like to put forward the possibility of him experiencing attraction to other men as well. Out of all the men who knew Junot the best, such as his aides-de-camp or his valet Heldt, none of them left any memoirs or written sources about Junot, and so his personal relationships with men are ultimately a mystery. His childhood friend Marmont wrote a memoir, but Marmont writes little about their friendship and is furthermore an unreliable author due to his tendency to alter events to depict himself in the best possible light. However, there are a few sources from men who knew Junot that indicate that his possibly fruity behaviour was not limited to his feelings for Napoleon. Decades after Junot’s death, Marshal de Castellane wrote of him:

'King Leopold received the civil and military authorities at the town hall. There was a dinner for thirty people; I was next to Marshal Gérard, who took my thigh, as a sign of friendship, during the dinner. I saw, before him, this kind of caresses by the late General Junot.'

In a book published in 1882, ‘Ceux qui mangent la pomme: racontars parisiens’, the author Philibert Audebrand recalls his acquaintance with an elderly war veteran named Bonaventure who had known Junot in Egypt. Naturally this source can be doubted since it was written over 80 years after the Egyptian campaign and is based on oral transmission of the events, but it is nonetheless noteworthy that in Audebrand’s conversation with Bonaventure he was struck by both Junot’s devotion to Napoleon and Bonaventure’s devotion to Junot:

‘"Ah! "My friend," added the invalid (Bonaventure), "never attach yourself to a man, especially to a great man!"

"Very well," I (Audebrand) replied; "but you, who tell me this, confess that you have never been able to detach yourself from Junot, and I see that you do not pass a day without thinking of him."

"Not a single day. You are telling the truth."’

Lastly, in Ida Saint-Elme’s account of Junot’s complete mental breakdown in Illyria, she mentions that he formed a very close attachment to a local man who was also suffering from mental illness:

‘His (Junot’s) heart, naturally benevolent and affectionate, had even immediately formed a bond there, perhaps the last that would ever keep him in life, and to which he attached more value with each passing day. By a comparison more natural than one might think, but which strangely leaves one to reflect, he had made his Pylades out of a fool of fairly good family, and of fairly innocent morals, so that no one opposed his actions, but endowed moreover with a satirical and buffoonish mind, which exercised itself without scruple on all estates. The burles, sometimes facetious, sometimes bloody, of this Diogenes of Istria, alone had the privilege of enlivening the gloomy worries of the fallen hero; and the latter took an indescribable pleasure in seeing ridiculed all the greatness of the society which he had so dearly conquered, and which he was to enjoy so little.

It was above all in the burlesque imitation of the pomp of the governors and the very French elegance of the intendants that the wicked fool excelled, and it was then that the joy he knew how to inspire in his poor and illustrious friend knew no bounds. It was in one of these fits that the enthusiastic Duke of Abrantès threw himself into his arms and invested him with the noble insignia of the Legion of Honor, himself passing the grand cordon over to him. I saw, upon my return to Goritzia, Monseigneur's fool still grotesquely adorned with these attributes, which only the will of the Emperor could remove from him, and whose bizarre legitimacy our French authorities were obliged, if I am not mistaken, to recognize.’

It is worth noting that Ida Saint-Elme compares Junot to Orestes and his friend to Pylades: in Greek mythology, Orestes was a prince driven mad by the Furies and Pylades was his cousin and best friend. Their mutual devotion to each other in Greek tragedies led some ancient authors, such as Lucian of Samosata, to interpret them as lovers.

And now for the part I imagine you’ve all been waiting for: Junot and Napoleon. Laure Junot writes in her memoirs that Junot loved Napoleon more than he loved her, but since Laure isnt always the most trustworthy source let’s look at some other primary sources! From the very beginning of his career, Junot was noted for his extraordinary devotion to his general. A French newspaper from 1798 described him as

‘the brave Junot, that aide-de-camp so devoted to his country, so tenderly attached to his general’.

Later, Baron Honoré Duveyrier recalled witnessing Junot and Napoleon’s closeness at Napoleon’s headquarters in Italy in 1797:

‘After dinner, a tour of the garden; after the walk, a large circle around Madame Bonaparte, and very often a small circle around the general, in which my memory still traces Monge, Reguault-Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Arnault, Bonhomme de Commeyras and some aides-de-camp, Leclerc, already his brother-in-law, Murat, Lannes and Junot, whom he was fond of.'

In one of Junot’s few surviving personal letters, written to his father from Egypt in 1798 and published in a Burgundian newspaper, he expresses his admiration of Napoleon:

‘As we were returning to Cairo, well satisfied with our expedition, we heard the terrible news of the defeat of our squadron. This irreparable loss has afflicted us; but we will be able to get out of the situation, the fortune and genius of our leader are better than ten French squadrons.’

In Egypt, Junot got into a duel with another man, Lanusse, after Lanusse insulted Napoleon. Many years later when Junot angrily shouted at Laure after she insulted Pauline Bonaparte, Laure rightly deduced that this outburst meant that Junot was still in love with Pauline, and so we know that fighting to protect somebody’s reputation was one of the ways that Junot expressed his romantic feelings.

In 1811, terrible misfortune struck when Junot was shot in the face in a skirmish in Spain, and complications related to this injury later caused the sharp decline of his mental stability. The wound also robbed him of his famous good looks, and his son Napoleon Junot later recalled how deeply his father was hurt when the Emperor called him ugly:

‘At the circle, one day, he (Napoleon) said aloud to him (Junot):

"My God, Junot, how ugly this wound has made you!"

My father made no answer the first time; but, when he returned home, he wept bitterly over these harsh words spoken by him whom he loved so much! He didn't even tell my mother about it.

At the next circle, the same compliment from the Emperor, and as one may imagine, even more acute grief on the part of my poor father. This time only did he not have the strength to keep her to himself, and he poured out his sorrow in my mother's bosom.’

In Laure Junot’s memoirs she blames Napoleon’s harsh treatment of her husband in 1812 for his eventual madness and death, and in a letter written to Berthier about the bulletins in which Napoleon had denounced Junot she wrote:

‘These Bulletins advanced the life of the unfortunate duke... He talked about them constantly in his delirium.’

To conclude, the nature of Junot’s relationships with men is really up to personal interpretation, but I hope this post has made clear why, in my opinion, his feelings exceed what was considered appropriate for platonic friendships of the time.

Lastly I would like to share a drawing of Ganymede by Michelangelo that Junot kept in his private art collection, and which could certainly be interpreted as homoerotic. But I’m putting it below the cut so please only look if you are comfortable with artistic nudity 😭