#constance aubert

Constance as a little girl

Ghjat, September 5, 1812 “It’s not long since I wrote to you, my dear Constance, my letter was for your sister and for you. I have just received two letters from you, dear friend, one dated July 24th but both of them are my pleasure, none better than the other. You are now with your mother. How happy you are, my dear children! Your father misses this happiness. While waiting for her, comfort your mother well, be very wise and good; When he returns, your Papa will be very happy if he hears from Maman, from everyone: 'Your charming daughters, Monsieur le Duc, are well brought up, very friendly, well educated'. With what pleasure he will then kiss them, and how much he will tell them that he loves them with all his heart! Kiss Maman and your brothers for your good Papa, who loves you all with all his heart. -The Duke d'Abrantès p.s. Say many kind things on my behalf to Mlle Poitevin and to Clotilde*

*Clotilde Chodron was Junot's niece.

recently while scouring a book on internet archive for any information on the children of my favourite Napoleonic general Jean-Andoche Junot, I found some poetry written by Paul Gavarni on the album of Constance Aubert, Junot’s second daughter. Since you are The Gavarni Guy I wanted to show it to you, and also ask if you know anything of Gavarni’s relationship to the Junot family:

Gavarni also drew Constance in 1839:

(sorry for the long ask!)

Thank you for the birthday wishes! And WOW thank you for this ask!!!

Despite recently finding Gavarni's Journal des gens du monde on Gallica, I'm actually unfamiliar with Gavarni's literary works. One Gavarni scholar compared him to the poet Alfred de Musset, and remarked that it was striking "how few writers Gavarni did not know." Honoré de Balzac said, "Gavarni fait un livre â son insu, il vole les écrivains du jour."

A portrait of Constance Aubert, née Junot d'Abrantès, by Paul Gavarni, December 1839.

In the appendix of a biography of Laure Junot sent to me by my friend @apurpledust, I found some poems and an article by the French writer and illustrator Paul Gavarni relating to the Junot family. Laure Junot and her daughters Josephine and Constance were all published writers, and inhabited the same artistic social circle that Gavarni did.

Article by Gavarni about the last volume of the second edition of "Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantès", published after her death:

Here we have arrived at the last page of these memoirs of a great lady written by a woman artist: a book in which two celebrities merge, each of which would have sufficed for many ambitions. And as struck as we are by such a rich organization, we are even more struck by the feeling of personal dignity which sustained and developed it. Madame d'Abrantés was a very rare example of this true greatness that events could not achieve. A storm carries away an empire around it, then the years come; she lost almost a throne; and yet she remained with her forehead raised above the crowd. This is what those who seek life in its beautiful aspects will first find in the books she wrote. Read! Sparkling in spirit, a pretty woman, with this great name, this ducal crown, all this gold, all this glory, with how many tributes, and with what tributes the young Duchess of Abrantés must have been surrounded! And she had to resign herself to losing all this, and, having lost all this, find in the superiority of her intelligence a consolation for so many regrets! and make a new life at fifty! another glory! Have we thought carefully about the true nobility in this courage? We cannot dispute this, we artists, born of the people, so proud of our aristocracy because it comes from us, but who see so much nobility in the work. Madame d'Abrantès worked as none of us could do. She not only wrote four times as much as a man of letters, she also drew, she acted, she composed music; or she dug the flowers in her garden, or classified her herbarium, or even embroidered a few tapestries. Must we add to these works the cares of the world, the visits with which she was besieged all day long, the long evening chats, a busy correspondence, to admire this existence so prodigiously active! These are the laudable things the second half of this life endowed with such diverse fame was filled with. The duchess's days had been brilliant, no doubt; but were these not also glorious for the author of the Amirante de Castille? Shouldn't she have seen with legitimate pride crowding around her this young swarm of artists of whom she had become the queen? These friends will say that it was a golden bee torn from the mantle of the Empire and fallen among us. Also the men who usually gathered at the Duchess of Abrantès' house were of two ages and of two kinds: white-haired men with names born from battles won, and men born with the century and becoming names with books, operas or paintings. We saw her smile at these two aristocracies who claimed her as equals, and by whom she was equally honored. Today I remember a charming remark that she said one evening about these double affections: old Mr. Suchet, the brother of the Duke of Albufera, had come unwell that evening to sit in the corner of a small living room where she runs worried about him, exclaiming: “It’s because I really like my old friends!” Then she turned to some of us, and holding out her hand, as if to stop us from being jealous, she added: “And my young ones too, at least!” We all loved him; young and old, we headed towards Chaillot to pay her a sad and last visit, a last procession, and we took her back to the cemetery of Montmartre: there, when we had a little earth thrown on this coffin which forever took this good friend from us, for every funeral oration we cried.

Below the cut are two poems written by Paul Gavarni on the album of Constance Aubert, the second daughter of Laure and Jean-Andoche Junot:

I was looking through the appendix of a biography of Laure Junot (sent to me by my lovely friend @apurpledust), written by a man who had gained some additional information from meetings with Marcel Georges Alfred Aubert (son of Constance Aubert, who was the second daughter of Jean-Andoche and Laure Junot), and I found something very interesting:

"Verses written by M. Alfred Junot, Duke of Abrantès, on the album of Mme. Constant Aubert, his sister"

It is dated to 15th September 1848.

Original French:

Un jour j'ai cru dans ma misère Sentir mon âme s'envoler; Je suis resté seul sur la terre, Le malheur s'était révélé. Pleurant la beauté, la franchise, Et la candeur la plus exquise A ma félicité promise, J'étais courbé sur un tombeau; N'ayant plus rien qui me console De la peine qui me désole Qu'un cercueil où mon cœur s'isole Et qu'un enfant dans un berceau.

English Translation:

One day I believed in my misery, Feeling my soul fly away; I remained alone on earth, The misfortune had revealed itself. Mourning beauty, frankness, And the most exquisite candour To my promised happiness, I was bent over a tomb; Having nothing left to console me Of the pain that devastates me But a coffin where my heart isolates itself And but a child in a cradle.

Alfred Junot suffered from mental health issues like his father. He had the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was aide-de-camp of General Patrice de McMahon until 1854 when he became the aide-de-camp of Prince Jérôme-Napoléon II. On 24th June 1859, he was killed in battle at Solferino.

It appears that a talent for poetry ran in the Junot family, as both Jean-Andoche Junot and his son Alfred wrote poems recreationally. Junot's great-great-grandnephew, Pierre Louÿs, was a famous writer and poet in the late 19th - early 20th century -- the complete works of Pierre Louÿs are available to read here.