FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270  
271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   >>   >|  
ore complaisant and less honest. New plans of Bonaparte, however, delivered Portugal from this plague; but what did it obtain in return?--another grenadier Ambassador, less brutal but more cunning, as abandoned but more dissimulating. Gendral Junot is the son of a corn-chandler near the corn-market of this capital, and was a shopman to his father in 1789. Having committed some pilfering, he was turned out of the parental dwelling, and therefore lodged himself as an inmate of the Jacobin Club. In 1792, he entered, as a soldier, in a regiment of the army marching against the county of Nice; and, in 1793, he served before Toulon, where he became acquainted with Bonaparte, whom he, in January, 1794, assisted in despatching the unfortunate Toulonese; and with whom, also, in the autumn of the same year, he, therefore, was arrested as a terrorist. In 1796, when commander-in-chief, Bonaparte made Junot his aide-de-camp; and in that capacity he accompanied him, in 1798, to Egypt. There, as well as in Italy, he fought bravely, but had no particular opportunity of distinguishing himself. He was not one of those select few whom Napoleon brought with him to Europe in 1799, but returned first to France in 1801, when he was nominated a general of division and commander of this capital, a place he resigned last year to General Murat. His despotic and cruel behaviour while commander of Paris made him not much regretted. Fouche lost in him, indeed, an able support, but none of us here ever experienced from him justice, much less protection. As with all other of our modern public functionaries, without money nothing was obtained from him. It required as much for not doing any harm as if, in renouncing his usual vexatious oppressions, he had conferred benefits. He was much suspected of being, with Fouche, the patron of a gang of street robbers and housebreakers, who, in the winter of 1803, infested this capital, and who, when finally discovered, were screened from justice and suffered to escape punishment. I will tell you what I personally have seen of him. Happening one evening to enter the rooms at Frascati, where the gambling-tables are kept, I observed him, undressed, out of regimentals, in company with at young man, who afterwards avowed himself an aide-de-camp of this general, and who was playing with rouleaux of louis d'or, supposed to contain fifty each, at Rouge et Noir. As long as he lost, which he did several t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270  
271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

capital

 

commander

 

Bonaparte

 
justice
 

Fouche

 
general
 

renouncing

 

required

 

vexatious

 
conferred

street

 

robbers

 

housebreakers

 

winter

 

patron

 

obtained

 

benefits

 
suspected
 
oppressions
 
support

honest

 

regretted

 
dissimulating
 

abandoned

 

experienced

 

Ambassador

 

public

 
functionaries
 

modern

 

protection


cunning

 

infested

 

playing

 

avowed

 

rouleaux

 

undressed

 

regimentals

 
company
 

supposed

 
observed

complaisant

 

punishment

 

escape

 

suffered

 

finally

 

discovered

 

screened

 

personally

 

Frascati

 

gambling