#bourienne

[apurpledust]

Back in France, Napoleon who hated the vanquished kept him away from him, which made Junot despair, « still madly in love with the emperor whom he loved as it is impossible to say » wrote Bouriènne. This man who had braved the greatest dangers without losing his cool, could not bear this disgrace which was the ruin of his feelings of the heart, his reason did not resist it. He went to Montbard, to his father, and threw himself from a window on the second floor. He died a few days later.

This has been in my drafts since February 2025 (one year ago what the..) and I still think about it once in a while 🥲

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

"In the month of April 1792 I [Bourienne] returned to Paris, where I again met Bonaparte, and our college intimacy was fully renewed. I was not very well off, and adversity was hanging heavily on him; his resources frequently failed him. We passed our time like two young fellows of twenty-three who have little money and less occupation. Bonaparte was always poorer than I. Every day we conceived some new project or other. We were on the look-out for some profitable speculation. At one time he wanted me to join him in renting several houses, then building in the Rue Montholon, to underlet them afterwards. We found the demands of the landlords extravagant—everything failed." 

- From Bourienne's questionable memoirs of Napoleon.