Junot, Laure, Duchesse d'Abrantès (1784-1838)

Junot, Laure, Duchesse d'Abrantès

NOBLEMAN, DIARIST (FRANCE)

BORN 6 Nov 1784, Montpellier, Hérault - DIED 7 Jun 1838, Paris: Abbaye aux Bois
BIRTH NAME Permon, Laure Adelaïde Constance
GRAVE LOCATION Paris: Cimetière de Montmartre, 20 Avenue Rachel (division 22)

Daughter of Charles Martin de Permond and his wife Panoria. According to Laure's memoirs the young Napoleon Bonaparte had once asked Panoria to marry him, but there seems to be no futher evidence to support this. The family settled in Paris and after 1794 Napoleon often visited them. In 1800 she married general of brigade Andoche Junot who knew Napoleon since 1793 and had been his secretary.

In Paris she was known for her beauty as well as her sarcastic wit. She was very extravagant and Junot ran into debt because of her. Napoleon named her 'petit peste', but he treated her and Junot very well, although she didn't treat him friendly in her memoirs. She accompanied her husband in the Peninsula during several of his campaigns there. After his defeat by the Austrians in 1809 Junot suffered from a mental illness and died in 1813. Laure played a part in intrigues to bring the Bourbons back to power and during the 100 days she didn't support Napoleon.

After 1815 she mostly lived in Rome. From 1828 onwards Balzac was her lover and he helped her publish her memoirs (1831-1934, 18 volumes). In them, she didn't stick to the facts and Théophile Gautier gave her a new nickname: duchesse d'Abracadabrantès. She was poor by the time she died in a nursing home in Paris in 1838.

Related persons
• was the lover of Balzac, Honoré de
• wrote about Napoleon I Bonaparte

Images

The grave of Laure Junot, duchesse D'Abrantes at the Cimetière Montmartre, Paris.
Picture by Androom (20 Feb 2016)