Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted of his mother Letitia. her three daughters, her two younger sons, and her brother, the Abbe Fesch.  There, he had seen every day, in the house of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression.  Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident, had not prevented it.

Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions; his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him.  Perhaps the new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; she no more answered Napoleon’s letters, and, in writing to his brother Joseph, he made bitter complaints:  “It seems that to reach Genoa the River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no more.” [Footnote:  See “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.]

The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints, was Junot.  He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words of Desiree’s changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon’s letters.

After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte, Junot’s turn to be confidential had come.  Bewildered, and blushing like a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon’s younger sister, the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.

Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot ended by asking his mediation with Pauline’s mother, Napoleon asked in a grave tone, “But, what have you to live upon?  Can you support Pauline?  Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against want?”

Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would amount to twenty thousand francs.

“I shall be one day rich,” exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to Napoleon the letter of his father, “for with my pay I will have an income of twelve hundred livres.  My general, I beseech you, write to the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my father, and say a good word in my favor.”