This section is from "The American Cyclopaedia", by George Ripley And Charles A. Dana. Also available from Amazon: The New American Cyclopędia. 16 volumes complete..
I. Andoche Junot, duke of, a French soldier, born at Bussy-le-Grand, Burgundy, Oct. 23, 1771, died in Montbard, July 29, 1813. He was educated for the law, but in 1792 enlisted in the army as a volunteer, and by his courage won the sobriquet of "the Tempest." He attracted Bonaparte's attention at the siege of Toulon, and a close intimacy sprang up between the two, Junot's devotion to his superior amounting almost to fanaticism. He accompanied Bonaparte to Italy as his aide-de-camp, and won the rank of colonel in the campaign of 1797. He distinguished himself in Egypt, and was made brigadier general. A wound received in a duel with a brother officer, who was not as enthusiastic a Bonapartist as himself, delayed his return to France, and he landed at Marseilles on the day of the battle of Marengo. He was forthwith appointed to the command of Paris, and a few months later married Mlle. Laure de Permon, and was made general of division. But his own as well as his wife's indiscretions were so distasteful to Napoleon, that in 1803 he removed Junot to the command of one of the corps of the "army of England." On the establishment of the empire Junot was promoted to the rank of colonel-general of the hussars, received a pension of 30,000 francs, and a little later the grand cross of the legion of honor; but he could not conceal his disappointment at not having been placed among the first marshals of the empire.
His dissatisfaction, his improper behavior and lavish expenditures, coupled with his wife's eccentricities, caused the emperor to send them for a while into honorable exile; and Junot was in 1805 appointed ambassador to Lisbon, where he distinguished himself only by ostentation. In the same year he went to Germany without permission, and arrived in time to participate in the battle of Austerlitz. In 1800 he was again appointed governor of Paris and commander of the first military division; but his follies again compromised him, and in 1807 he was sent to Spain to take command of the army that was to invade Portugal. At the head of 25,000 men, hastily collected and ill provided, he marched from Salamanca Nov. 12; reached the frontier at Alcantara amid extreme privation and suffering; gained the town of Abrantes, whence his title of duke, Nov. 23; and, without pausing a moment, seized Lisbon (Dec. 1), at the head of only 1,500 grenadiers, most of whom were so worn out that they seemed to be only walking skeletons. Displaying enormous activity, he got possession of the principal fortresses of the kingdom, and reorganized and strengthened his exhausted forces; but his success was soon checked by the arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley with an English army.
Junot was defeated at Vimieira, and constrained by the convention of Cintra, Aug. 22, 1808, to evacuate Portugal. Landed at La Rochelle with his troops by the English fleet, he immediately joined Napoleon, who took him back to Spain, where he was placed in command of the third corps, then besieging Saragossa. He participated in the campaign of 1809 in Germany, and in 1810 was sent back to Spain, where he-was severely wounded in the face by a bullet. In 1812 he commanded a corps of the invading army in Russia; but his slow operations did not satisfy the emperor, who, instead of employing him actively the next year in Saxony, appointed him commander of Venice and governor general of the Illyrian provinces. This kind of disgrace, combined with other troubles and the suffering from his old wounds, preyed so much upon him that he became insane, and was taken to his father's house at Montbard, where he threw himself from a window and died from the effects of the fall.
 
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