Summer 1807: What is the carriage of General Junot doing in the middle of the night in the courtyard of the Elysée palace, and who is this young and beautiful woman on the point of losing her patience losing patience inside?

Bound since childhood to the Bonaparte family, Laure Martin de Permon, of Corsican and Greek origins, has not yet decided if she loves or hates the General apprentice with his thin legs in his too vast boots whose truly fabulous destiny made of him Emperor Napoleon the first.

At sixteen, she married for requited love, General Andoche-Alexandre Junot, a wonderful gifted man with exceptional bravery. Now Junot dedicates his emperor a devotion and admiration near idolatry.

Governor of Paris, showered with honors and wealth, and soon to be Duke of Abrantes, he would give away everything without hesitation to be nothing more than a small aide-de-camp (assistant in-the-field) attached night and day to his personal God …

Which prodigiously annoys his wife, who became maid of honor to Madame mère, a function she does not often fulfill while she is a close friend of the charming and foolish Pauline, princess Borghese by marriage.

Her relationships is not nearly as good with Caroline, the youngest of the Bonaparte sisters who became Grand Duchess of Berg and then Queen of Naples.

The knives are even drawn between her and Laure when she discovers that her husband is Caroline’s lover, that she brags willingly about it and that she has undertaken to make her rival’s life miserable.

Other worries: Since his last campaign, Napoleon seems to put gradually Junot away from his immediate entourage, which puts the unhappy man under torture. A frequent topic of conversation between the Emperor and the One who since the affair, “Puss in Boots”, he nicknamed “the little Plague”.




Editions Libra Diffusio 2016
Publisher of large-print books since 1998

Synopsis : The litte plague and Cat in boots 2016

Leading figure of Parisian life under the Empire, Laura, Duchess of Abrantes, is the sworn enemy of Caroline Bonaparte, the mistress of her husband (General Andoche-Alexandre Junot)
With great generosity towards the duchess, whom Napoleon affectionately nicknamed "little pest," he entertains a tinted seductive and affectionate relationship. In a removed and entertaining script, we delight in the intrigues at Napoleon's court.



The France Loisirs Book Club edition 2016



The edition of POCKET in 2018

Synopsis : The litte plague and Cat in boots

The « Little Plague » refers to her: Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantès wife of a general, a leading figure in imperial Paris. Puss in Boots" is Bonaparte, so nicknamed by her when, fresh from military school, he seemed far too skinny for his tall boots.

These two had known each other for a long time. Fame has brought them both to the top. Their heartbreaks were linked in one way or another. Between the alcoves of palaces and the arcana of power, they decide the fate of the Empire...


E-book - Format Kindle

♣ The Single book was also translated in Russian :



The Eksmo Russian edition 2016





♣ Quelles plumes ! Spécial histoire

The rise and fall of a duchess

Madame d'Abrantès descended from the emperors of Constantinople through her mother, née Comnène. It seems that this ancestry, which some people liked to make fun of, was not without historical foundation. She had married the handsome Junot, Marshal of the Empire and one of Napoleon's loyalists when he was Bonaparte.

Juliette Benzoni recounts the astonishing destiny of this woman of the world, a bit of a writer, a bit of an adventurer, insolent and rather unstable. She called General Bonaparte the Puss in Boots. He affectionately nicknamed her, with a touch of annoyance, the « little plague ».

Widowed in 1813, Laure, the Duchess of Abrantès, was not equipped to face the upheavals of life alone. She outlived her husband, badly, by more than 25 years and died, according to the traditional expression, used here in its literal sense, in a 'hospital' and in great poverty. V. M.

~ Article by Vincent Meylan, 2014 ~  [Magazine Point de Vue ]

 Le club l'Actu Littéraire



♣ Her almond shaped-eyes touched the hearts

Laure Permon was one of the most ravishing and interesting women of the imperial court in the Tuileries. Nicknamed the little plague by a Napoleon who had, in the days when he was known as "cat in boots", courted her mother, and who would not have disdained to possess her daughter, Laure was the very doting wife of the handsome general Alexandre Junot, governor of Paris, a Bonapartist to the point of idolatry.

In the summer of 1807, despite his sincere love for his wife, he cheated on her with Caroline Murat, Grand Duchess of Berg and sister of the Emperor, who did not hesitate to ask her lover to return to the Junots' sumptuous château in Raincy. Thus publicly scorned, Laure considered divorcing him, but Napoleon sent Junot into exile on the Iberian peninsula. While there he covered himself in glory and won the victory of Abrantès, Laure succumbed to the physical and intellectual charms of the Austrian ambassador, Count Metternich, whose mistress Caroline would dearly love to become... When he learns of her marital misfortune, Junot, back in Paris, sees red..
The queen of French historical fiction recounts the passionate life of the Duchess of Abrantès, author of the prestigious Memoirs.




[ Full-length portrait of Napoleon I. (1769-1821) in his study at the Tuileries ]
Painting by Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), 1812, Washington, National Gallery Of Art.

♣ The committee liked...

Juliette Benzoni's books, whether sagas, novels or non-fiction, have been bestsellers for decades. It's easy to see why: in just a few pages, the author sets the historical scene with dazzling veracity, taking the reader on a journey through a distant past that is suddenly so close to our own.

In a way, she is the heiress of Alexandre Dumas, as she proves once again in her dazzling portrait of Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantès, a renowned writer whose writings bring us into contact with the great figures of the early 19th century (Napoleon Bonaparte, the Count of Metternich, Honoré de Balzac...).
Juliette Benzoni also evokes Laure's passions, the jealousies she arouses, her intellectual connections and her financial setbacks, leaving no facet of her character untouched. A captivating read that pays moving tribute to one of the most beautiful women in French history.

Readers' Online Reviews :
♦ It is always a great pleasure for me to read a work by Juliette Benzoni and this one is no exception. I loved discovering Laure Junot, her husband and other illustrious characters from the Napoleonic era. Although it is true that some of them are rather unpleasant, particularly Junot and Caroline, and even Napoleon at times. In the end, however, I found it a really enjoyable and original way of approaching a passage in our history, giving it a different image.