1796 Sep 21 – General François-Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers: The “Boy General” Who Stormed the Bastille and Was Mortally Wounded at Altenkirchen¹

Born

1 March 1769

Place of Birth

Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, France

Died

21 September 1796

Cause of Death

Mortally wounded in battle (carbine shot)

Place of Death

Altenkirchen (Westerwald), Germany

Arc de Triomphe

MARCEAU, north pillar

Final Resting Place

Panthéon, Paris (since 1889)

Called the “boy general” by some, François-Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers was the son of a prosecutor and became one of the most gifted commanders of the Revolution. His military career began in 1785, when he enlisted in the Angoulême Infantry Regiment. On 14 July 1789 he took part in the storming of the Bastille and joined the Paris National Guard that same day; within a few months he had risen to captain in the National Guard of Chartres.

In 1791 Marceau became captain of the 2nd Company of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of Eure-et-Loir. The following year he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and served at the Siege of Verdun. At his own request he was then appointed lieutenant of light cuirassiers in the Germanic Legion. He served in the Vendée throughout 1793, and after the Germanic Legion was disbanded he became a captain in the 19th Chasseurs à Cheval. After fighting at Luçon in August, he was promoted to général de brigade on 16 October, becoming a general at just 24. The very next day he justified the promotion by contributing to the victory at Cholet. Less than a month later he was made général de division, and a week after that he fought at Antrain. At the end of November he was appointed interim commander-in-chief of the Army of the West, and in that role he won the victories of Le Mans and Savenay. On Christmas Day, however, ill health forced him to take leave and relinquish his command.

By then Marceau had earned a considerable reputation. Besides his evident talent, he was known for wearing a green hussar’s uniform of his own design and for always carrying a miniature portrait of his fiancée around his neck.² After convalescing in Rennes and then Paris, he returned to active duty in May 1794, taking command of a division of the Army of the Ardennes under Charbonnier. At the Battle of Fleurus he commanded the extreme right wing, which was routed. Marceau was then transferred to the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, where he led the 9th Division under Schérer. With it he fought on the Ourthe in September and captured Koblenz in October.

In April 1795 Marceau took part in the blockade of Mainz under Michaud. The second half of the year was especially eventful: he and his men besieged Ehrenbreitstein, supported the fighting at Neuwied, seized the Stromberg passes and won at Sulzbach. On the last day of 1795 he signed an armistice with the Austrian general Kray that lasted until May 1796. In the campaign of 1796 he commanded the three divisions forming the army’s left wing and captured the fortress of Königstein. When the army was forced to fall back, Marceau covered the retreat, fighting at Limburg and Freilingen. While holding the enemy at Altenkirchen, he was leading his men with great courage when a Tyrolean chasseur struck him in the left side with a carbine shot.

Unable to move their mortally wounded general, the French had to leave him behind at Altenkirchen, where he fell into Austrian hands. Archduke Charles visited him and placed him in the care of his own surgeons, but they could not save him, and Marceau died on 21 September 1796. The Austrians returned his body to the French. At his funeral, as the French artillery fired a salute in his memory, the Austrian guns could be heard firing a salute of their own in the distance.

Marceau had been a close friend of General Kléber. On the first anniversary of his death his body was cremated, and his ashes were placed in a marble urn inside a pyramid designed by Kléber near Koblenz. In 1889, on the centenary of the Revolution, his ashes were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris.

Literaturverzeichnis

• Haythornthwaite, P. J. (1998). Who Was Who in the Napoleonic Wars. London: Arms and Armour Press.
• Six, G. (2003). Dictionnaire Biographique des Généraux & Amiraux Français de la Révolution et de l'Empire (1792–1814). Paris: Gaston Saffroy.

Notes

1. Quelle: http://www.frenchempire.net/biographies/marceau/ (Stand: Juni 2016; abgerufen am 14.03.2017).↩
2. John R. Elting, Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armée (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 42.↩