François Étienne de Kellermann

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Francois Étienne de Kellermann, Duc de Valmy (1770 - June 2, 1835) was a French cavalry general noted for his daring and skillful exploits during the Napoleonic Wars. He was the son of François Christophe Kellermann and the father of the diplomat François Christophe Edmond de Kellermann.

Born in Metz and served for a short time in his father's regiment of Hussars previous to entering the diplomatic service in 1791. In 1793 he again joined the army, serving chiefly under his father's command in the Alps, and rising in 1796 to the rank of chef de brigade. In the latter part of Bonaparte's celebrated Italian campaign of 1796-1797 the younger Kellermann attracted the future emperor's notice by his brilliant conduct at the forcing of the Tagliamento. He was made general of brigade at once, and continued in Italy after the peace of Campo Formio, being employed successively in the armies of Rome and Naples under Macdonald and Championnet.

At the Battle of Marengo (1800), he commanded a cavalry brigade under the First Consul, and at Marengo he initiated and carried out one of the most famous cavalry charges of history, which, with Desaix's infantry attack, regained the lost battle and decided the issue of the war.

He was promoted general of division at once, but as early as the evening of the battle he resented what he thought to be an attempt to belittle his exploit. A heated controversy followed as to the influence of Kellermann's charge on the course of the battle, and in this controversy he displayed neither tact nor forbearance. However, his merits were too great for his career to be ruined either by his conduct in the dispute or by the frequent scandals, and even by the frauds, of his private life.

Unlike his father's, his title to fame did not rest on one fortunate opportunity. Though not the most famous, he was perhaps the ablest of all Napoleon's cavalry leaders, and distinguished himself at Austerlitz, in Portugal under Junot (on this occasion as a skilful diplomatist negotiating the Convention of Cintra), at the brilliant cavalry combat of Tormes (Nov. 28, 1809), and on many other occasions in the Peninsular War. His rapacity was more than ever notorious in Spain, yet Napoleon met his unconvincing excuses with the words, "General, whenever your name is brought before me, I think of nothing but Marengo."

He was on sick leave during the Russian expedition of 1812, but in 1813 and 1814 his skill and leading were as conspicuous as ever. He retained his rank under the first Restoration, but joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and commanded a cavalry corps in the Waterloo campaign. He led his squadrons in a famous cavalry charge at the Battle of Quatre Bras on June 16, 1815. At Waterloo he was again wounded.

He was disgraced at the second Restoration, and, on succeeding to his father's title and seat in the Chamber of Peers in 1820, at once took up and maintained till the fall of Charles X in 1830 an attitude of determined opposition to the Bourbons. He died on the 2 June, 1835.