François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers
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François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers (March 1, 1769 – September 21, 1796) was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Desgraviers was born at Chartres. His father served as a legal officer, and Marceau received an education for a legal career, but at the age of sixteen he enlisted in the regiment of Savoy-Carignan. Whilst on furlough in Paris, Marceau joined in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 - after that event he took his discharge from the regular army and returned to Chartres, but the opposition of his family soon compelled him to seek new military employment. He became a drill instructor and later a Captain in the Eure-et-Loir départemental regiment of the National Guard.
In March 1792, Marceau was elected Lieutenant Colonel of one of the French Revolutionary Army battalions of the Eure-et-Loir. He took part in the defence of Verdun in 1792, and it was his troop that was ordered to bear the proposals of capitulation to the Prussian camp. The defenders' lack of morale provoked the anger of the revolutionary authorities, and Marceau was fortunate to find re-employment as a Captain in the regular service. However, early in 1793, he along with other officers under suspicion were arrested and spent some time in prison.
[edit] Vendée
On his release, Marceau hurried to take part in the defence of Saumur against the Vendéean Royalists, distinguishing himself at Saumur on 10 June 1793 by rescuing the representative Pierre Bourbotte from the hands of the insurgents. The National Convention voted him the thanks of the country and he received rapid promotion. His conduct at Chantonnay (September 5, 1793) won him the provisional rank of Brigadier General. On October 17, he bore a great part in the victory of Cholet, and on began his friendship with Jean Baptiste Kléber while on the field of battle.
Kléber was made a général de division, and Marceau confirmed as a Brigadier General. Marceau in turn became a général de division on November 10; then succeeded to the commander-in-chief ad interim, and, with Kléber, won important victories near Le Mans (December 12-13) and Savenay (23 December 1793).
[edit] Love affairs
In the wake of Le Mans, Marceau had rescued and protected a young Royalist lady, Angélique des Mesliers, with whom it has been supposed Marceau fell in love - however, even his help could not save her from the guillotine.
He and Kléber were only saved themselves from arrest and execution by the intervention of Bourbotte. Around this time Marceau became engaged to Agathe Leprêtre de Châteaugiron, but his constant military employment, his broken health and the opposition of both Auguste-Félicité Le Prestre de Châteaugiron and Marceau's devoted half-sister Emira, wife of the Republican politician Antoine Joseph Sergent, prevented the marriage.
[edit] Battles of 1795-1796
After spending the winter of 1793-1794 in Paris, Marceau accepted a command in the army under Jean Baptiste Jourdan alongside Kléber and took part in the various battles near Charleroi. During the battle of Fleurus on 26 June 1794 he had a horse shot from under him. He distinguished himself at Jülich, at Aldenhoven and at Koblenz, where he stormed the enemy lines on 23 October.
He took part in the 1795-1796 campaign with the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, fighting on the Rhine and the Lahn and distinguishing himself alongside Kléber near Neuwied and Sulzbach.
[edit] Death
In 1796, Jourdan and Jean Victor Moreau's invasion of Germany ended in disaster and Marceau's men covered Jourdan's retreat over the Rhine. Marceau fought in the desperate actions on the Lahn (16-18 September 1796) until at Altenkirchen on September 19, he received a mortal wound. He died two days later, aged only twenty-seven.
The Austrians competed with Marceau's own countrymen to honour to the dead general. His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber. They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The 1911 Britannica, in turn, gives the following references:
- Maze, Le Général Marceau (1889)
- Parfait, Le Général Marceau (1892)
- T. C. Johnson, Marceau (London, 1896)
