Marie Victor de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg

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Marie Victor Nicolas de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg (Château de La Motte-de-Galaure, near Grenoble 22 May 1768 — (Dammarie-lès-Lys ) 1850) followed a military career under the Ancien Régime of France and during the First French Empire and a diplomatic one after the Bourbon Restoration, where he served as Minister of War, 1819-21.

In 1789, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he was the colonel of the Soissonois at Uzès^[1], who was called to Paris, where he accompanied the royal family on the return to Paris after their abortive flight to Varennes (20-21 June 1791) and was an under-lieutenant in the Royal Guard, in 1792. He was appointed Colonel of the 3e Régiment des Chasseurs-a-Cheval, 5 February 1792, and during the late summer was arrested and taken prisoner by the Austrians as were a number of prominent French officers, one source of the anger and suspicion of Parisians that led to the September Massacres. On his release by the Austrians he did not return to France but went to Brussels as an émigré, where he was joined by his family and remained for the next five years.

At the end of 1799 he returned to France and was sent to Egypt by the First Consul,. There he served as aide-de-camp to General Kléber, with whom he received a head wound at Alexandria, 13 March 1801, and after Kléber's assassination as aide-de-camp to General Menou.

He was present at the battle of Austerlitz, forming part of Joachim Murat's cavalry reserve, and was shortly promoted to brigadier general, Christmas Eve 1805. He campaigned in Prussia and Poland, fought at Jena and was wounded in the battle of Dreypen. He was made général de division, 14 mMay 1807, and was wounded once again at Friedland. In 1808 he commanded the cavalry of the Armée du Midi, in the Peninsular War in Spain, winning the title of a Baron de l'Empire. He was recalled to participate in the march on Moscow. Surviving the retreat, at Wachau he lost a leg above the knee: famously responding to his body-servant's weeping at the sight, he remarked to his man, "You have one less boot to polish".^[2]

With the restoration of the Bourbons he pledged loyalty to Louis XVIII and remained with him during the Hundred Days, for which he was made a Pair de France, 1814, made a marquis in 1817 and rewarded with some diplomatic posts, including that of Ambassador to London in 1819. He was briefly Minister of War (1819-21) and sat on the tribunal that condemned Marshal Michel Ney to death. At the consistory that elected Pope Gregory XVI in 1831, the marquis had the honour of informing the assembled cardinals that Louis-Philippe would waive his right of veto, with the assurance that only a wise and virtuous pontiff could be elected by such a wise and virtuous assembly.^[3]

He was Grand'Croix of the Ordre de la Réunion and of the Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur by Napoleon, and Grand'Croix of the Ordre de Saint-Louis by Louis XVIII and Chevalier de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit.

His older brother, Marie-Charles-César de Fay also became a general.