Armand Charles Guilleminot

Portrait of Armand Charles Guilleminot by Louise Adélaïde Desnos, 1843

Armand Charles, Count Guilleminot (March 2, 1774 – March 14, 1840), was a French general during the Napoleonic wars.

Guilleminot was born at Dunkirk. He entered the army on the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars and first served in the Army of the North under Dumouriez against the Austrians in present-day Belgium. After Dumouriez's defection Guilleminot was arrested on suspicion of treason. Released, he was promoted to captain and sent to the Army of Italy where he served as aide-de-camp under Moreau. Friendship with Moreau and Pichegru undermined his career and after the assassination attempt of Georges Cadoudal he was put on non-active service.

Guilleminot was recalled to active duty in 1805 and served as a topographical engineer in the Ulm and Austerlitz campaign. In 1808 he was sent to Spain and after the battle of Medina del Rio Seco he was promoted to general de brigade. In 1809 he again served in Italy and the following year he again served in Spain. In 1812 he was part of the general staff for the Russian campaign. Promoted to général de division, he was given command of the 12th Corps which he led in the battle of Grossbeeren.

In 1815 Guilleminot served in the Hundred Days and fought at Quatre Bras and Waterloo as chief of staff to Jérôme Bonaparte. After Waterloo Guilleminot became chief of staff to Marshal Davout and he was designated a commissary and in that capacity on July 3, 1815 he signed an armistice with Blücher at Saint-Cloud. After the armistice he followed the retreating French army after the Loire River.

In 1817 he was part of a commission tasked with the demarcation of the French border in the east. The following year he was appointed a member of the commission for the defense of the realm and in 1822 director of the army depot. In 1823 he served as chief of staff to the nominal commander in chief the Duke of Angoulême and in that capacity served as the actual leader of the Spanish intervention.

Appointed as a Peer of France, in 1824 he was made ambassador in Constantinople where he remained until he was recalled by Louis-Philippe of France in 1831. Louis-Philippe appointed him President of the demarcation commission in 1839 and made him a member of the newly reconstituted commission for the defense of the realm in 1836. He died, aged 65, in Baden-Baden.

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