- Marie Victor de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg
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Marie Victor de Fay 
Born 22 May 1768
Château de La Motte-de-Galaure, FranceDied 20 May 1834 (aged 76)
Dammarie-lès-LysAllegiance France Rank général de division (France) Commands held IV Reserve Cavalry Corps
I Cavalry corpsBattles/wars - Battle of Alexandria (1801)
- battle of Austerlitz
- Battle of Jena-Auerstedt
- Battle of Heilsberg
- Battle of Friedland
- Battle of Uclés (1809)
- Battle of Villafranca (1809)
- Battle of Medellín
- Battle of Talavera
- Battle of Ocana
- Battle of the Gebora
- Battle of Albuera
- Battle of Usagre
- Battle of Borodino
- Battle of Bautzen
- Battle of Lützen (1813)
- Battle of Dresden
- Battle of Leipzig
Awards .
- Legion of Honor
- Order of Saint Louis
- Order of the Holy Spirit
Relations Wife: Pétronille van Rysse
Brother: Charles César de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg
Brother: Juste-Charles de la Tour-MaubourgOther work - Minister of Defence (France)
- Governor of Invalides
- House of Peers, Restoration
Marie Victor Nicolas de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg (Château de La Motte-de-Galaure, near Grenoble 22 May 1768 — Dammarie-lès-Lys 1850) was a French cavalry commander starting under the Ancien Régime of France, and rising to prominence during the First French Empire. He was a diplomat after the Bourbon Restoration, where he served as Minister of War, from 1819-1821.
Contents
Early years
His father was Claude Florimond de Fay (1712–1790), and his mother was Vacheron Bermont Marie Françoise (b.1712).
Marie-Victor was a sous lieutenant in the Gardes du Corps.[1]
He was appointed Colonel of the 3rd Régiment des Chasseurs-a-Cheval, 5 February 1792, and served at Philippeville, Grisville, and Maubeuge.
In August 1792, he was captured at Rochefort, Belgium, and taken prisoner by the Austrians, with Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. He was released soon, while his brother was only released after the treaty of Campo-Formio 18 October 1797. He lived in Hamburg, and then Brussels as an émigré, where he was joined by his family.
Egypt
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, from an exploding shell, at Alexandria, 13 March 1801, and after Kléber's assassination as aide-de-camp to General Menou.
Campaigns of 1805-7
He was present at the battle of Austerlitz, serving in Germany under General Édouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud, in command of the 22nd Chasseurs-a-Cheval, forming part of Joachim Murat's cavalry reserve, and was shortly promoted to Brigadier General, 24 December 1805.
He campaigned in Prussia and Poland, fought at Jena; he found himself in the 3rd Division of Dragons under General-de-Division Louis-Chretien Carriere de Beaumont. He was made général de division, 14 May 1807, fought at the Battle of Heilsberg, where he commanded, the 1er Division de Dragoons,[2] and was wounded, again at Friedland, where his division supported Marshal Victor's I Corps on the right.[3]
Spain and Russia
In 1808 he commanded the cavalry of the Armée du Midi, under Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières, Marshal Claude Victor, and Marchal Soult in the Peninsular War, in Spain, participating in the fall of Madrid, then at the battles of Uclés, Cuenca, Medellín, Talavera, Ocana, Gebora, Albuquerque, Albuera,[4] Usagre, Elvas, was wounded at the Villafranca,[5] winning the title of Baron de l'Empire. One of his dispatches was deciphered by the British.[6]
He was recalled to participate in the march on Moscow, given command of the IV Reserve Cavalry Corps. He was wounded at the Battle of Borodino, and gave distinguished service at Mojaisk, led a sacred squadron,[7] surviving the retreat, later commanded the I Cavalry corps at the Bautzen, Reichenbach,[8] Goldberg, Lutzen,[9] and Dresden.
At Wachau, his Cavalry Corps along with Kellermann, and the dragoons of the Guard charged the center of Duke of Württemberg. The reserve Russian Guard, counterattacked, stabilizing the line.[10] He lost a leg above the knee: famously responding to his body-servant's weeping at the sight, he remarked to his man, "What are you crying about, man, you have one less boot to polish".[11]
The amputation was practised by the famous surgeon of the imperial armies, Dominique Jean Larrey who notes in his memoirs:
He received a ball of small caliber which crashed his right knee to pieces, a serious wound which required the amputation of the thigh, requested by the casualty himself: I immediately practised it under fire of the enemy. It was made in less than three minutes.[12]
Restoration
With the restoration of the Bourbons he pledged loyalty to Louis XVIII and remained with him during the Hundred Days,[13] for which he was made a Pair de France, 1814, made a marquis in 1817.
He served at several diplomatic posts, including Ambassador to London in 1819. (Castlereagh corresponded with him).[14] He was briefly Minister of War (November 1819 - December 1821), and governor of Invalides (December 1821), and sat on the tribunal that condemned Marshal Michel Ney to death.
In August 1831, he negotiated with the Belgians about the frontier forts, but the British intervened.[15]
He was awarded the Grand Croix of the Ordre de la Réunion, and of the Legion of Honor by Napoleon, and Grand Croix of the Order of Saint Louis by Louis XVIII, and Chevalier de the Order of the Holy Spirit.
He married Pétronille van Ryssel (d. 17 July 1844).[16]
His older brother, Charles César de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg also became a general. His younger brother, Juste-Charles de la Tour-Maubourg, married Anastasie de la Fayette (1777–1863).
Notes
- ^ Henri La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein (1833). Le Glaneur Francais, Number One. Russell Robbins. pp. 246–250. http://books.google.com/books?id=SDABAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=maubourg&lr=#PPA246,M1.
- ^ Order of Battle, Battle of Heilsberg, 1807 (Lidzbark Warminski), napoleonistyka
- ^ Vincent J Esposito, John Robert Elting. A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars. ISBN 0404169503.
- ^ Herbert R. Clinton (1878). The War in the Peninsula, and Wellington's Campaigns in France and Belgium: and Wellington's campaigns in France and Belgium. F. Warne & co.. p. 170. http://books.google.com/books?id=IEoBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA170&dq=maubourg#PPA170,M1.
- ^ Marbot Vol. I, p.357
- ^ Mark Urban (2003). The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes. HarperCollins. p. 97. ISBN 9780060934552. http://books.google.com/books?id=DDLhpVhy658C&pg=PA97&dq=maubourg#PPA97,M1.
- ^ Marbot, Vol. II, p.285
- ^ Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin Marbot, Arthur John Butler (1892). The memoirs of Baron de Marbot, late lieutenant-general in the French army. Longmans, Green and co.. p. 356. http://books.google.com/books?id=lZLpLxtX3SUC&pg=PA356&dq=maubourg&lr=#PPA356,M1.
- ^ Francis Loraine Petre (1912). Napoleons̓ Last Campaign in Germany, 1813. John Lane. p. 89. http://books.google.com/books?id=0AcKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA89&dq=maubourg.
- ^ Marbot, Vol. II, page 397
- ^ The anecdote is reported, with others respecting him, by Chateaubriand in Les Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe.
- ^ Larrey, D. J. Memoirs of Military Surgery and Campaigns of the French Armies, Classics of Surgery Library, 1985, reprint of Joseph Cushing, 1814
- ^ Fanny Burney, Charlotte Barrett, Austin Dobson, Diary & Letters of Madame D'Arblay (1778-1840), p. 160
- ^ Robert Stewart Castlereagh, Charles William Vane Londonderry (1853). Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry. H. Colburn. p. 146. http://books.google.com/books?id=5CwMAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA146&dq=maubourg#PRA1-PA146,M1.
- ^ John Richard Hall (1912). England and the Orleans Monarchy. Smith, Elder & Co.. p. 82. http://books.google.com/books?id=8E1CAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82&dq=maubourg#PPA82,M1.
- ^ Dynasty de Fay, WebGeneologie
External links
External links
- Terry J. Senior, "The Top Twenty French Cavalry Commanders: #11. General Marie-Victor-Nicolas de Fay Latour-Maubourg"
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- NPG D15780, Marie Victor Nicolas de Fay Latour Maubourg, National Portrait Gallery, London
- Napoleon and the Grand Army in Russia, Or A Critical Examination of the Work of Count Ph. de Ségur, Gaspard Gourgaud
- History of the Expedition to Russia, Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812, Philippe-Paul Ségur
- Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850
Political offices Preceded by
Laurent de Gouvion-Saint-CyrMinister of War
19 November 1819 - 14 December 1821Succeeded by
Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de BellunoCategories:- 1768 births
- 1850 deaths
- People from Drôme
- French nobility
- French Marquesses
- People of the French Revolution
- French commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
- French generals
- Cavalry commanders
- Order of Saint Louis recipients
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