Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau

Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (7 April 1755 – 20 October 1813) was a French military commander. He was the son of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau.

Biography

He served in the American Revolutionary War as an aide-de-camp to his father, spending the winter of 1781–1782 in quarters at Williamsburg, Virginia. In the 1790s, he participated in an unsuccessful campaign to re-establish French authority in Martinique and Saint-Domingue. Rochambeau was later assigned to the French Revolutionary Army in the Italian Peninsula, and was appointed to the military command of the Ligurian Republic.

In 1802, he was appointed to lead an

During his time in Haiti, Rochambeau waged a war of extermination, massacring thousands of blacks of all ages and genders. In 1803, he developed the world's first gas chambers. He used a rudimentary method of filling ships' cargo holds with sulfur dioxide to suffocate black prisoners of war.^[3][4]

At the

Battle of Nations, and died three days later at Leipzig

, at the age of 58.

In addition to his legitimate son, Vimeur was survived by an illegitimate son, Lewis Warrington, conceived in Williamsburg, Virginia, when Vimeur was a young officer serving with his father in America during the Revolutionary War.^{[citation needed]}

Motto and coat of arms

Coat of arms of Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau

Escutcheon Azure, a chevron Or between three rowels of the same Motto VIVRE EN PREUX, Y MOURIR[5] (To live and die valiantly)

Sources

• "Rochambeau, Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 425.
• "American War of Independence" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 843–844.

References

1. ^ Haynsworth IV, James Lafayette (2003). The early career of Lieutenant General Donatien Rochambeau and the French campaigns in the Caribbean, 1792--1794. Florida State University.
2. ^ Christer Petley, White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 182.
3. ^ Mobley, Christina. "A War Within the War". Haiti: An Island Luminous. Duke University. Archived from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
4. ISBN 978-0-87140-424-4
   . Retrieved 25 April 2020.
5. ^ Johannes Baptist Rietstap, Armorial général : contenant la description des armoiries des familles nobles et patriciennes de l'Europe : précédé d'un dictionnaire des termes du blason, G.B. van Goor, 1861, 1171 p

External links

• A Guide to the Donatien Marie Joseph de Vimeur Rochambeau Papers
• The Louverture Project