Jean Lannes
Service/ | Army |
---|---|
Years of service | 1792–1809 |
Rank | Marshal of the Empire |
Battles/wars | |
Awards | Grand Cross of the |
Spouse(s) | Paulette Méric
(m. 1795; ann. 1800) |
Relations | Gustave Olivier Lannes de Montebello (son) |
Signature |
Jean Lannes, 1st Duke of Montebello, Prince of Siewierz (10 April 1769 – 31 May 1809), was a French military commander and a Marshal of the Empire who served during both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
He was one of
Early life
Lannes was born in the small town of Lectoure,[2][4] in the province of Gascony in Southern France. He was the son of a small landowner and merchant, Jeannet Lannes (1733–1812), son of Jean Lannes (d. 1746), a farmer, and his wife, Jeanne Pomiès (d. 1770), and paternal grandson of Pierre Lane and wife Bernarde Escossio (both died in 1721), and wife Cécile Fouraignan (1741–1799), daughter of Bernard Fouraignan and wife Jeanne Marguerite Laconstère. He was apprenticed in his teens to a dyer.[2][4] Lannes received little education, but his great strength and proficiency in many sports caused him in 1792 to be elected sergeant-major of the battalion of volunteers of Gers, which he had joined upon the outbreak of war between France and Spain. He served under General Jean-Antoine Marbot during the campaigns in the Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and rose by distinguished conduct to the rank of chef de brigade. During his time in the Pyrenees, Lannes was given some important tasks by General Jacques François Dugommier and recommended for promotion by future Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout.[5]
Campaigns of Italy and Egypt
Lannes served under General
Lannes led troops under
He was chosen by Bonaparte to
Back with the Armée d'Italie, Lannes commanded the advanced guard in the crossing of the Alps in 1800, was instrumental in winning the Battle of Montebello,[11] from which he afterwards took his title, and played a large part in the Battle of Marengo.[6][12]
Napoleonic Wars
General Joachim Murat and Chef de brigade Jean-Baptiste Bessières schemed to have Lannes removed over a budget deficit,[13] but Augereau bailed him out.[13] As a result, Lannes was not totally disgraced,[13] but was instead sent as ambassador to Portugal in 1801.[7][13] Opinions differ as to his merits in this capacity; Napoleon never made such use of him again. Lannes purchased the seventeenth-century Château de Maisons, near Paris, in 1804 and had one of its state apartments redecorated for a visit from Napoleon.
Upon the establishment of the
In 1807, Napoleon recreated the Duchy of Siewierz (Sievers), granting it to Lannes after Prussia was forced to cede all her acquisitions from the second and third partitions of Poland.
After this, Lannes was to be tested as a commander-in-chief, for Napoleon sent him to Spain in 1808 and gave him a detached wing of the army to command, with which he won a crushing victory over General Francisco Castaños at Tudela on 22 November. In January 1809, he was sent to capture Zaragoza, and by 21 February, after one of the most stubborn defences in history, Lannes was in possession of the place. He later said, "this damned Bonaparte is going to get us all killed" after his last campaign in Spain.[citation needed] In 1808, Napoleon made him Duke of Montebello, and in 1809, for the last time, gave him command of the advance guard. He took part in the engagements around Eckmühl and the advance on Vienna. With his corps, he led the French Army across the Danube River and bore the brunt, with Marshal André Masséna, at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.[6]
Death
On 22 May 1809, during a lull in the second day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling, Lannes went and sat down at the edge of a ditch, his hand over his eyes and his legs crossed.
As he sat there, plunged in gloomy meditation on having seen his friend, General Pierre Charles Pouzet, decapitated mid-conversation by a cannonball, a second cannonball fired from a gun at Enzersdorf ricocheted and struck him just where his legs crossed. The knee-pan of one was smashed, and the back sinews of the other torn. The marshal said, "I am wounded; it's nothing much; give me your hand to help me up." He tried to rise, but could not.
He was carried to the tête de pont, where the chief surgeons proceeded to dress his wound. One of Lannes' legs was amputated within two minutes by Dominique Jean Larrey. He bore the painful operation with courage; it was hardly over when Napoleon came up and, kneeling beside the stretcher, wept as he embraced the marshal. On 23 May, he was transported by boat to the finest house in Kaiserebersdorf , now a part of Simmering district of Vienna. Eight days later, Lannes succumbed to his painful wounds at daybreak, He died of his wounds on 31 May.
He was initially buried in Les Invalides, Paris, but in 1810, he was exhumed and reinterred in the Panthéon national after a grandiose ceremony.
Family
Lannes married twice, in Perpignan on 19 March 1795 to Paulette Méric, whom he divorced because of infidelity in 1800, after she had given birth to an illegitimate son while he was serving in Egypt:
- Jean-Claude Lannes de Montebello (Montauban, 12 February 1799 – 1817), who died unmarried and without issue,
His second marriage was at Dornes on 16 September 1800 to Louise Antoinette, Comtesse de Guéhéneuc (Paris, 26 February 1782 – Paris, 3 July 1856), by whom he had five children:
- Louis Napoléon (30 July 1801 – 19 July 1874)
- Alfred-Jean (11 July 1802 – 20 June 1861)
- Jean-Ernest (20 July 1803 – 24 November 1882)
- Gustave-Olivier (4 December 1804 – 25 August 1875)
- Josephine-Louise (4 March 1806 – 8 November 1889)
One succeeded in his titles and three others used the courtesy title of baron. One of his direct descendants, Philippe Lannes de Montebello, was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art until 2008.
Assessment
Lannes ranks with
Miscellaneous
A chocolate cake, the "Gâteau au chocolat de la Maréchale de Lannes",[16][17] is named after him.
Notes
- ^ Paris, Louis (1869). Dictionnaire des anoblissements (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Bachelin-Deflorenne.
- ^ a b c "Jean Lannes, duc de Montebello, French general". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
- OCLC 56653068.
- ^ a b Dunn-Pattison, p. 117.
- ^ a b Dunn-Pattison, p. 119.
- ^ a b c d e Chisholm 1911.
- ^ OCLC 796280659.
- ^ a b c Dunn-Pattison, p. 120.
- ^ a b c Dunn-Pattison, p. 121.
- ^ Dunn-Pattison, p. 122.
- ^ Dunn-Pattison, p. 123.
- ^ Dunn-Pattison, p. 124.
- ^ a b c d Dunn-Pattison, p. 125.
- ^ a b Dunn-Pattison, p. 126.
- ^ Dunn-Pattison. 124-125
- ^ Beauvau-Craon; Vidal-Quadras (1977). Les Petits plats et les Grands (in French). Paris: Denoël.
- OCLC 7653532.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lannes, Jean". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 182–183. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ISBN 978-0-7006-2676-2
- ISBN 9781428629264
External links
- Media related to Jean Lannes at Wikimedia Commons