Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Jean Victor Marie Moreau | |
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| Rank | Général de Division Marshal of France (posthumous) |
| Commands held | Army of Italy Army of the Rhine and Moselle |
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| Alma mater | University of Rennes |
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Jean Victor Marie Moreau (French pronunciation:
Biography
Rise to fame
Moreau was born at Morlaix in Brittany. His father was a successful lawyer, and instead of allowing Moreau to enter the army, as he attempted to do, insisted on Moreau studying law at the University of Rennes. Young Moreau showed no inclination for law, but reveled in the freedom of student life. Instead of taking his degree, he continued to live with the students as their hero and leader, and formed them into a sort of army, which he commanded as their provost. When 1789 came, he commanded the students in the daily affrays which took place at Rennes between the young noblesse and the populace.[2]
In 1791, Moreau was elected a lieutenant colonel of the volunteers of
The 1794
Intrigues
In 1797, after prolonged difficulties caused by want of funds and materiel, he crossed the Rhine again, but his operations were checked by the conclusion of the preliminaries of
Moreau was dismissed, and only re-employed in 1799, when the absence of Bonaparte and the victorious advance of the
In reward, Napoleon again gave him command of the Army of the Rhine, with which he forced back the Austrians from the Rhine to the Isar. On his return to Paris he married 19-year-old Eugénie Hulot, born in Mauritius[3] and friend of Joséphine de Beauharnais, an ambitious woman who gained a complete ascendancy over him. After spending a few weeks with the army in Germany and winning the celebrated Battle of Hohenlinden (3 December 1800), he settled down to enjoy the fortune he had acquired during his campaigns. His wife collected around her all who were discontented with the aggrandisement of Napoleon. This "Club Moreau" annoyed Napoleon, and encouraged the Royalists, but Moreau, though not unwilling to become a military dictator to restore the republic, would be no party to an intrigue for the restoration of Louis XVIII. All this was well known to Napoleon, who seized the conspirators.[2]
Moreau's condemnation was procured only by great pressure being brought to bear by Bonaparte on the judges; and after it was pronounced the
Banished from France
Moreau arrived with his wife in New York City, in August 1805. He was received with enthusiasm in the United States, but refusing all offers of service he traveled for some time through the country and settled in 1806 in
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Moreau, probably at the instigation of his wife, returned to Europe and began to negotiate with an old friend from the circle of republican intriguers: the former Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, now
Moreau was buried in the
Legacy
Moreau's fame as a general stands very high, his combinations were skillful and elaborate, and he kept calm under pressure. Moreau was a sincere republican, although his own father was guillotined in the Reign of Terror. His final words, "Soyez tranquilles, messieurs; c'est mon sort," ("Be calm, gentlemen; this is my fate") suggest that he did not regret being removed from his equivocal position as a general in arms against his own country.[2]
The town of Moreau, New York is named after him.
In popular culture
Valentin Pikul's 1985 novel, Kazhdomu svoyo, centers on Moreau.
Notes
- ^ Bodart 1908, p. 789.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Chisholm 1911.
- ^ "Généalogie de Eugénie HULOT d'OSERY la Maréchale Moreau".
- ^ Wilson & Fiske 1900.
- ^ Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich's German Policy; vol. 1: The Contest with Napoleon, 1799–1814, Princeton University Press, 1963, p. 192.
References
- Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618-1905). Retrieved 7 July 2022.
- Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
Reynolds, Francis J., ed. (1921). . Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P. F. Collier & Son Company.- Clausewitz, Carl von (2020). Napoleon Absent, Coalition Ascendant: The 1799 Campaign in Italy and Switzerland, Volume 1. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3025-7
- Clausewitz, Carl von (2021). The Coalition Crumbles, Napoleon Returns: The 1799 Campaign in Italy and Switzerland, Volume 2. Trans and ed. Nicholas Murray and Christopher Pringle. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3034-9
Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Moreau, Jean Victor Marie". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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