Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey
Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey (14 February 1741 – 10 May 1808) was a French general. During the Revolution he served twice as Minister of War and briefly led the Army of the Western Pyrenees. His surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 33.
Biography
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Joseph_Marie_Servan_de_Gerbey_by_Louis_Lafitte.png/220px-Joseph_Marie_Servan_de_Gerbey_by_Louis_Lafitte.png)
Servan was born in the village of Romans in south-eastern France. His older brother was the lawyer and publicist Joseph Michel Antoine Servan.
He volunteered for the regiment of Guyenne on 20 December 1760. He rose to Engineering Officer, then Deputy Governor of the pages of King Louis XVI, then colonel, then brigadier general on 8 May 1792.
He was recommended as Minister of War by the
His most momentous action as minister, however, was his proposal to bring armed volunteers from the provinces to
King Louis used his
Another of Servan's ministerial initiatives was the deletion of the eighth verse of the anthem La Marseillaise in 1792. Servan claimed its references to God undermined the Republic.
Arrested during
Servan retired on 3 May 1807, and died the following year in Paris at the age of 67. His name in inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe, on the west side.
References
Sources
- ISBN 0-679-72610-1.
- ISBN 0-394-71220-X.
Further reading
- "Joseph Servan" in Charles Muller, Biographies of famous military forces by land and sea from 1789 to 1850, 1852)
- Servan, Minister of War offers his resignation 25 September 1792
- Record in Biography of Dauphine, by Adolphe Rochas t. 2, 1860