Jean-Baptiste Drouet, French revolutionary, who was born 1763 in Sainte-Menehould, France, and died on April 11, 1824, in Mâcon, is most known for his role in the arrest of Louis XVI at Varennes. This article will feature many interesting fun facts and a biography of Jean Baptiste Drouet.
He was a French soldier who rose through the ranks of both Louis XVI’s and Napoleon’s armies to become Algeria’s first governor-general and a marshal of France under Louis-Philippe. Drouet had served in the Beaujolais regiment as a volunteer since 1782, rising to the rank of corporal in 1792, interesting fun facts and a biography of Jean Baptiste Drouet, just before the monarchy fell. After being elected captain in 1793, he was appointed aide-de-camp to General P. Lefebvre in 1794 and rose quickly through the ranks. Napoleon made him count d’Erlon in January 1809 after naming him general of division in 1803.
Drouet was born and raised in the Champagne village of Sainte-Menehould, where his father worked as a postmaster. On the evening of June 21, 1791, carriages carrying Louis XVI and his family on their way to the frontier halted at his door Jean Baptiste Drouet interesting fun facts and a biography.
Drouet recognized the passengers and took action that resulted in their arrest when they arrived in Varennes. He turned down a prize for his service. He was elected as a delegate to the Convention in September 1792. He abstained from voting for the king’s execution, shown unwavering enmity for the Girondins, and urged the killing of all English inhabitants in France.
Drouet was arrested and imprisoned for his role in the Babeuf plot (1796), but he managed to flee to Switzerland and then to Tenerife, the biggest of the Canary Islands. In 1797, he was a member of the resistance against Horatio Nelson’s assault on the island. Later, he traveled to India.
In 1813, he was promoted to lieutenant general after serving in Bavaria and Spain. He was given leadership of the 16th military division during the first Restoration, but he plotted against the monarchy, Jean Baptiste Drouet has interesting fun facts and a biography. He has created a lord of France and granted command of an army corps after joining Napoleon during the Hundred Days in 1815, but during the Waterloo battle, he spent June 16 between Ney at Quatre-Bras and Napoleon at Ligny, failing to support either as necessary.
Drouet escaped to Bavaria after the second Restoration, where he established a brewery near Munich as Baron Schmidt, under King Maximilian I’s protection.
In 1825, Jean Baptiste Drouet’s interesting fun facts and biography, the death sentence he received in France in 1816 was overturned. When he returned to France in 1830, Louis-administration Philippe’s restored him on the active list.
Drouet was named governor-general of Algeria in July 1834. He allowed his chief-of-staff, General C.A. Trézel, to guide him at first since he was ignorant about the region, but when Trézel was sent to Oran, he came under the sway of a cunning agent of Abdelkadar (Abd al-Qdir), Jean Baptiste Drouet interesting fun facts and a biography. After Trézel’s loss by Abdelkadar at La Macta, he disavowed him. In July 1835, Drouet was recalled to France. In April 1843, after a few years in Nantes, he was appointed Marshal of France.
Jean-Baptiste Drouet Cool Interesting Fun Facts Biography
1. On July 29, 1765, D’Erlon was born in Reims.
2. His grandparents and father were carpenters, and he studied locksmithing.
3. With the rest of the French army, he retreated and took part in the closing operations around Paris. After Napoleon’s capitulation, d’Erlon went into exile in Munich.
4. Charles X gave him amnesty in 1825.
5. He supported the Juilletistes during the July Revolution of 1830 and was awarded the Great Order of the Legion of Honor by Louis-Philippe on November 19, 1831.
6. At the Battle of Waterloo, it was his Corps in Column organization that attacked the Allied center from La Haye Sainte to Papelotte at 13:30, only to be halted by Picton’s Peninsular War veterans and then flanked by British heavy cavalry.
7. In Nantes, he was appointed command of the 12th Division in 1832. Later that year, his division put down a Vendean uprising and detained the Duchess of Berry.
8. D’Erlon enlisted as a private soldier in the army in 1782, was released after five years, and re-enlisted in 1792.
9. He was appointed to brigadier general in 1799 and fought in Switzerland under André Masséna.
20. In the same year, he was a hero in the Second Battle of Zurich.
21. He fought in several engagements throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, notably Hohenlinden in 1800 and the Hanover area (earning him the promotion to Major General in 1803).
22. In 1807, while serving as Lefebvre’s chief of staff during the siege of Danzig (now Gdask), he negotiated the conditions of capitulation. He was injured in the foot at Friedland the same year.
23. Following the defeat of the allied second attempt to recapture the Tyrol, Napoleon stripped Lefebvre of command due to his poor performance and bad relations with the Bavarians. D’Erlon was granted leadership, and by the end of November, he had pacified the region, forming a deep relationship with his Bavarian soldiers in the process.
24. Following the fight, he was promoted to Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, given the title of Count d’Erlon, and given a pension.
25. D’Erlon was appointed governor-general of Algeria in 1834.
26. Following Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, d’Erlon, along with the rest of the army, switched his allegiance to the House of Bourbon and was appointed leader of the 16th military division, but he was quickly imprisoned for plotting with the Orléans faction, to which he was privately dedicated. He eluded capture and reunited with Napoleon, who had returned from captivity on the Italian island of Elba.
27. D’Erlon was returned to France and replaced after the French army under General Trezel was defeated in the Battle of Macta in 1835.
28. His division was crucial at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, and he served admirably at Jena in 1806.
29. He landed in the Peninsular as head of the IX Corps and defeated British General Hill at the Maya Pass in the Pyrenees. He distinguished himself much more in the 1814 campaign’s succeeding engagements.
30. Following the completion of the 1809 Danubian campaign, D’Erlon was assigned to Marshal Lefebvre as Chief of Staff. In the Tyrolean Rebellion, Lefebvre was in command of the VII (Bavarian) Corps, which was fighting a pro-Austrian insurrection commanded by innkeeper Andreas Hofer.
31. For the following six years, d’Erlon was almost constantly involved in the Peninsular War as the head of an army corps, enhancing his reputation as a competent general.
32. He took part in Napoleon’s wars of 1805 and 1806 as a divisional general.
33. He was appointed a peer of France by Napoleon, and he was given leadership of the I Corps, which was part of the Army of the North.
34. He joined the pre-revolutionary army as a corporal in 1792 and was promoted to captain the following year.
25. Due to contradictory instructions, his Corps spent the day on the Old Roman Road marching and counter-marching between the battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny on June 16, 1815, during the first major confrontations of the Waterloo Campaign. Napoleon, on the other hand, did not hold him accountable, and given that the latter’s conduct in such situations was harsh to the point of injustice, it is reasonable to assume that the failure was not attributable to d’Erlon.
36. He served as General Lefebvre’s aide-de-camp from 1794 until 1796.
37. At the siege of Maubeuge in Hainault (1793), he was seized by the Austrians and imprisoned at Spielberg in Austria until the end of 1795.
38. He was elected to the Council of Five Hundred and given the title of secretary.
39. Drouet was arrested and imprisoned for his role in the Babeuf plot (1796), but he managed to flee to Switzerland and then to Tenerife, the biggest of the Canary Islands. In 1797, he was a member of the resistance against Horatio Nelson’s assault on the island. Later, he traveled to India.
40. He was judged to be a docile subprefect of Sainte-Menehould by the first empire. He was forced to flee France during the Second Restoration (1816). Returning incognito, he took up the alias Merger and lived in Mâcon.
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