Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix de Castries

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La Croix de Castries, painting by Joseph Boze (1745–1826)

Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, Marquis de Castries (born February 25, 1727 in Paris , † January 11, 1801 in Wolfenbüttel ) was a French minister and a marshal of France . His full title is: Marquis de Castries, Baron des États de Languedoc , Comte de Charlus , Baron de Castelnau et de Montjouvent , Seigneur de Puylaurens et de Lézignan .

family

Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix was the son of the governor and seneschal of Montpellier , Joseph François de La Croix, Marquis de Castries (1663-1728), and his wife Marie-Françoise de Lévis (1698-1728). On December 19, 1743 he married Gabrielle Isabeau Thérèse de Rosset de Rocozel († 1800). From this marriage his daughter Adélaïde Marie Gabrielle de La Croix de Castries (1749-1825) and his son Armand Charles Augustin de La Croix, Duc de Castries (1756-1842), emerged. Another daughter, Marie Marguerite Valette (1746–1786), came from a connection with Marie Anne Françoise de Noailles, Dame d'Omicourt.

Life

De La Croix joined the Régiment du Roi Infantry in May 1739 and was promoted to Sous-lieutenant in this regiment on August 23, 1742 . In addition to his military career in this regiment, La Croix de Castries was Lieutenant du Roi in Languedoc and Governor of Montpellier and Sète . In 1744 he was Mestre de camp des Régiment du Roi-Cavalerie and in 1759 Mestre de camp général de cavalerie .

During the Seven Years' War he made a name for himself with conquests on the Lower Rhine . In 1760 he took the Rheinberg fortress . In September 1762, however, he failed in the battle of the Brücker Mühle in an attempt to force the crossing over the Ohm near Amöneburg and to come to the aid of the French troops trapped in Kassel .

After the war, La Croix de Castries became governor of Flanders and Hainaut in 1763 . In the years 1780–1787 he was French naval minister. In 1783 he was appointed Marshal of France. Before the French Revolution , La Croix de Castries fled to Germany in 1791 and supported the royalist movement from exile until his death.

Awards

He was on May 30, 1762 by King Louis XV. accepted into the order of the holy spirit , to which his father already belonged. The port of Port Castries on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia is named after him. On February 28, 1788 he became an honorary member of the Académie des Sciences .

literature

  • Alain Berbouche: L'oeuvre judiciaire pénale du maréchal de Castries, secrétaire d'État de la Marine et des Colonies du roi Louis XVI (1780–1787). In: Neptunia. No. 199, 1995, ISSN  0758-5748 , pp. 39-54.
  • René de Castries : Le Maréchal de Castries. Flammarion, Paris, 1956.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A. Schneider: The battle at the Brücker mill on Sept. 21, 1762 , in 1275 years of Amöneburg, 1996 ( Memento from October 5, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter C. Académie des sciences, accessed on October 27, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME La Croix de Castries, Charles Eugène Gabriel de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, Marquis de Castries
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French military leader and Marshal of France
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1801
Place of death Wolfenbüttel