Charles Angélique François Huchet de La Bédoyère

Charles de La Bédoyère, portrayed by Hortense de Beauharnais

Charles Angélique François Huchet de La Bédoyère (born April 17, 1786 in Paris ; † August 19, 1815 ibid) was a French Général de division under Napoléon Bonaparte . When Napoleon returned from Elba some time after his first abdication , he went over to this again and was therefore after Napoleon's final defeat and the restoration of Louis XVIII. as a traitor summarily shot.

biography

Military career under Napoleon

Charles Angélique François Huchet de La Bédoyère came from a noble Breton family and was a son of Charles-Marie-Philippe de La Bédoyère and Félicité-Julie Desbarres. At the age of 20, he joined the imperial gendarmerie of the French army in 1806, where he participated in the campaigns of 1806 and 1807. On September 10, 1807 he became a sous-lieutenant in the 11th ^e régiment de chasseurs à cheval . As adjutant to Marshal Jean Lannes , he accompanied him to Spain, was wounded in the battle of Tudela (November 23, 1808), after his healing he followed the marshal in the campaign against Austria and on April 23, 1809 was among the first to enter Invaded Regensburg . Wounded in the battle of Essling and Aspern (May 21/22, 1809), which cost Lannes his life, he came as adjutant to Eugène de Beauharnais , the viceroy of Italy, who in 1811 gave him the rank of chief de bataillon . In the campaign of 1812 he distinguished himself repeatedly. Therefore he was promoted to Colonel and received on May 1, 1813 from Napoleon the command of the 112th Infantry Regiment, at the head of which he fought at Lützen , Bautzen and on the heights of Goldberg, which he took on August 23, 1813 and against the Enemy held. Wounded, he went to his homeland and married a lady from the royalist Chastellux family.

As the Allies approached Paris, La Bédoyère offered his services to the governor. After Napoleon's abdication, his relatives sought him out in 1814 on the side of the Bourbon King Louis XVIII. to pull. At their instigation he became Ludwigsritter and commander of the 7th ^e régiment d'infanterie stationed in Grenoble . But he remained a supporter of Napoleon and was horrified to see the Allied "invasion" of France, under whose protection the Bourbons had returned. Despite his family ties, he liked to frequent Queen Hortense's salons and hated his service as a royal officer.

When Napoleon's return from Elba at the beginning of March 1815, La Bédoyère immediately fell away from the Bourbons, left Grenoble despite General Marchand's requests and led Napoleon to meet his regiment in Vizille . He implored the returning emperor to renounce the system of insatiable conquest and despotism and instead bring freedom and happiness to France. Napoleon smiled at the advice and entered Grenoble on March 7th with La Bédoyère and his regiment. Louis XVIII however, had to flee again. La Bédoyère accompanied Napoleon to Paris, but soon realized that Napoleon had remained the old ruler. He became general de brigade and adjutant of the emperor, soon general de division and on June 2, 1815 Peer of France .

Trial after the restoration of the Bourbons and execution

La Bédoyère fought with Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815), where he held out until the end, returned to Paris after the devastating French defeat and took his seat in the Chamber of Peers . Napoleon abdicated, La Bédoyère passionately advocated the succession of Napoleon II in the stormy meeting of the Pairs on June 22nd , was repeatedly interrupted and called to order, but ranted unwaveringly against the impending second restoration . Regarding his own fate, he correctly predicted that if the leading forces of France turned completely away from Napoleon, he would be the first to be shot.

After the surrender of Paris, La Bédoyère followed the army behind the Loire and then went to Riom . Here he read the order of 24 July 1815, after which he locked and as a traitor to the court martial should be passed. He thought of fleeing to America and initially wanted to go to Switzerland . But the longing for his young wife and his recently born first child drove him to a farewell visit in Paris. Later, however, he was also accused of wanting to conspire against the royal government in the capital. All warnings from his friends were in vain; he drove from Clermont to Paris on a diligence, with a policeman who immediately reported his arrival to the police prefect Élie Decazes . He was arrested on August 2nd on Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière and imprisoned in the abbey prison. His wife is said to have tried to free him, at least her plan failed.

The royalist press punished La Bédoyère with a barrage of savage abuse for being, from their point of view, the most guilty man in Napoleon's reign of the Hundred Days and the greatest traitor. In the royalist salons one could hardly wait for his head to fall, and Louis XVIII, who would have preferred by far that La Bédoyère should stay abroad beyond his reach, did not dare to give his life against the request of the royalists . Only the journal L'Indépendant defended La Bédoyère, but was banned and only increased the anger of the royalists. Benjamin Constant sided with La Bédoyère and had a petition sent to the king on August 14, 1815, in which he recommended leniency against La Bédoyère in the form of a pardon for severe imprisonment as a pledge of the reconciliation of the Restoration with Napoleon's army; but the Ultras did not allow Ludwig to be lenient and forced him to break openly with the army.

As early as August 2, 1815, the Colonel - La Bédoyère was no more than that for the Restoration, as it did not recognize the titles awarded to him during Napoleon's renewed rule of the Hundred Days - was brought before the permanent court martial of the first military division August appeared while the stands were crowded. The accused defended himself with dignity, in no way denied his guilt, only tried to cite mitigating reasons and to keep his honor pure. He stressed that he had not done anything for personal reasons and had not belonged to any plot before Napoleon's return; but when he wanted to describe the royal malregulation that had led to his apostasy, he was called to order by the President Colonel Anne Pierre de Bertier de Sauvigny . At the end of his speech he expressed the hope that all the French would rally around the king's throne and frankly admitted his offense.

According to the law, the court martial declared La Bédoyère unanimously guilty of treason and rebellion on August 15, 1815 and sentenced the 29-year-old to death. He appealed and demanded a revision, the young lawyer François Mauguin spoke for him, but the court martial on August 19 rejected the appeal. Mother and wife La Bédoyères tried in vain to save him, but in vain the latter fell at the king's feet when he drove out and begged him for mercy; when her mother-in-law prepared for the same attempt, she was held back. Constantly preoccupied with thoughts of his wife and child, La Bédoyère went fearlessly towards death. After receiving spiritual assistance from a priest by whom he had been raised, on August 19, on the Grenelle Plain, he urged the veterans assigned to shoot him not to miss him. He pointed to his chest as their target and died without being blindfolded, commanding "fire". On August 22, 1815, he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

In his will, Napoleon offered La Bédoyère's heirs 150,000 francs, of which they received 62,143 francs from the fund that had remained with Jacques Laffitte ; Napoleon III In 1855 she transferred 74,711 francs to the four million to pay the Saint Helena debt.

literature

• Arthur Kleinschmidt : Labedoyère (Charles Angelique François Huchet, Count of) . In: Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste , 2nd section, 41st vol. (1887), p. 73 f.