Felix von Wimpffen (General)

Felix von Wimpffen

Baron Felix von Wimpffen (born November 5, 1744 in Minfeld , † February 23, 1814 in Bayeux ) from the von Wimpffen family was a French revolutionary general.

Life

Felix von Wimpffen was the youngest son from the marriage of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken Oberamtmann zu Guttenberg Johann Georg von Wimpffen with Dorothée de Fouquerolles. Like several of his brothers, he entered French military service. He was an early ensign in the Régiment de Royal Deux-Ponts , then Capitaine in the Régiment de La Marck . In 1769 he commanded a free corps in Corsica against Paoli , was promoted to lieutenant colonel and then commanded the Régiment de Bouillon , with which he distinguished himself in 1782 at the siege of Gibraltar . After the peace he retired to an estate in Normandy . In this region he was elected deputy of the nobility in the assembly of the imperial estates in 1789, in which he joined the third estate as one of the first and wrote the protest against the majority of the nobility who wanted to remain separate from the third estate. This move led him into the ranks of the revolutionaries , but he was always moderate and his proposal to establish a democratic monarchy was widely regarded as ironic. He was a member of the military and pension committees and had a hand in the publication of the red book, but he opposed the utter repression of the nobility, although he voted for the revocation of their privileges.

In 1792 Wimpffen rejoined the army as Général de brigade and defended Thionville against the Prussians in September of that year . After the siege was lifted, the Ministry of War was offered to him, but he turned it down and was given the command of the coastal army at Cherbourg . After the fall of the Girondins on May 31, 1793, he declared himself against the convent , arrested its deputy in Caen and called the northern departments to arms. However, he had little success, was beaten at Vernon and fled to England. In 1799 he returned and received a command from the First Consul as Général de division . He later became director of the imperial stud farms, in which position he remained until his death in 1814 at the age of 69. He was born with Therese Bayeule de St. Germain and wrote the work Manuel de Xépholius (Paris 1788, anonymous).

literature

• Felix de Wimpffen . In: Biographie universelle , Tome 50, Paris 1827, pp. 611–613 online (fr.)
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Wimpffen, Felix Ludwig . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 56th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1888, p. 240 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wimpffen 2 . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 4th edition, 1885-92, 16 vol., Pp. 659 f. ( online ). Here the surname is incorrectly given as Wimpffen-Berneburg and the place of birth is incorrectly given as Zweibrücken.
• Alfred Börckel : Mainz as a fortress and garrison from Roman times to the present . Published by J. Diemer, Mainz 1913.

Web links

• Louis Felix de Wimpffen in the French National Assembly (fr.)