Jean-Baptiste Muiron

Muiron protects General Napoléon Bonaparte on the Arcole bridge. Historical representation from 1901

Jean-Baptiste Muiron (born January 10, 1774 , † November 15, 1796 at Arcole ) was a French officer. He became famous for rescuing General Bonaparte at the Battle of Arcole , where Muiron himself was killed.

Life

The son of a tax farmer graduated from the École royale militaire and took part in the siege of Toulon in 1793. Here the young captain of the artillery first met Major Bonaparte, who also served in the artillery. At that time he developed a plan to retake Toulon. Both officers had been friends since that time. After Napoléon Bonaparte's rise to commanding general of the army operating in Italy from the spring of 1796 , Muiron, now promoted to colonel , accompanied the Corsican on his personal staff. During the siege of Mantua in autumn 1796, several attempts at relief by the Austrian troops had to be repulsed. The meeting at Arcole took place on November 15th .

Muiron covered Napoléon Bonaparte, who was charging the French flag on the bridge over the Adige, from enemy fire and was killed in the process.

reception

Napoléon kept the companion in mind and named a ship after Muiron. This frigate brought General Bonaparte back to France in 1799 after the failed Egyptian campaign . After his abdication in 1814, Napoléon signed his dispatches using the pseudonym Colonel Muiron, among other things .

The dramatic events on the bridge of Arcole were thematized again and again in works of battle painting, with the preceding Bonaparte and mostly the fatally struck Muiron being depicted in the center.

literature

• Jean-Luc Gourdin, L'Ange gardien de Bonaparte, le colonel Muiron , Pygmalion, 1996. Grand Prix d'Histoire de la Fondation Napoléon 1996.
• Albert Sacharowitsch Manfred: Napoleon , Publishing House for Military History of the GDR, Berlin 1978.
• La frégate La Muiron. , Trois-Ponts , Nicolas MIOQUE