Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne

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Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne (born March 4, 1773 in Poivres ( canton Arcis-sur-Aube ), † August 2, 1830 in Clermont-Ferrand ) was a French maréchal de camp and général de brigade raised to the nobility . He surrendered to a British invasion force in 1810 as governor of the island of Reunion .

Life

Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne came from a family of the lower nobility from Champagne . He was born the son of the officer Louis Gilles de Bruneteau and Françoise de La Mothe d'Haucourt, among his siblings were:

  • Philippe (1751-1800), religious in Clairvaux Abbey
  • Claude François (1757-1824) lord of Mothet de Sainte-Suzanne, royal lieutenant in the
  • Gilles Joseph Martin (1760-1830), Major General and Peer of France
  • Alexandre François (1769-1853), Prefect and Knight of the Legion of Honor
  • Pierre Antoine (1771-1813), Colonel in the 9th Chasseur Regiment

Military career

Bruneteau entered the Régiment d'Anjou on July 10, 1789 . Here he was promoted to Sous-lieutenant in 1791 and to Lieutenant on October 12th . In the French Army of the Rhine in 1792 he was involved in the capture of Speyer and Mainz . He became Capitaine on October 18, 1793 and was as such in the sieges of Dunkirk and Maubeuge as well as several skirmishes in the region. In the time of the Grande Terreur he was dismissed from the troops as a nobleman, but reinstated in his previous position after the end of the reign of terror. In 1796 Bruneteau took part in the Battle of Arcole and in 1797 in the Battle of Rivoli in the Italian campaign . After an interlude with the French Western Army, Bruneteau returned to the Italian theater of war in the Second Coalition War and was involved in the Battle of the Adda . In the Battle of Novi he was promoted to Chief de bataillon on August 18, 1799 on the battlefield . As part of the Rhine Army under its commander Jean-Victor Moreau , he fought with his unit in various skirmishes and battles in 1800 and 1801. Bruneteau fought near Engen , in the battle near Meßkirch , near Biberach an der Riss , Nördlingen , Unterhausen , in the battle near Hohenlinden and in 1801 near Lambach .

In 1802 Bruneteau was appointed as the infantry in command of a military expedition to the East Indies . He left for the Mascarenes on February 28, 1803 . The officer arrived on the island of Mauritius (then Île de France ) in August , where he took over the infantry of an expeditionary force until 1805. On August 24, 1805 he received the rank of Colonel along with command of a regiment on the Île de France. On October 9, 1809 he was appointed governor of what is now Reunion Island (then Île Bonaparte ) by General Decaen . He held the post until the British conquered the island in the Mauritius campaign on July 8, 1810. Only around 300 infantrymen and around 300 members of the National Guard could not do anything against the invasion force, which numbered several thousand. This was the reason why he had to surrender after major losses of his troops in the fighting and after the British had taken half of the island's capital Saint-Denis . He then returned home, where he arrived in November 1810. A parliamentary investigation revealed that his behavior with regard to the surrender of the Île Bonaparte had been "very honorable" and the returnees were again given command of an infantry regiment on March 14, 1811.

Bruneteau's name reappears in connection with the Napoleonic Russian campaign in 1812 . He fought in the Battle of Smolensk , the Battle of Tschaschniki and also during the retreat of the Grande Armée in the Battle of the Beresina , which ended for him on November 27, 1812 in Russian captivity. On June 26, 1814 he was back in France, where he had meanwhile been appointed to the baron class ( Baron de l'Empire ). During the " First Restoration ", the king promoted him to Maréchal de camp on September 6, 1814 . From December 11, 1814 to March 30, 1815, Bruneteau commanded the Landau fortress in Landau in the Palatinate .

During the reign of the Hundred Days , Bruneteau joined the returned Napoleon Bonaparte, became Général de brigade (under Napoleon another name for the marechal de camp) and on May 4, he was in command of the fortress Sélestat in Alsace with a 4,000-man garrison. The fortress was later besieged for two months by 8–9,000 men from Saxon-Württemberg troops under Generals Le Coq and Stockmayer. Bruneteau refused to surrender to foreign troops, fended off two direct attacks and set out to capture the enemy headquarters before handing over the fortress to King Louis XVIII. came on October 1, 1815.

In the second restoration, Bruneteau was initially discharged from the army. He then headed the Corrèze department from June 26th to August 18th, 1816 and a second time from December 25th, 1816 to November 12th, 1817. He was then re-accepted into the army and led subdivisions of the 19th military division until the end of his life .

Jean-Chrysostôme Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne killed himself after the July Revolution of 1830 with a pistol shot in the head on August 2, 1830.

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SURNAME Bruneteau de Sainte-Suzanne, Jean-Chrysostôme
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Poivres ( Canton of Arcis-sur-Aube )
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1830
Place of death Clermont-Ferrand