Louis Alexandre d'Albignac

Portrait of Louis Alexandre d'Albignac by C. Laguiche

Louis Alexandre d'Albignac , Baron d'Albignac d'Arre (born March 22, 1739 in Arrigas , ( Département Gard ), † January 17, 1825 in Le Vigan (Gard) ), was a French Général de division .

Life

Ancien Régime

Louis Alexandre d'Albignac was the son of Louis d'Albignac and Isabeau Quatrefages. At the age of 16 he joined the French army. In 1756, during the French conquest of Menorca , he took part in the siege and conquest of the Sant Felip castle at the port of Maó . After the end of the Seven Years' War he served with the Régiment de Boulonnais in North America. It was not until 1769 that he became a lieutenant due to the long waiting times for senior citizens . In the same year he took part in the conquest of Corsica . There he stayed until December 30, 1772 as the commander of the district "feudo d'Istria" or "Pieve d'Istria" (rule of Istria) southeast of Ajaccio .

India

He was then promoted to lieutenant colonel in the newly established colonial infantry regiment Pondichéry in French India , which he established in the absence of the commander and commanded until 1778. When the British attacked Pondichéry on August 21, 1778 with several thousand men under General Hector Munro (1726-1805), commander in chief of the Madras Army , Albignac with his 700 men held the attack until October 19, before he was honorable capitulated. On August 22, 1780, in recognition of his services, he received the post of regiment and was promoted to Brigadier des armées du roi of the colonial infantry. From the following year he received an annual pension of 2,400 francs from the royal treasury . On June 13, 1783 he was attacked with the remnants of the French army, about 9,500 men, south of Gondelour , the only remaining French possession in India, by Major General James Stuart († 1793) with 17,700 men. Although some of his Indian troops deserted at the beginning of the fighting , he managed to force the British to withdraw through skillful use of ten remaining field cannons and through skillful counter-attacks and to persist until the armistice on July 2, 1783.

Albignac returned to France after the peace treaty of 1783. King Louis XVI Released him on December 1, 1783 in the Ministry of War, with a pension of 4000 Francs from the royal tax authorities and another 1000 Francs from the "Établissement national des invalides de la marine" (ENIM), the pension fund of the Navy. On March 9, 1788 he was promoted to Maréchal de camp .

French Revolution

Albignac was part of the revolution , from which he hoped to correct many grievances. On March 11, 1790, he succeeded his friend and distant relative Henri Quatrefages de La Roquette (1731-1824), who was employed as a member of the National Assembly in Paris, mayor of Le Vigan . Already on November 17, 1790, he gave up this office again, because the following day he took over command of the 9th Division of the National Guard in Nîmes , with which he was supposed to guarantee internal security in the departments of Gard , Ardèche and Lozère . He did this so satisfactorily that he was expressly praised for it in the National Assembly on February 23, 1791. At the end of September 1791 he was one of the three of Louis XVI. appointed members of the commission who carried out the incorporation of the previously papal Comtat Venaissin into the Kingdom of France. On May 22, 1792, the king appointed him lieutenant-général .

In July 1792 he gathered a contingent of 8,000 men at Joyeuse and led it against the royalist uprising of Count François-Louis de Saillans (1742–1792) in Gévaudan , who had captured the Banne Castle on July 8th . After a few skirmishes between Joyeuse and about 15 km south-facing former further Templar - Commandery Jales is scattered the rebels during a heavy electrical storm on July 11, and July 12, the lock spell fell into the hands of his troops, which in Caught fire and largely destroyed. Saillans was taken on the run, taken to Les Vans and killed there with several of his companions on the Place de la Grave by saber blows without trial.

Albignac then served briefly in the Auvergne , where he also had to suppress some attempts at rebellion, then in the Alpine Army , which he commanded for a short time while Kellermann was absent , and finally in April and May 1793 in the Rhine Army . When he was suspected of wanting to emigrate in September 1792, he gave a speech to the “Society of Friends of the Constitution”, which was received with applause, in which he agreed to swap the general's uniform with that of the National Guard and join the Northern Army as a simple soldier to go when you doubt your mind.

Soon after taking up service in the Rhine Army, he fell ill, was accused of federalism, asked for leave, but was imprisoned and then placed under house arrest. As early as June 1793 he was suspended due to a dispute with the Minister of War. On January 10, 1794, eight months after leaving Nîmes , he settled in Le Vigan. Until July 27, 1799 he received no new command; then he was appointed to the head of the 10th Division. He finally resigned on April 27, 1801 and retired to Le Vigan.

Honors, death, family

In the spring of 1808 he was appointed commander of the "Garde d'honneur de cavalerie et d'infanterie du Gard " (Cavalry and infantry honor guard of the Gard). He had been a knight of the Order of St. Louis since 1774 and was made commander of this order on December 27, 1814, after the Restoration of the Bourbons . Napoleon awarded him the Cross of the Legion of Honor on March 29, 1805. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati .

Albignac died in Le Vigan at the age of 86 on January 17, 1825.

His first marriage was to Anne Louise Boisserole, from whom he was divorced on March 14, 1794 after eight years of separation. He then married one of his cousins, Magdelaine Philippine d'Albignac d'Arre; she died at the age of 73 on March 25, 1831 in Le Vigan.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pieve, plural Pievi, was the oldest known administrative unit on Corsica established in Roman times. With the French Revolution , the Corsican Pievi became cantons .

literature

• Paule-Cécile Minot: Versailles à travers ces grandes familles. Nouvelles Editions Latines, Le Vaumain 1994, ISBN 2-7233-0490-6 , p. 23.