Louis Antoine de Gontaut-Biron
Louis Antoine de Gontaut , duc de Lauzun, comte, then duc de Biron (born February 2, 1701 , † October 19, 1788 in Paris ), was a high officer and aristocrat in the Kingdom of France in the 18th century. The high point of his military career was his appointment as Maréchal de France .
family
Louis Antoine de Gontaut came from the Gontaut-Biron family, a family of the French high nobility from the Guyenne province , whose family tree can be traced back to the 12th century. It provided the French king with a large number of officers, including four marshals of France.
He was the fourth son of Charles Armand de Gontaut-Biron and his wife Marie Antonine Bautru de Nogent (1662–1742), niece of Antonin Nompar de Caumont , duc de Lauzun, through whom the title and the Duchy of Lauzun came to the House of Gontaut .
On February 29, 1740 he married Françoise Pauline de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, marquise de Sévérac (1723-1794), daughter of Brigadier des armées du roi de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, comte de Roucy, and the Marguerite Élisabeth Huguet de Sémonville. The marriage lasted until death and remained childless. In his will of January 31, 1788, de Biron designated his brother Charles-Antoine de Gontaut as the universal heir.
Military career
In 1716, the Comte de Biron joined a company of the Guard Marine (which belonged to the Royal Navy). In the same year he transferred to the army. In 1727 he was named as a captain in the Regiment de Noailles-dragons . In 1729 he was Lieutenant Colonel in the Régiment Royal Roussillon . With this he served during the Polish War of Succession from 1733 under Marshals de Villars and de Coigny in Italy and was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Régiment du Roi there in 1734 . During his time in Italy (until 1735) he was involved in the attack on Milan , the Battle of Tortona and the Battle of Parma . His services during these three actions brought him in 1734 the promotion to the Brigadier des armées du roi and to the Maréchal de camp and in 1735 to the Inspecteur des Régiment du Roi Infantry.
In 1740 he followed his brother as Duc de Biron after he had withdrawn.
In the Austrian War of Succession in 1741 he took part in the campaign to Bohemia and Moravia under Marshal de Belle-Isle . The following year he was appointed lieutenant général des armées du Roi after the battle of Dettingen . In 1742 he was seriously wounded during the siege of Prague .
In 1744 he was awarded the order of a Chevalier des ordres du Roi . He then went to war in Flanders , where he was to stay until 1748. In the Battle of Fontenoy he took command of the Régiment des Gardes françaises on May 11, 1745 after its commander, Colonel Louis, duc de Gramont, had fallen. At the same time he was given his post as Colonel géneral des Gardes françaises , which he was to keep until his death.
De Biron was involved in the siege of Maastricht (1748) .
In 1749 he was appointed peer of France . In 1753 he bought the so-called "Hôtel Biron", which is now the Musée Rodin .
In 1757 he was appointed Marshal of France. From 1775 until his death he was the last governor of Languedoc .
De Biron founded the observatory of Montpellier a telescope worth 12,000 livres.
literature
- M. Prévost, Jean-Charles Roman d'Amat , Henri Tribout de Morembert : Dictionnaire de biographie française. Volume 15 (Gachot-Gilbert). Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1982.
- Charles Gavard : Galeries historiques du Palais de Versailles. Volume 7. Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1842, p. 451 ( full text in the Internet Archive ).
- Noël Lacolle: Histoire des gardes-françaises. Henri Charles-Lavauzelle, Paris 1901, p. 448 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- Joseph Wirth: Le maréchal Lefèbvre. Duc de Dantzig (1755-1820). Perrin et Cie, Paris 1904, p. 464 ( full text in the Internet Archive).
Footnotes
- ↑ Deputy Commander, also referred to as Colonel en second
- ↑ De facto he was the commander, since the colonel of the regiment was the king himself.
- ↑ Louis Dulieu: Le mouvement scientifique Montpellierain au XVIII e siècle. In: Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications. Volume 11, No. 3, 1958, ISSN 0048-7996 , pp. 227-249 ( full text on Persée ).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gontaut-Biron, Louis Antoine de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Marshal of France |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1701 |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 19, 1788 |
| Place of death | Paris |