Marie Pierre Louis de Frotté

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Louis de Frotté (painting by Louise Bouteiller, 1822)

Marie Pierre Louis de Frotté , called Blondel , (born August 5, 1766 in Alençon - executed February 18, 1800 in Verneuil-sur-Avre ), was a symbolic leader of the Norman Chouannerie in the army of emigrants .

Life

He was the son of Pierre Henry de Frotté, squire and lord of la Rimblière, and his wife Agathe de Clairambault. After the death of his wife, la Rimblière married Anne Suzanne Dumont de Bostaquet. Their two sons from their first marriage also belonged to the "Armée royale de Normandie" - Isaac Gabriel Auguste alias du Verdun and Isaac Antoine Auguste alias La Fontelaye .

The Comte Louis de Frotté began his military career in 1781 in the Régiment Colonel-Général . As an infantry officer during the French Revolution , he was an early opponent of the revolutionaries and soon sided with emigration.

After the failed escape of the royal family to Metz, which ended in Varennes-en-Argonne , (→ Escape to Varennes ), de Frotté left his troops and joined the army of the Duke of Braunschweig . In the cannonade near Valmy he fought against the Republicans, emigrated to Italy in 1792 and then to Germany. Here he joined the corps of the Chevaliers de la couronne of the army of emigrants.

The uprising in Brittany

As a member of the regiment "Chevaliers de la couronne" of the Vicomte de Bussy prepared the uprising in his home province in England. To illustrate his devotion to the Bourbon cause, he asked Joseph de Puisaye , who was responsible for the interests of the king in Brittany, in London in 1794 for permission to go to France to instigate a rebellion in Normandy. He received his powers of attorney and certification as a colonel by certification . In early 1795 he landed with some other gentlemen on the coast of Saint-Malo , supported a fight against the republican troops, escaped pursuit and reached Normandy.

He brought great courage and patience, natural but poorly trained military skills and an unshakable assertiveness of his ideas. Obsessed with the need to make a name for himself, he plunged into the civil war career, the only one open to his audacity. However, there was talk of rapprochement and a ceasefire between the Republicans and the Royalists in the Vendée and Brittany departments . The National Convention was determined to reduce the number of its internal enemies in a peaceful way, a possibility that had been rejected by the revolutionaries until then.

In Normandy

As an opponent of any peaceful solution, Frotté traveled to Brittany on April 1, 1795 to take part in the meetings for the drafting of the Mabilais Treaty. There he refused to sign the treaty negotiated by Pierre Dezoteux de Cormatin , stating that he would never deny his principles and that there was only armed security for the royalists. He immediately returned to Normandy, was able to win the neighboring departments of Calvados and Départements Manche for the uprising and managed to establish a connection with Jersey via the Îles Saint-Marcouf . He then tried to coordinate his operations with those of the royalists in the Comté du Maine via the canton Domfront and in particular the Canton de Tinchebray .

At first, Frotté had only three hundred men under his command, but they were not very experienced. But his perseverance and tireless activity repeatedly brought him partial successes in the republican cantons. He tried to win the trust of the rural population and increased the number of his followers daily. His correspondence with England and the French princes was soon in full swing. Several emigrated officers were sent to him from London and defectors came to reinforce his force. After refusing to lay down his arms, in July 1795 he was pleased to see the resumption of hostilities between the royalists and the republicans in almost every department of the west. At about this time he marched into Maine, where he and other leaders temporarily took the town of Mayenne .

Upon his return from this expedition, he endeavored to coordinate his operations with those of the other leaders in Angevin, Maine, and Brittany; but the result of the landing of the emigrants in Quiberon Quiberon Expedition stopped the development of his extensive projects. On November 15, he was attacked by the Mortain garrison at his headquarters . He fended off the attack and immediately attacked Teilleulan's post . After a very fierce battle, he set it on fire, forcing the Republicans to retreat and keeping them at bay by showing up everywhere. He expanded his organization in Lower Normandy , had a staff and division commanders, and endeavored to introduce strict discipline among his troops, which together could have formed a corps of four to five thousand men; but the warlike circumstances almost never allowed a complete contraction of the units.

Frotté he then joined the columns of Marie Paul de Scépeaux de Bois-Guignot and Fortuné Guyon de Rochecotte in the vicinity of Mayenne; together they attacked several republican battalions, which were initially repulsed, but later, reinforced by the garrison of Mayenne, returned to the attack and in turn drove the royalists to flight. The latter, however, then met again and the commanders deliberated to decide on their further operations. It quickly became clear, however, that the different views of the gentlemen would not lead to joint action.

The royalist generals preferred to act in isolation in their respective districts, and combined actions almost never succeeded. Rochecotte, Scépeaux and Frotté separated, each returning to his own area. In Normandy, Frotté was visited by his father, who had just landed with dispatches and subsidies from the English Ministry. Encouraged in this way, Frotté redoubled his efforts, he founded a society which was organized under the name Gentilshommes de la couronne (roughly: nobles of the crown); his system of insurrection spread and propagated. Terry was becoming an increasingly daunting problem for Republicans. At that time he assembled a large force in the Forêt d'Halouze , where he usually had his headquarters. He then marched with about 1,500 men to attack Tinchebray .

The garrison was not large, but a large number of Republicans who were in the city fought against the royalists. The town was surrounded by palisades, the bell tower and the Saint-Rémy church were crenellated or looped. The attack was fierce and the battle bloody. Frotté showed fearlessness and serenity, he was everywhere but after various attacks he withdrew. The result of the expedition was not a real success, it was only intended to strengthen the cohesion of the royalists.

Back in England

In Normandy the uprising gained momentum. Almost every canton had leaders who obeyed Frotté. But in the Vendée, on the banks of the Loire , in Brittany and in Maine, the affairs of the royalists were rather bad. General Hoche subjugated everything by letting the guns do the talking, but also by working with the policy of moderation. With his many battalions he controlled all of Normandy and Brittany. Despite stubborn resistance, Frotté was forced to return to England and refused any form of rapprochement or personal submission to the Republican government.

The Comte d'Artois

Before leaving, he had dismissed his divisions until further notice and charged the Normandy Royal Council with the details of peace negotiations, advising his soldiers to hide their weapons. Arrived in 1796 in London, he was sent by the royalist committee founded in this city to Comte d'Artois , then to Edinburgh to persuade the Comte de Provence to undertake an expedition to Brittany. The circumstances did not seem favorable.

Second survey

Only after the dissolution of the Rastadt Congress and during the war of 1799 could the royalists in western France take up arms again. Towards the end of September, Frotté landed in Normandy, with the rank of maréchal de camp , extensive powers and supreme command over the royalists in Normandy and La Perche . Under the war name "Blondel" he took command of the Norman "Brigantes" in September 1799.

The civil war became more and more intense, the royalists faced at least equal forces. Frotté attacked Vire without success; he took several villages, which he later had to give up again. He freed his mother and a large number of royalists who had just been imprisoned under the hostage law. He made a successful expedition to the south of the Manche department, but then suffered setbacks. In the midst of this active war, his troops consolidated and disciplined, Frotté himself was able to extend his influence to almost all of Normandy. His army was now nearly eleven thousand men.

Bonaparte's seizure of power

The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte to absolute power with the coup d'état of 18th Brumaire VIII meant the end for the armed royalist party. Frotté was perhaps the one of all commanders who best anticipated the consequences, including that the First Consul regarded him as his personal enemy.

From that moment on, Frotté's defeat was sealed. The dissolution of the royalist confederation began with peace negotiations. The Peace of Montfaucon ends the Chouan rebellion on the left bank of the Loire. In spite of everything, Frotté constantly advocated the continuation of the war, almost all the other leaders had already surrendered, but he still resisted and rejected any kind of peace. He wanted to rally the rebels from Maine, whose leaders had just come under his banner, and moved with several columns on the road to Alençon. Here in the middle of winter three bloody battles took place at Mortagne-au-Perche , La Chaux (Orne) and Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe , during which he lost his best officers.

In the meantime, abandoned by his party and threatened by the ever-growing armed forces, Frotté wrote to Gabriel Marie Joseph d'Hédouville , who was in charge of the peace negotiations , that he also approved the laws accepted by the other royal commanders. On January 28, 1800 he announced this to General Guidal , who commanded the Orne department.

The end

Cenotaph of the Comte de Frotté by David d'Angers in the “Église de la Madeleine” in Verneuil-sur-Avre.

Frotté was arrested with six of his officers against the promises made. On February 15, 1800, he was captured by treason in Alençon in the "Hôtel du Cygne" during negotiations with General Guidal. Three days later, a military commission in Verneuil-sur-Avre sentenced him to death without a lawyer or witness, where he was also shot. The reason was a forged letter, in which he announced to one of his friends that one should surrender in appearance and submit to everything except disarmament.

In the middle of the trial he had wine brought to him, and at his invitation his co-defendants shouted with him, drinking together: "Long live the King!"

The next day, he was taken to the execution site on foot. He rejected the blindfold and waited calmly for the rifle shots. His body was buried somewhere and could no longer be found.

Today a cenotaph has been preserved in the “Église de la Madeleine” in Verneuil-sur-Avre . A memorial erected on the site of his execution is on rue des frères Lumière, in the Verneuil industrial park.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Généalogie de la famille de la Rivière [1]
  2. ↑ [2]
  3. ↑ Jean Silve de Ventavon, Louis de Frotté: le lion de Normandie , Paris, Éditions F. Lanore / F. Sorlot, 1993, ISBN 9782851571045 , p. 64.
  4. ↑ Jacques Crétineau-Joly Histoire de la Vendée militaire Volume 2 Editeur Plon 1851 Google Livres I-ZR61csngUC p. 459
  5. ↑ Léon de La Sicotière, "Louis de Frotté et les insurrections normandes, 1793-1832". Volume 2 p. 498.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Frotté, Marie Pierre Louis de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blondel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION royalist commander in the French Revolution
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Alencon
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1800
Place of death Verneuil-sur-Avre