Louis de Salgues de Lescure
Louis de Salgues, Marquis de Lescure (born October 13, 1766 in Versailles , † November 4, 1793 in La Pellerine , Mayenne department ) was one of the leaders of the Armée catholique et royale de Vendée during the uprising there during the French Revolution .
biography
youth
Louis de Salgues de Lescure came from an impoverished aristocratic family who originally came from the Albigeois , but later settled in northern Poitou at Clisson Castle in Boismé near Bressuire on the border with the Vendée department . From the age of 16 he attended the military school ( école militaire ), where he stood out from the other noble classmates through his seriousness and piety. In the last few years before the outbreak of the revolution he was a cavalry officer . He married Marie-Louise Victoire de Donnissan at Citran Castle in the Médoc . Since he feared the worst for the nobility and clergy, he emigrated abroad for a few months in 1791, but returned to Paris in the spring of 1792, where he served in the - ultimately unsuccessful - defense of Louis XVI. was present in the Tuilerie Castle (August 10, 1792) against the Paris mob. He then returned to his estate at Bressuire, where he discussed how to proceed with his younger cousin Henri de La Rochejaquelein .
Vendée uprising
The conservative, i.e. H. The majority of the population of the Poitou and Vendée, with a religious-royalist attitude, disapproved of the action taken by the revolutionaries against the order of the Ancien Régime . The announcement of a troop raising of 300,000 men broke the barrel and a popular uprising broke out. This, however, lacked leaders whom the peasants would seek among the local nobles, whom they knew or assumed would reject the revolution in a similar way as they did themselves. So the emissaries from the surrounding villages turned to the landlords ( seigneurs ) of the area ; in the case of Bressuire, it was Louis de Salgues de Lescure, whom his cousin Henri was visiting. Without hesitation they both accepted the leadership role proposed to them, but M. de Lescure was denounced and imprisoned by authorities loyal to the Republic in Bressuire, from which he was soon freed by the peasants - a circumstance that broke the ties between the peasants and theirs Leader made even closer. Shortly afterwards the armed conflicts began at Thouars and Fontenay (May 25/26, 1793), in which the armies of the insurgents initially won the day. With the unsuccessful siege of Nantes (June 29, 1793) the tide turned and the never particularly closed heap of peasants split up into individual troops who tried to drag their way home, plundered and torn down, where they were, however, supported by the now reinforced republican troops were attacked. There seemed to be no other option but to keep fighting, but defeats increased.
death
On October 15, 1793, Louis de Salgues de Lescure was seriously wounded in the head in the battle of La Tremblaye near Cholet , so that he had to be carried on a stretcher. His wife, their parents and their only one-year-old daughter visited him, which was common at the time; but that they stayed with him was probably due to the destruction of their home property (Clisson Castle) by soldiers of the republic. Shortly after the lost battle, the entire Vendée army crossed the Loire north near Saumur across the Loire towards the north with a convoy of homeless, ragged and hungry women, children and old people - a total of around 25,000 - an event known as the Virée de Galerne has become known. There were three main reasons for this change of direction: first, fewer Republican troops were stationed in this area; secondly, it was hoped to protect their own homeland and families from war damage and thirdly, there was the possibility of uniting here with expected English army units, which however never arrived. So you moved on across the country, occupied a place for a day or two, and then had to move on. All of these hardships were too much for the seriously wounded Lescure: initially with a clear mind, he increasingly fell into agony and died on November 4, 1793 near the town of La Pellerine near the border with Brittany . His father-in-law had the body buried in an unknown location to protect it from desecration by the Republicans. All these events were subsequently written down by his wife, for whom the hardships with the death of her husband were far from over, and published in the first restoration period (1814).
See also
literature
- Étienne Aubrée: Le général de Lescure. Librairie académique Perrin, 1936
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lescure, Louis de Salgues de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lescure, Louis de Salgues Marquis de (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Leader in the French Revolution |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 13, 1766 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Versailles |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 4, 1793 |
| Place of death | La Pellerine , Mayenne department |