Ange de Menneville, Marquis de Duquesne

Michel-Ange Duquesne de Menneville

Michel-Ange Duquesne de Menneville, Marquis Duquesne (also Du Quesne ; * around 1700 in Toulon ; † September 17, 1778 in Antony ) was a French naval officer and from 1752 to 1755 he was Governor General of New France . After his return to the motherland, he was Rear Admiral in the Seven Years' War .

career

Pittsburgh was founded under the name Fort Du Quesne

He was the son of Abraham Duquesne-Monnier, a rear admiral and in turn the nephew of the famous admiral Abraham Duquesne . Like his father and his uncle, the young Duquesne entered the royal navy, where he was promoted to " sea ​​captain " in 1749 .

From July 1752 to July 10, 1755, Duquesne was the successor of Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de La Jonquière Governor General of New France and resided in the city of Québec in the Château Saint-Louis . He became known in 1754 for his intervention in the French and Indian War , which rose in 1756 with the entry of Great Britain and other European powers in the Seven Years' War. In 1754 , the fortress Fort Duquesne was built at the confluence of the two rivers Allegheny and Monongahela , which form the Ohio River from here , which was later replaced by Fort Pitt and finally Pittsburgh . Duquesne, who was determined to keep Canada and New France under the French crown, built other fortresses in addition to Fort Du Quesne, including Fort Le Boeuf and Fort Machault . In 1755 he was replaced as governor by Pierre de Rigaud and ordered back to the mother country. The fortress named after his name fell to the British in 1758.

In France, Duquesne was given command of the Toulon squadron in 1755 and from 1757 he commanded the French Mediterranean squadron. In this function he was commissioned to escort a French ship expedition to the Canadian Louisbourg, which was besieged by the British . But Duquesne's squadron was still in the Mediterranean from the British fleet stationed in Gibraltar . The flight to the neutral Spanish port of Cartagena that was initiated failed; two French ships, including the flagship Le Foudroyant, were captured by British Admiral Henry Osborn at the Battle of Carthagène in 1758. The boarding of the Le Foudroyant was also a symbolic success for the British, as the French naval officer Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière had defeated the English fleet under the British Admiral John Byng in the naval battle of Menorca with her in 1756 . The supply of Louisbourg was no longer guaranteed and fell to the British in the same year.

Duquesne was dismissed from the Navy in 1772 with promotion to lieutenant general and endowed with an annuity of 6,000 livres . He died on September 17, 1778 in Antony in what is now the Hauts-de-Seine department .

“He was taller than average, well built, and witty. He was proud to the point of arrogance and could not bear it when disobeying orders went unpunished. […] Not wealthy by nature, he was diligent in acquiring wealth, but never in a greedy way. His services cannot be valued highly enough. "

- Laudation in the letter of discharge from the Royal Navy : Mémoire sur les affaires du Canada, 1760.

Reminiscences

• In the Canadian province of Québec , the Canton Duquesne administrative district was named after him.
• The private, Catholic Duquesne University ( Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost ) in Pittsburgh was renamed in his honor in 1911 in commemoration of the fact that he brought the Catholic liturgy to Pittsburgh.
• The Algerian city ​​of Kaous in the province of Jijel bore his name under French colonial rule until 1962.
• Fort Duquesne is named after him.
• Duquesne Brewing Company

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} "DUQUESNE (Du Quesne, Duqaine, Duquene) DE MENNEVILLE, ANGE, marquis DUQUESNE" in the Dictionnaire du biographique ligne en Canada , 2000, accessed on 19 October 2012
2. ↑ Michel Mollat, Commission française d'histoire maritime: Marins et océans , Vol. 2, p. 144. Economica, 1991.

Web links

• Biography in the Dictionnaire biographique du Canada en ligne