Charles Angélique François Huchet, Comte de la Bédoyère (1786-1815) was a French General during the reign of
Emperor Napoleon INapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
who was executed in 1815.
Descended from an old Breton family, he entered the army in late 1806 as a Second Lieutenant, serving as an
aide-de-campAn aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to Marshal
LannesJean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello, was a Marshal of France. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant"...
and then
Prince EugeneEugène Rose de Beauharnais, Prince Français, Prince of Venice, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy, Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfurt, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and 1st Prince of Eichstätt ad personam was the first child and only son of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la...
. Comte de la Bédoyère saw active service in Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia and France, and being award the
Legion of HonourThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
and the
Iron CrownThe Imperial Order of the Iron Crown was established June 5, 1805 by Napoleon Bonaparte . It took its name from the ancient Iron Crown of Lombardy, a medieval jewel with an iron ring, forged from what was supposed to be a nail from the True Cross as a band on the inside. This crown also gave its...
. He was a Colonel commanding the 7th Regiment of the Line at
GrenobleGrenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...
when Napoleon returned from exile in
ElbaElba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...
and marched north to Paris. On the 8th March, la Bédoyère and his regiment went over to Napoleon en masse.
During the Waterloo campaign de la Bédoyère, now promoted to
General de Brigade, and an aide-de-camp of the Emperor; was probably the officer sent with a message to
d'ErlonJean-Baptiste Drouet, comte d'Erlon was a marshal of France and a soldier in Napoleon's Army. D'Erlon notably commanded the I Corps of the Armée du Nord at the battle of Waterloo....
's I Corps, then marching west to join
NeyMichel Ney , 1st Duc d'Elchingen, 1st Prince de la Moskowa was a French soldier and military commander during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one of the original 18 Marshals of France created by Napoleon I...
at
Quatre BrasThe Battle of Quatre Bras, between Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army and the left wing of the Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney, was fought near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815.- Prelude :...
, to turn east to support the Emperor at
LignyThe Battle of Ligny was the last victory of the military career of Napoleon I. In this battle, French troops of the Armée du Nord under Napoleon's command, defeated a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher, near Ligny in present-day Belgium. The bulk of the Prussian army survived, however, and...
. Ney was furious when he learned the corps was marching away from his battle and sent another order for it to return immediately to Quatre-Bras. As a result of these orders and counter-orders, d'Erlon's 20,000 men, which could have sealed the fate of the Anglo-Dutch at Quatre-Bras or the Prussians at Ligny, spent the entire day marching back and forth without firing a shot.
Two days later at the
Battle of WaterlooThe Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, de la Bédoyère was one of the last to leave the battlefield. Afterward, finding that he was not eligible for
amnestyAmnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
as he believed, he secretly travelled to
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in order to see his wife before heading to Switzerland and exile, but was recognized and arrested. La Bédoyère was tried by a military court and condemned to death by firing squad, and this was confirmed and carried out at the plain of
GrenelleGrenelle is a neighbourhood in southwestern Paris, France. It is a part of the 15th arrondissement of the city.The area takes it name from Latin Garanella, meaning a wooded area where rabbits live...
on 19 August 1815. At his death he was aged only 29.
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