Pierre Cambronne

Pierre Jacques Étienne Cambronne, later Pierre, vicomte Cambronne ( born December 26, 1770 in Saint- Sébastien- sur- Loire ( Loire -Atlantique ), † January 29, 1842 in Nantes) was a French general in the time of the First Empire.

Military career

Cambronne volunteered in 1792 as a volunteer to the grenadiers, served under Dumouriez in Belgium and in the Vendée, participated in the Battle of Quiberon part and then to Ireland expedition under General Hoche, 1796. He then served in the Alps army under the command of Massena, where he distinguished himself at the head of a grenadier company at the Battle of Zurich (1799 ).

In 1800 he commanded the company, d' Auvergne served in the Latour, and received the title after this first grenadier of France.

In Jena promoted to Colonel, he was in 1810 commander of the third Voltigeurregiments the Imperial Guard and was in the same year Baron. He fought in Spain and then rejoined the Grande Armée at. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, he commanded the third Voltigeurregiment the Guard and participated in the battles of Bautzen, Dresden and Leipzig, before he was promoted to General in Hanau.

The Hundred Days and Waterloo

He remained loyal to the emperor and became a military commander of the island of Elba from 1814 to 1815.

During the Hundred Days he led the vanguard. He took the fortress of Sisteron (March 5 ). When he arrived in Paris, he was appointed by Napoleon to Comte. During the Battle of Waterloo, he was commander of the last squares and answered, after he had been asked by the British General Colville to surrender:

The penetrance of the Englishman led him to a much more vigorous response:

But he denied all his life to have given this statement from him.

Nevertheless, called his response that a much greater admiration for the English, who did everything they could to take him alive. The Scottish Captain Hugh Halkett, commander of the Hanoverian Landwehr Brigade, assured to be responsible for this capture, as Cambronne " walked " in front of the square.

In French one used in analogy to the German term " idol Quote" since the description " le mot de Cambronne ".

End of military career

He was released to attend his trial for treason in France. Defended by the Royalists Pierre -Antoine Berryer, he was acquitted on 26 April 1816.

1820 named him Louis XVIII. commander of the fortress of Lille, with the rank of Field Marshal, he appointed him to the Vicomte. He retired to his native town before he died in Nantes.

Honors

His name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in the 8th column.