Gouvion Saint-Cyr

Laurent, Marshal and Count 1812;
French peer, 1815; Marquis 1816
(Toul, 1764 Hyeres, 17 March 1830)

Gouvion Saint Cyr had incontrovertible military qualities; he did not lose a single battle and distinguished himself from the other Napoleonic marshals by his firmness and his independent character.

Gouvion, the son of a tanner, was only three years old when his mother left home. After spending two years in Italy he became a drawing teacher, first at Toul, then in Paris. In 1792 he decided to enter the republican army. It was there that he added Saint Cyr to his name to distinguish himself from his cousins. He fought in the army of the Moselle. He was intelligent, trained, capable, and could see what was going on on the battlefield; he advanced rapidly. By June 16, 1794 he was already a division general, a record for speed. He commanded a division in the Rhine-Moselle army and distinguished himself at the siege of Mainz.

In 1798 he received provisional command of the army in Rome. It invaded the church states and created the Roman Republic. Gouvion brought back discipline to the ranks of officers and discharged Massena. He was recalled on July 26, 1798. He served in the army in Italy and, under Joubert, took part in the Battle of Novi on August 15, 1799. After the battle he succeeded in joining up with the rest of the army.

When Massena replaced Joubert, killed at Novi, Gouvion managed to be transferred to the army in Italy and licked the Austrian armies. For his exploits in Italy Napoleon awarded him the title of first lieutenant of the army and a sabre of honor. Transferred to the army in Germany under Moreau he took Friburg and took part in the Battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800.

In 1801 he was ordered to support Lucien Bonaparte in Spain. Two years later he was lieutenant of the army of occupation in Naples, under Murat. Never-the-less, he showed himself to be a little too independent in politics for the taste of his superiors. In 1804 he was not made a marshal but became colonel general of the cuirassiers. In 1805 he served in the army which had the task of subduing the Kingdom of Naples. Of which Joseph was the new king.

He commanded an army corps during the Polish Campaign in 1807; he was named governor of Warsaw. In 1808 he took command of the VII Corps with carte blanche to operate in Catalonia. Gouvion Saint Cyr piled victory on victory. In spite of the lack of artillery and munitions he succeeded in taking the stronghold of Roses on December 4, 1808, then Barcelona. Then he received orders he though could not be carried out, learned he would be replaced, and left his post prematurely. This new show of independence earned him arrests and a new quarantine. He was somewhat disgraced in the year 1809.

In 1811 Napoleon called him back into the state council and entrusted him with the command of the VI Corps of the great army. Gouvion Saint Cyr won battles; most notably he defeated Wittgenstein at Polotsk on August 18, 1812, and received a marshalþs baton with the title of count. Actually at the beginning of August Gouvion Saint Cyr received the order to march toward Polotsk with the remains of the VI Corps and by that support the II Corps commanded by Marshal Oudinot. General Marbot, a perspicacious and lucid witness,: Marshal Oudinot... would have received him with greater satisfaction if he had not feared to be controlled by a man he commanded. Really, Saint Cyr was one of the most capable soldiers in Europe!... He commanded one of the wings of the army on the Rhine when Oudinot was hardly a colonel or brigadier general.

The air was thick with resentment. On August 16, 1812, the Russians attacked and Gouvion Saint Cyr, as polished and icy as marble from Carrara, limited himself to watching Oudinet and calling him Milord the Marshal all day long. Oudinot was wounded in the shoulder; itþs hard to say who the army, or Gouvion Saint Cyr himself (more lightly wounded). General Berthezene discussed the event in his "Souvenirs militaires" (Paris, 1865). Actually Oudinot was able "to lay down with honor the burden with which he was saddled... The army too had to congratulate itself on this event. It went to show how great the distance is which separates a soldier from a captain."

On October 18, 1812, Gouvion fought Wittgenstein again in the Second Battle of Polotsk in spite of an extreme numerical inferiority. According to Gouvion Saint Cyr himself the effective was as follows: II Corps, 15000 to 16000 men; VI Corps, 2200 to 2500 men., a maximum of 18500 against Wittgensteinþs 50000.
In March of 1813 he returned to Paris, sick. Commanding an army corps he took part in the Battle of Dresden (26-27 August, 1813). Napoleon entrusted him with the defense of the city, but the shortage of munitions and food forced him to capitulate, November 11, 1813. He was a prisoner until June of 1814.

When he returned to France Louis XVIII was on the throne and named him a peer of France. On the return of Napoleon from Elba Gouvion, at Orleans, made his men don the white cockade.

He followed Louis XVIII to Gand and later was given many tasks by the minister of war, between 1815 and 1821; he was able to rally many of Napoleonþs officers to the monarchy. He had the important military law of March 10, 1818 reorganizing the army passed; he fixed the terms for conscription and promotion ( obtaining rank by seniority, no longer permitting nobles to enter the army as officers). But he had to face the hostility of the ultras, who retired him permanently in 1821. Louis XVIII had made him a marquis in 1816.
He wrote much about the military history of the campaigns of the revolution and the empire, published a journal of the operations in Catalonia (1808-1809) and memoirs on the campaigns of the armies of the Rhine and that of the Rhine and Moselle from 1792 to the Peace of Campo Formio. The four volumes of "Les Memoirs pour servir a
l'histoire militaire sous le Directoire, le Consulat et l'Empire" appeared shortly after his death in 1831.

His descendants:
The marshal had only one child by his wife and cousin Anne Gouvion (1775-1844) in their twenty years of marriage, Laurent Francois, who died in 1904 at the age of 89. He married a Montalivet and their eldest son, Laurent Camille, married into the Murat family (a collateral branch). Although the father of only a son, Gouvion Saint Cyr had many descendants, conspicuously brilliant and including many officers.