Karl Benz
247
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[Vendée War] Chevalier d'Andigné, Chouan general during the …
See original version (French)
247
-
[Vendée War] Chevalier d'Andigné, Chouan general during the …
See original version (French)
Estimate €150 - €300
Voluntary lot
Description
[Vendée War]
Chevalier d'Andigné, Chouan general during the French Revolution
L.A.S., Paris, 4 November 1814, Louis-Marie-Antoine-Auguste-Fortuné d'Andigné de La Blanchaye (1765-1857), better known under his Ancien Régime title of Chevalier d'Andigné (or de Sainte-Gemmes), then under that of Général d'Andigné, Chouan leader during the French Revolution, 1 page in-4 (framed)
Certificate of good services rendered within the Royal Catholic Army of Maine, Anjou and Upper Brittany, during the First Chouannerie (1795-1796), issued to François-Constant-Amant Barrion, originally from Bressuire. This document was written during the First Restoration (1814), when Louis XVIII set up commissions to award pensions to old soldiers; the chiefs of the royal army were then besieged with requests and drew up hundreds of certificates.
"I, the undersigned, certify that Mr Barrion (François Amant Constant), a royal notary in Bressuire in the Deux-Sèvres department, served in the royal army on the right bank of the Loire, that in 1795 he was appointed head of the Craon legion, which gave him the rank of colonel, and that he remained there until the pacification of 1796. I further certify that he served there with honour and distinction, that he received several wounds, and that if I did not include him in the general work, it is because I did not know his real name, that of Amant, being the only one under which he was included among us.
Rare document written and signed by the Comte d'Andigné
Born into an ancient noble family of Haut-Anjou (originally from the area around Lion-d'Angers), Louis d'Andigné began his career as an officer in the Royal Navy and as such took part in the American War of Independence. Opposed to the Revolution, he emigrated in the early 1790s and fought in the Princes' army and then in Condé's army against the Republican forces.
In 1795, he landed clandestinely in Brittany to join the Royalist insurrection. He first served as adjutant-general in the Catholic and Royal Army of Maine, Anjou and Upper Brittany, commanded by Marie Paul de Scépeaux de Bois-Guignot. He distinguished himself in the Segré region, particularly during the battle of Andigné (March 1796).
When the Catholic army reorganised in 1799 (the second Chouannerie), it split. The Comte de Bourmont took command of the troops in Maine, while the Comte de Châtillon (Pierre Louis Godet de Châtillon) led the Catholic and Royal Army of Bas-Anjou and Upper Brittany. The Chevalier d'Andigné became second in command, often the real tactical coordinator in the field. It was under his leadership and that of Châtillon that the army's most daring operation was carried out: the short-lived but spectacular attack and capture of the city of Nantes, which stunned the Republican authorities in October 1799.
After the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte sought to pacify the West through negotiation. Appreciated for his shrewdness, the Chevalier d'Andigné was sent to Paris as plenipotentiary for the royalists in the West. In December 1799, he met Bonaparte personally at the Luxembourg Palace (in the company of Hyde de Neuville) to discuss the terms of peace and to sound out the First Consul on the possible restoration of the Bourbons (which Napoleon categorically refused). Although he had not been involved in the rue Saint-Nicaise attack (the infernal machine designed to kill Bonaparte in December 1800), d'Andigné was arrested in 1801 because of his influence and his refusal to pledge allegiance. There followed a series of imprisonments and spectacular escapes that forged his reputation: locked up in the Tour du Temple in Paris, he escaped with the Vendéen general Suzannet; recaptured, he was transferred to the dreaded Fort de Joux (in the Jura), from where he made another heroic escape on 16 August 1802; arrested again in 1804, he spent several years in various state prisons before escaping from the château on the Ile de Ré in 1809. He then went into exile in Germany (Frankfurt) until the end of the Empire.
When Louis XVIII returned in 1814, he was welcomed back as a hero. During the Hundred Days (1815), during the "Petite Chouannerie", he took up arms again and commanded the Mayenne Chouans (he fought in particular at the Battle of Cossé).
Under the Restoration, he accumulated honours: he was promoted to lieutenant-general of the King's armies; created a baron, then named hereditary Peer of France; made a Commander of the Order of Saint-Louis and an Officer of the Legion of Honour.
Loyal to the eldest branch of the Bourbons, he refused to swear an oath to Louis-Philippe after the revolution of 1830. He discreetly supported the attempted uprising of the Duchess of Berry in 1832, which earned him two months' imprisonment in the Château d'Angers. Stripped of his peerage at the end of his
See original version (French)
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