Henri-René Bernard de la Frégeolière
Henri-René Bernard de la Frégeolière (16 September 1759 – 25 January 1835) was a French military officer and Chouan leader.
Biography
Bernard de la Frégeolière was born in Montigné-lès-Rairies, the son of René-Jean Philippe de la Frégeolière and Michelle-Renée Queru de la Poussetière. He studied at the military school in La Flèche from 1770 onwards, before joining King Louis XVI's bodyguards in the company of Gramont in 1777.
During the Revolution, he emigrated in 1791[1] and joined the army of the princes in Koblenz, Germany in 1792. He then fought in the French campaign with the Prussians, taking part in the siege of Valenciennes, embarking at Antwerp in the Austrian Netherlands and then disembarking at Bergen op Zoom with his compatriots Sapinaud de Boishuguet, de la Noüe, Dumesnil Dupineau, Bucher de Chauvigné and de Sainte-Marie.
From 1793 to 1795, he took part in the campaign and retreat from Holland with Condé's army, first with the Rohan Hussars as a cadet gentleman, hussar, Aubépin company, then as a captain in Contades' cavalry regiment.
In 1795, he took part in the landing at Quiberon. After a spell in England and Guernsey, he joined Puisaye's army in France in 1796, then General de Scépeaux's army in Anjou. He took the pseudonym of Chouan leader "Monsieur Henri"[2] to avoid reprisals against his family. He was chief of staff in Gaullier's division. He refused to submit to the revolutionary government and there was a price on his head.[3]
In 1799, during the Third War in the Vendée (1799–1800), he was colonel of the 13th legion in the army of Maine under the Comte de Bourmont.[4] He first captured and occupied the town of Le Lude in the Sarthe, and fought a battle against a Republican half-brigade in the town of Foulletourte in January 1800. At the end of the hostilities, he refused to submit a second time. In 1813, he clandestinely organised two companies under Cottereau's command, known as the Nouveau-Nés (Newborns), which rallied the rebels and obstructed the collection of taxes.
In 1814, he joined King Louis XVIII's bodyguard with the rank of brigadier. In 1815, during the Hundred Days and the Little Chouannerie,[5] he was appointed head of the 2nd division of the royal army on the right bank of the Loire by General d'Andigné, who commanded all of Anjou between the Sarthe and the Loire. He formed the 3rd company of the Maine-et-Loire legion, which included the former Lowinski legion led by Viscount de Beaumont and that of Colonel de la Noüe. He again took the town of Le Lude.
Appointed maréchal-de-camp, he was retired under the Restoration. During the Royalist insurrection in western France and the Chouannerie of 1832, aged 71, he was imprisoned in La Flèche.[6] He died in 1835.
See also
Works
- Émigration et chouannerie: mémoires du général Bernard de La Frégeolière (1881; supplemented by his great-grandson, Reynold de Bernard de La Frégeolière)
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
- ↑ Triolaire, Cyril (2017). "Voyager en émigration. Les pérégrinations intéressées du baron de Gaujal entre Belgique, Hollande et Allemagne (1791-1795)," Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 390, pp. 73–98.
- ↑ Betrand, A. (1881). "Emigration et Chouannerie. Mémoires du général Bernard de la Frégeolière," Société historique et archéologique du Maine., Revue historique et archéologique du Maine, Vol. IX, p. 375.
- ↑ Polybiblion, Vol. XIII (juillet 1881), pp. 525–26.
- ↑ Triger, Robert (1899). La prise du Mans par les chouans le 15 octobre 1799. Mamers: G. Fleury & A. Dangin/Le Mans: A. de Saint-Denis, p. 15.
- ↑ Souvenirs d'un officier royaliste, contenant son entrée au service, ses voyages en Corse et en Italie, son émigration, ses campagnes à l'armée de Condé, et celle de 1815, dans la Vendée. Annexe / par M. de R..., ancien colonel d'artillerie, 1824-1829. Paris: A. Pihan Delaforest, pp. 96, 99.
- ↑ Biré, Edmond (1901). Mémoires du général d'Andigné, Vol. 2. Paris: Plon-Nourrit et Cie, pp. 230, 231, 232.
External links
- Pages with broken file links
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- Articles containing French-language text
- 1759 births
- 1835 deaths
- Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
- Chouans
- French emigrants during the French Revolution
- French generals
- French memoirists
- Knights of the Order of Saint Louis
- People from Montigné-lès-Rairies
- Royalist military leaders of the War in the Vendée
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