Guillaume Emmanuel Guignard, vicomte de Saint-Priest (1776, Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 – 1814) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 émigré

Émigré

Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....

 general who fought in the Russian army during the French Revolutionary Wars

French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...

 and the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

.

He was the eldest son of prominent émigré

Émigré

Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....

 diplomat François-Emmanuel Guignard, comte de Saint-Priest

François-Emmanuel Guignard, comte de Saint-Priest

François-Emmanuel Guignard, comte de Saint-Priest , was a French politician and diplomat during the Ancien Régime and French Revolution.-Early career:...

 (1735–1821), one of King Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

's last ministers.

Guillaume Emmanuel became a major-general in the Russian army under Czar Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

, and fought against the forces of Napoleon

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon 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...

. Some weeks before the Battle of Leipzig

Battle of Leipzig

The Battle of Leipzig or Battle of the Nations, on 16–19 October 1813, was fought by the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden against the French army of Napoleon. Napoleon's army also contained Polish and Italian troops as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine...

, he and his cavalry finally defeated the troops of French brigade general François Basile Azemar in the Battle of Großdrebnitz. Saint-Priest was defeated and mortally wounded during the 1814 Allied invasion of France in the battle of Reims

Battle of Reims (1814)

The Battle of Reims was fought at Reims on 13 March 1814 between the French Empire and a Russian-Prussian force. The French, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, were victorious.- Background :...

 and died two weeks later at Laon

Laon

Laon is the capital city of the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.-History:The hilly district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance...

.

Honours and awards

• Order of St. Anna
  Order of St. Anna
  The Order of St. Anna ) is a Holstein and then Russian Imperial order of chivalry established by Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp on 14 February 1735, in honour of his wife Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great of Russia...
  
  , 1st class
• Order of St. Vladimir
  Order of St. Vladimir
  The Cross of Saint Vladimir was an Imperial Russian Order established in 1782 by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptizer of the Kievan Rus....
  
  , 2nd class
• Order of St. George
  Order of St. George
  The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George (also known as Order of St. George the Triumphant, Russian: Военный орден Св...
  
  , 2nd class
• Order of St. John of Jerusalem
• Pour le Mérite
  Pour le Mérite
  The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max , was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I....
  
   (Prussia)
• Gold Sword for Bravery
  Gold Sword for Bravery
  The Gold Sword for Bravery was a Russian Empire award for bravery. It was set up with two grades on 27 July 1720 by Peter the Great, reclassified as a public order in 1807 and abolished in 1917. From 1913 to 1917 it was renamed the St George Sword and considered as one of the grades of the Order...
  
  with diamonds