Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin, Baron de Marbot
Encyclopedia
Jean Baptiste Antoine Marcellin Marbot (August 18, 1782 – November 16, 1854), 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...

 soldier, son of General Jean Antoine Marbot
Jean Antoine Marbot
General Jean-Antoine Marbot was a French general and politician.Marbot was a member of the Garde du Corps but resigned upon the outbreak of the French Revolution. In 1791 he was elected a deputy to the Legislative Assembly. He took part in the French Revolutionary Wars in the Cerdagne against Spain...

 (1754–1800), who died in the defence of Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 under Masséna
André Masséna
André Masséna 1st Duc de Rivoli, 1st Prince d'Essling was a French military commander during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....

, was born at La Riviere (Correze).

He joined the republican army as a volunteer in 1799. At the time there was no officer school for cadets. He rose rapidly to commissioned rank, and was aide-de-camp to Marshal Augereau
Pierre François Charles Augereau, duc de Castiglione
Charles Pierre François Augereau, 1st Duc de Castiglione was a soldier and general and Marshal of France. After serving in the French Revolutionary Wars he earned rapid promotion while fighting against Spain and soon found himself a division commander under Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy...

, commanding the VII corps, in the war against Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 and Russia in 1806-7. After this he served with great distinction in the Peninsular War under Lannes
Jean Lannes
Jean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello, was a Marshal of France. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant"...

 and Masséna, and showed himself to be a dashing leader of light cavalry in the Russian War of 1812 and the German campaign of the following year. After a slow recovery from the wounds he had received at 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...

 and Hanau
Battle of Hanau
The Battle of Hanau was fought on between Karl Philipp von Wrede’s Austro-Bavarian corps and Napoleon's retreating French during the War of the Sixth Coalition....

, he was promoted general of brigade by Napoleon during the Hundred Days
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...

, and took part in, and was wounded at, the battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

.

He was exiled at the second restoration and only returned to France in 1819, after which, however, his intimacy with the duke of Orleans secured him important military positions. After the July revolution he was made maréchal-de-camp, and in this rank he was present at the siege of Antwerp in 1832. He was promoted lieutenant-general in 1836. From 1835 to 1840 he served in various Algerian expeditions, and in 1845 he was made a member of the Chamber of Peers. Three years later, at the fall of Louis Philippe
Louis-Philippe of France
Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...

, he retired into private life.

Marbot wrote two pamphlets, Remarques critiques sur l'ouvrage de M. Lieutenant-General Rogniat, intitulé Considérations sur l'art de la guerre (1820), and La Necessité d'augmenter les forces militaires de la France (1825).

Napoleon read the first pamphlet while in exile on St Helena. General Bertrand recorded in his diary on 14 March 1821:

"In the evening, the Emperor handed me Marbot's book, in which he had refuted the remarks of General Rogniat, and said: "That is the best book I have read for four years. It is the one that has given me the greatest amount of pleasure. Marbot had no access to my own refutation of Rogniat, but I would be glad to let him have it for a second edition. He has expressed some things better than I did, he was more familiar with them because, on the whole, he was more of a Corps commander than I. ... Throughout the book he never refers to 'the Emperor'. He wanted the King of France [Louis XVIII] to give him an appointment with the rank of colonel; that is quite obvious. He uses 'Emperor' once, so as not to look as though he were afraid to do so, or to appear cowardly, and another time he uses 'Napoleon'. He mentions Massena and Augereau frequently, and he has described the Battle of Essling better than I could have done it myself. I should have liked to show Marbot my appreciation by sending him a ring. If I ever return to active life, I will have him attached to me as an aide-de-camp. He's an educated man, who expresses himself simply, well, and correctly in writing."


This pamphlet earned Marbot the distinction of being remembered in Napoleon's will:

31. Item. To Colonel Marbot, one hundred thousand francs. I recommend him to continue to write in defense of the glory of the French armies, and to confound their calumniators and apostates.


His fame rests chiefly, if not indeed wholly, on the fascinating Memoirs of his Life and Campaigns which were published in Paris in 1891 (Eng. trans., 1902). To ordinary readers and to students of history alike these give a picture of the Napoleonic age of warfare which for vividness and romantic interest has never been surpassed.

His elder brother, Antoine Adolphe Marcelin Marbot, was also a military man of some note.

Trivia

As with a number of other historical figures, de Marbot figures prominently in the "Riverworld
Riverworld
Riverworld is a fictional planet and the setting for a series of science fiction books written by Philip José Farmer . Riverworld is an artificial environment where all humans are reconstructed. The books explore interactions of individuals from many different cultures and time periods...

" cycle of science-fiction novels by Philip Jose Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....

. De Marbot is first featured as the commander of Marines on Sam Clemens' riverboat, the "Not for Hire." After the destruction of that boat and the death of its captain, de Marbot joins the group led by famed English explorer Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...

 and accompanies him on the journey to the head of the River. Accompanied by his lover, the English author Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...

, de Marbot reaches the Tower at the head of the River, only to die in combat when androids based on characters from "Through the Looking-Glass" attack the guests during a Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

-themed party.

External links

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