René-Nicolas Dufriche Desgenettes
Encyclopedia
René-Nicolas Dufriche, baron Desgenettes (23 May 1762, Alençon
– 3 February 1837, Paris) was a French military doctor. He was chief doctor to the French army in Egypt and at Waterloo
.
and the collège du Plessis in Paris
, but left off these studies to follow the course taught at the collège de France
, from then on studying medicine with devotion. Trained in the hospital services of Pelletan and Vicq d’Azyr, he also studied under John Hunter
and Moore
in London and Desbois de Rochefort and Boyer
in France
. In trying to perfect his skills he made several journeys to England and Italy (spending 4 years at Florence
and Siena
then Rome
and Naples
), where his good manners brought him the acquaintance of many of the most distinguished scholars of the day.
Returning to France in the course of 1789, he was made a doctor at Montpellier
, in the wake of his remarkable thesis entitled : Essai physiologique sur les vaisseaux lymphatiques (Physiological essay on the lymphatic vessels)
and then, on their elimination by the Montagnards
during the Reign of Terror
, he took refuge in Rouen
. The events of 1792 and early 1793 had caused the whole of Europe to take up arms against France and so, on the advice of his former teacher Vicq-d’Azyr and driven by a desire to serve the Republican fatherland, he got himself sent as a surgeon to the army gathering on the borders of Italy in February 1793. He soon became one of the top army surgeons through his energy and courage, and in March 1793 was attached to the field hospital of the armée de la Méditerranée due to his knowing Italian
.
In effect, during this first campaign, always at the advanced outposts, he was involved in the reorganisation of French military hospitals. In the Armée d'Italie from 1793 to 1795, he got to know Napoleon Bonaparte and dazzled him with his intelligence and his range of cultural awareness. A few years later, Bonaparte remembered him and made him chief doctor to the Egyptian expedition. Attached to the division commanded by general Masséna
, he successfully faced a typhus
epidemic.
, all of whose patients were cured, and returned to the army on 30 fructidor to be head of the hospital service of the right division, then moved to Loano
and the representatives there, on 2 nivôse year III, to organise the medical service for the maritime expedition assigned to reconquer Corsica (taken by the English). After this expedition, he rejoined the active army at Albenga
, where he learned that on Barras's request and Bonaparte's recommendation he had on 7 brumaire year IV been made "médecin ordinaire" of the hospital of Val-de-Grâce
and of the 17e division militaire (Paris). A year later he became professor of physiology and medical physics.
The following year Bonaparte, who had appreciated Desgenettes' merit, reiterated it to the Directory
and tried to get them to get him attached to his army. However, in a fit of jealousy, the directeurs kept Desgenettes in Paris, under the pretext that he could be more use to the Republic in a medical school rather than serving with the field hospitals. It was thus during this period of rest that Desgenettes edited his mémoire
on the usefulness of artificial anatomical models. In this, after tracing their history and giving details of the magnificent collection of them at Florence
, he called on the French government to found a similar institution in Paris. Shortly after the Revolution, he frequented the salon
of Anne-Catherine Helvétius. Nevertheless, for Charles Mullié, it was painful to say that, in his roles as professor, Desgenettes the scholar's only reward for his sacrificing his fortune and his own health by indifference and ingratitude - four times in floréal year V he rendered his resignation, and four times the ministry refused to accept it.
On returning to Paris after the Treaty of Campo Formio
, Bonaparte obtained his protégé Desgenettes an attachment to the armée d'Angleterre on 23 nivôse year VI ; it is now known that the organisation of this army on the Channel coast was only a cover for preparations for the French invasion of Egypt. Also, on 1 pluviôse, Desgenettes received the order to report to Toulon
, to be attached to general Bonaparte's army as doctor in chief. In 1798, he was made chief physician of the Armée d'Orient as well as part of the natural history and physics section of the Institut d'Égypte
, and Bonaparte invited him on board the admiral's flagship Orient
.
Desgenettes had hardly arrived in Egypt when he was assailed by the several diseases brought on the army by the burning heat, continual bivouacing and lack of drinkable water. He installed hygiene measures and rigorous preventative measures - washing (both bodies and clothes), disinfection of areas, supervision of nutrition. The many cases of smallpox
, scurvy
, "fièvre de Damiette", severe and contagious conjunctivitis
and dysentery
observed by him here gave him further experience of military medicine. During the expedition into Syria
, as head doctor of the armée d’Orient, Desgenettes had to face a bubonic plague
epidemic in the course of the army's march across Syria's desert. To sustain the troops' morale, he denied the disease's existence and forbade any mention of its name.
When Bonaparte found himself forced to raise the siege of the fortress at Saint-Jean-d'Acre
on 21 May 1799, he demanded that the medical staff evacuate the wounded and ill and kill the plague cases with fatally-strong doses of opium, but Desgenettes determinedly refused to do so, forcing Bonaparte to instead transport them as far as Jaffa
. The two men's friendship then cooled again over the question of evacuating the plague cases from Jaffa.
. However, due to his new role as professor adjoined to the École de Médecine de Paris and his need for stability after a punishing campaign, he begged the favour of instead continuing as doctor to the hospital at Val-de-Grâce. Napoleon approved this request, on 8 Nivôse year X. Made a member of the Institut
and an associate member of the Sociétés de médecine of Marseille
and of Montpellier
that same year, around the start of year XI he published his Histoire médicale de l’armée d’Orient, creating a great sensation in the scholarly world.
Made a member of the Légion d’honneur on 25 prairial year XII, on the day after the proclamation of the First French Empire
he was made inspector-general of the Army Health Service (Service de Santé des Armées). In year XIII, he then became a member of the commission sent to Tuscany by Napoleon to study the character of the epidemic raging there, and in year XIV he then went to Spain with other French doctors to carry out research on yellow fever
. He re-assumed his duties at Val-de-Grâce in January 1806.
, Friedland
and Wagram
. After the peace of Tilsitt, he asked to return to private life and devote himself wholly to his family, but Napoleon refused. He was allowed a vacation, leaving Berlin for Paris in May 1808, and returning to Napoleon in October, by which time he was in Spain, where he judged Desgenettes' presence to be necessary.
Loaded with favours from Napoleon but despairing at the curbs set by his army work on his liberty and independence, he was made a knight of the empire in 1809, then a baron in 1810. Taking part in the Russian campaign, he organised the care of the officers. Taken prisoner at Vilnius
on 10 December 1812 during the retreat from Russia, he was the only one captured that day mentioned by name as worth being freed. Tsar Alexander III of Russia
freed him when he heard of the care he had taken of Russian soldiers and had him escorted by his Cossack
guard to the French forward-lines at Magdeburg
on 20 March 1813. Desgenettes set out from there for Paris, charged with a secret mission from the viceroy to Napoleon, which he acquitted. In the course of April he then left Paris again to reassume his duties as head-doctor of the Grande Armée.
He was trapped in the citadel of Torgau
after the defeat at Leipzig
during the campaign in Germany. A typhus epidemic was raging in the citadel at the time, and he was still holed up there when an imperial decree of 5 October 1813 made him chief-doctor of the Imperial Guard, which circumstances thus preventing him from taking up immediately. On the site's capitulation on 2 January 1814, he wished to return to France but was instead, in disregard for the treaties, held back in Dresden
as a prisoner. It was only at the end of May that he could return to Paris, where he found that minister Dupont de l’Étang
had withdrawn his title as chief-doctor to the Guard. Alongside these persecutions on the part of the military administration, he was also ejected from his chair of hygiene at the Faculté de médecine de Paris, given him by the Consulate in reward for his services at Saint-Jean-d'Acre. To make up for these injustices, he was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur
. On acceding to the ministry, Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult returned to Desgenettes his roles as chief-doctor and professor at the hospital of Val-de-Grâce and Napoléon, on his return, reinstated him as chief inspector of the health service and as chief doctor of the Guard, adding on 20 May an appointment as chief doctor of the armée du Nord.
, Desgenettes re-assumed his role as chief-doctor of the Imperial Guard and assisted at the Battle of Waterloo
.
He came back to Paris with the army, and Louis XVIII confirmed him in his role at Val-de-Grâce
on 1 July and at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris, where he was charged with teaching hygiene and readmitted into the Conseil général de Santé des armées in 1819 (formerly the Inspection générale). He only gave up his roles as inspector-general in January 1816, when the title was suppressed.
In 1820, he was received as a member of the Académie Royale de Médecine, though he was expelled in 1822 following student demonstrations, only to be re-admitted in 1830 and elected a member of the Académie des sciences under the July Monarchy
.
After the July Revolution
, on 14 November, Baron Desgenettes was made mayor of the 10th arrondissement of Paris, a role he filled until the municipal elections of 1834.
On 2 March 1832, he was made chief doctor of Les Invalides
. His name features on the Arc de Triomphe
. He was also a member of the Académie de Caen.
Alexandre Dumas described Desgenettes as "old, bawdy, very witty and very cynical".
Alençon
Alençon is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon .-History:...
– 3 February 1837, Paris) was a French military doctor. He was chief doctor to the French army in Egypt and at 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...
.
Early life
Son of a lawyer at the Parliament of Rouen, he first studied at the Jesuit college at Alençon. He studied classics at Sainte-BarbeSainte-Barbe
-In France:* Sainte-Barbe, Moselle, in the Moselle département* Sainte-Barbe, Vosges, in the Vosges département* Sainte-Barbe-sur-Gaillon, in the Eure département...
and the collège du Plessis in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, but left off these studies to follow the course taught at the collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, from then on studying medicine with devotion. Trained in the hospital services of Pelletan and Vicq d’Azyr, he also studied under John Hunter
John Hunter (surgeon)
John Hunter FRS was a Scottish surgeon regarded as one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. The Hunterian Society of London was named in his honour...
and Moore
Moore
Moore may refer to:* Moore , a crater on Venus* Moore , lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon* Moore , a common English-language surname* People with surname Moore...
in London and Desbois de Rochefort and Boyer
Alexis Boyer
Alexis Boyer was a French surgeon, born in Corrèze.He was the son of a tailor, and he obtained his first medical knowledge in the shop of a barber surgeon. When he moved to Paris, he had the good fortune to attract the attention of renowned surgeons Antoine Louis and Pierre-Joseph Desault...
in France
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...
. In trying to perfect his skills he made several journeys to England and Italy (spending 4 years at Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
then Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
), where his good manners brought him the acquaintance of many of the most distinguished scholars of the day.
Returning to France in the course of 1789, he was made a doctor at Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
, in the wake of his remarkable thesis entitled : Essai physiologique sur les vaisseaux lymphatiques (Physiological essay on the lymphatic vessels)
Revolution and Italy
In 1791, he went to Paris, where political unrest was at its height. He joined the GirondinsGirondist
The Girondists were a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution...
and then, on their elimination by the Montagnards
The Mountain
The Mountain refers in the context of the history of the French Revolution to a political group, whose members, called Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the Assembly...
during the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
, he took refuge in Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
. The events of 1792 and early 1793 had caused the whole of Europe to take up arms against France and so, on the advice of his former teacher Vicq-d’Azyr and driven by a desire to serve the Republican fatherland, he got himself sent as a surgeon to the army gathering on the borders of Italy in February 1793. He soon became one of the top army surgeons through his energy and courage, and in March 1793 was attached to the field hospital of the armée de la Méditerranée due to his knowing Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
In effect, during this first campaign, always at the advanced outposts, he was involved in the reorganisation of French military hospitals. In the Armée d'Italie from 1793 to 1795, he got to know Napoleon Bonaparte and dazzled him with his intelligence and his range of cultural awareness. A few years later, Bonaparte remembered him and made him chief doctor to the Egyptian expedition. Attached to the division commanded by general Masséna
André Masséna
André Masséna 1st Duc de Rivoli, 1st Prince d'Essling was a French military commander during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....
, he successfully faced a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic.
After Italy
On 24 nivôse year II, he took up leadership of the hospital at AntibesAntibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
, all of whose patients were cured, and returned to the army on 30 fructidor to be head of the hospital service of the right division, then moved to Loano
Loano
Loano is a comune in the Province of Savona in the Italian region Liguria, located about 60 km southwest of Genoa and about 30 km southwest of Savona...
and the representatives there, on 2 nivôse year III, to organise the medical service for the maritime expedition assigned to reconquer Corsica (taken by the English). After this expedition, he rejoined the active army at Albenga
Albenga
Albenga is a city and comune situated on the Gulf of Genoa on the Italian Riviera in the Province of Savona in Liguria, northern Italy.left|thumb|220px|Towers of Albenga.The economy is mostly based on tourism, local commerce and agriculture-History:...
, where he learned that on Barras's request and Bonaparte's recommendation he had on 7 brumaire year IV been made "médecin ordinaire" of the hospital of Val-de-Grâce
Val-de-Grâce
This article describes the hospital and former abbey. For the main article on Mansart and Lemercier's central church, see Church of the Val-de-Grâce....
and of the 17e division militaire (Paris). A year later he became professor of physiology and medical physics.
The following year Bonaparte, who had appreciated Desgenettes' merit, reiterated it to the Directory
French Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
and tried to get them to get him attached to his army. However, in a fit of jealousy, the directeurs kept Desgenettes in Paris, under the pretext that he could be more use to the Republic in a medical school rather than serving with the field hospitals. It was thus during this period of rest that Desgenettes edited his mémoire
Mémoire
In French culture, the word mémoire, as in un mémoire is used for a piece of writing allowing the author to show his or her opinion on a given subject, logically approaching a series of facts in order to arrive at a recommendation or conclusion...
on the usefulness of artificial anatomical models. In this, after tracing their history and giving details of the magnificent collection of them at Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, he called on the French government to found a similar institution in Paris. Shortly after the Revolution, he frequented the salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
of Anne-Catherine Helvétius. Nevertheless, for Charles Mullié, it was painful to say that, in his roles as professor, Desgenettes the scholar's only reward for his sacrificing his fortune and his own health by indifference and ingratitude - four times in floréal year V he rendered his resignation, and four times the ministry refused to accept it.
Egypt
Treaty of Campo Formio
The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed on 18 October 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of revolutionary France and the Austrian monarchy...
, Bonaparte obtained his protégé Desgenettes an attachment to the armée d'Angleterre on 23 nivôse year VI ; it is now known that the organisation of this army on the Channel coast was only a cover for preparations for the French invasion of Egypt. Also, on 1 pluviôse, Desgenettes received the order to report to Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
, to be attached to general Bonaparte's army as doctor in chief. In 1798, he was made chief physician of the Armée d'Orient as well as part of the natural history and physics section of the Institut d'Égypte
Institut d'Égypte
The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy formed by Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out research during his Egyptian campaign.-Early work:It first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries...
, and Bonaparte invited him on board the admiral's flagship Orient
French ship Orient
A number of ships of the French Navy have borne the name Orient. Among them :* The 80-gun ship of the line Orient * The 118-gun ship of the line Orient originally named Dauphin Royal, renamed Sans Culotte in September 1792 and then Orient in May 1795 - flagship of the French fleet at the Battle...
.
Desgenettes had hardly arrived in Egypt when he was assailed by the several diseases brought on the army by the burning heat, continual bivouacing and lack of drinkable water. He installed hygiene measures and rigorous preventative measures - washing (both bodies and clothes), disinfection of areas, supervision of nutrition. The many cases of smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
, "fièvre de Damiette", severe and contagious conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis refers to inflammation of the conjunctiva...
and dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
observed by him here gave him further experience of military medicine. During the expedition into Syria
History of Syria
The history of Syria:*Prehistory and Ancient Near East: see Pre-history of the Southern Levant, Fertile Crescent, Ebla, Mitanni*Antiquity: see Syro-Hittite states, Greater Syria, Roman Syria...
, as head doctor of the armée d’Orient, Desgenettes had to face a bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
epidemic in the course of the army's march across Syria's desert. To sustain the troops' morale, he denied the disease's existence and forbade any mention of its name.
When Bonaparte found himself forced to raise the siege of the fortress at Saint-Jean-d'Acre
Siege of Acre (1799)
The Siege of Acre of 1799 was an unsuccessful French siege of the Ottoman-defended, walled city of Acre and was the turning point of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria.-Background:...
on 21 May 1799, he demanded that the medical staff evacuate the wounded and ill and kill the plague cases with fatally-strong doses of opium, but Desgenettes determinedly refused to do so, forcing Bonaparte to instead transport them as far as Jaffa
Siege of Jaffa
The Siege of Jaffa was fought from 3 to 7 March 1799 between France and the Ottoman Empire. The French were led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and they captured the city.-Course:...
. The two men's friendship then cooled again over the question of evacuating the plague cases from Jaffa.
Return to France
On returning to France, around the end of Fructidor year IX, Desgenettes was designated as head doctor of the military training-hospital of StrasbourgStrasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
. However, due to his new role as professor adjoined to the École de Médecine de Paris and his need for stability after a punishing campaign, he begged the favour of instead continuing as doctor to the hospital at Val-de-Grâce. Napoleon approved this request, on 8 Nivôse year X. Made a member of the Institut
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
and an associate member of the Sociétés de médecine of Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
and of Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
that same year, around the start of year XI he published his Histoire médicale de l’armée d’Orient, creating a great sensation in the scholarly world.
Made a member of the Légion d’honneur on 25 prairial year XII, on the day after the proclamation of the First French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
he was made inspector-general of the Army Health Service (Service de Santé des Armées). In year XIII, he then became a member of the commission sent to Tuscany by Napoleon to study the character of the epidemic raging there, and in year XIV he then went to Spain with other French doctors to carry out research on yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
. He re-assumed his duties at Val-de-Grâce in January 1806.
War
Since hostilities had recommenced, the exertions of three consecutive campaigns had introduced several diseases into the French army. On 6 April 1807, Desgenettes received the emperor's order to rejoin the grand quartier général ; his only son was dying, but he stopped caring for him and left with 24 hours. In 1807, he was made chief doctor of the Grande Armée and in this role assisted at the battles of EylauBattle of Eylau
The Battle of Eylau or Battle of Preussisch-Eylau, 7 and 8 February 1807, was a bloody and inconclusive battle between Napoléon's Grande Armée and a Russian Empire army under Levin August, Count von Bennigsen near the town of Preußisch Eylau in East Prussia. Late in the battle, the Russians...
, Friedland
Battle of Friedland
The Battle of Friedland saw Napoleon I's French army decisively defeat Count von Bennigsen's Russian army about twenty-seven miles southeast of Königsberg...
and Wagram
Battle of Wagram
The Battle of Wagram was the decisive military engagement of the War of the Fifth Coalition. It took place on the Marchfeld plain, on the north bank of the Danube. An important site of the battle was the village of Deutsch-Wagram, 10 kilometres northeast of Vienna, which would give its name to the...
. After the peace of Tilsitt, he asked to return to private life and devote himself wholly to his family, but Napoleon refused. He was allowed a vacation, leaving Berlin for Paris in May 1808, and returning to Napoleon in October, by which time he was in Spain, where he judged Desgenettes' presence to be necessary.
Loaded with favours from Napoleon but despairing at the curbs set by his army work on his liberty and independence, he was made a knight of the empire in 1809, then a baron in 1810. Taking part in the Russian campaign, he organised the care of the officers. Taken prisoner at Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
on 10 December 1812 during the retreat from Russia, he was the only one captured that day mentioned by name as worth being freed. Tsar Alexander III of Russia
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
freed him when he heard of the care he had taken of Russian soldiers and had him escorted by his Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
guard to the French forward-lines at Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
on 20 March 1813. Desgenettes set out from there for Paris, charged with a secret mission from the viceroy to Napoleon, which he acquitted. In the course of April he then left Paris again to reassume his duties as head-doctor of the Grande Armée.
He was trapped in the citadel of Torgau
Torgau
Torgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...
after the defeat at Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
during the campaign in Germany. A typhus epidemic was raging in the citadel at the time, and he was still holed up there when an imperial decree of 5 October 1813 made him chief-doctor of the Imperial Guard, which circumstances thus preventing him from taking up immediately. On the site's capitulation on 2 January 1814, he wished to return to France but was instead, in disregard for the treaties, held back in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
as a prisoner. It was only at the end of May that he could return to Paris, where he found that minister Dupont de l’Étang
Pierre Dupont de l'Étang
Pierre-Antoine, comte Dupont de l'Étang was a French general of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as a political figure of the Bourbon Restoration.-Revolutionary Wars:...
had withdrawn his title as chief-doctor to the Guard. Alongside these persecutions on the part of the military administration, he was also ejected from his chair of hygiene at the Faculté de médecine de Paris, given him by the Consulate in reward for his services at Saint-Jean-d'Acre. To make up for these injustices, he was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. On acceding to the ministry, Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult returned to Desgenettes his roles as chief-doctor and professor at the hospital of Val-de-Grâce and Napoléon, on his return, reinstated him as chief inspector of the health service and as chief doctor of the Guard, adding on 20 May an appointment as chief doctor of the armée du Nord.
Hundred Days and after
During the Hundred DaysHundred 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...
, Desgenettes re-assumed his role as chief-doctor of the Imperial Guard and assisted 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 came back to Paris with the army, and Louis XVIII confirmed him in his role at Val-de-Grâce
Val-de-Grâce
This article describes the hospital and former abbey. For the main article on Mansart and Lemercier's central church, see Church of the Val-de-Grâce....
on 1 July and at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris, where he was charged with teaching hygiene and readmitted into the Conseil général de Santé des armées in 1819 (formerly the Inspection générale). He only gave up his roles as inspector-general in January 1816, when the title was suppressed.
In 1820, he was received as a member of the Académie Royale de Médecine, though he was expelled in 1822 following student demonstrations, only to be re-admitted in 1830 and elected a member of the Académie des sciences under the July Monarchy
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy , officially the Kingdom of France , was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848...
.
After the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
, on 14 November, Baron Desgenettes was made mayor of the 10th arrondissement of Paris, a role he filled until the municipal elections of 1834.
On 2 March 1832, he was made chief doctor of Les Invalides
Les Invalides
Les Invalides , officially known as L'Hôtel national des Invalides , is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's...
. His name features on the Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe
-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
. He was also a member of the Académie de Caen.
Alexandre Dumas described Desgenettes as "old, bawdy, very witty and very cynical".
Selected works
- (1802), Histoire médicale de l’armée d’Orient,
- (1835), 3rd ed.: Histoire médicale de l’armée d’Orient,
- Essais de Biographie médicale, 1835.