Frian, Louis

Not wanting to continue the work of his father, Louis Friant decided to choose a military path. On February 9, 1781, he entered the service of the Royal Guard (Eng.) , Where he manages to prove himself from the best side. The courage and discipline of the young guards did not go unnoticed, and already on July 1, 1782, Friant received the rank of Corporal Grenadier . However, this was the first and last promotion for him in the royal army. Slow career growth did not suit an ambitious Freean and, desperate to become a sergeant , he, in 1787, retired.

After the start of the Great French Revolution, Friant, without hesitation, enlisted as a volunteer in the National Guard of Paris , in whose ranks for three years (from 1789 to 1792 ) he managed to gain credibility among his colleagues on the 9th Paris Battalion , who chose him as their lieutenant colonel on September 23, 1792. It was in this unit, seconded to the Moselle army, that he went to defend the young French Republic from external enemies. December 16, 1793 in the battle of Kaiserslautern, Freean was shot in the leg and was sent to the rear. He did not recover for long, as early as March 1794 he was appointed to the post of commander of the 181st half-brigade, which was part of the Sambro-Maaska army of General Jourdan . Friant and his soldiers distinguished themselves in the battles of Arlon , Charleroi, and Fleurus . At the beginning of July 1794, Frian served as chief of staff under General Scherer , and exactly one month later ( August 3 ) he was appointed temporary commander of an infantry brigade. On August 13, he was briefly trusted by General Müller’s division. In the same year, he participated in the siege of Maastricht as part of the troops of General Kleber . June 8, 1795 Friant is appointed by the governor taken after the siege of Luxembourg . After five days, the Public Rescue Committee approves him as a brigadier general. In March 1796, Friant was transferred first to the Rhine-Moselle, and then again to the Sambro-Maas army. In January 1797 he was sent to Italy , to the division of General Bernadotte , under whose command he participated in the battles of Tagliamento and Laibach . From January 12, 1798, Friant was in the Army of England , from March 5, 1798 - in the Eastern Army.

April 14, 1798 Friant transferred to the division of General Deze . Together with her, on May 19 he sailed from Toulon to the shores of North Africa. On June 23, he received the 2nd brigade, which included the 61st and 88th regiments. A talented General Freean led the troops entrusted to him from victory to victory. So it was in the famous Battle of the Pyramids ( July 21, 1798), as a result of which the French troops opened the way to Cairo . In the glorious battle of Sediman ( October 8, 1798), Freean, having built his soldiers in the square, dispersed and destroyed the tenor of the Mamluk Mamluk cavalry with volley fire from ten steps. Fully demoralized by the constant defeats, the Mamluks retreated to Syria , and Freean was given a new task: to suppress the fellach uprising that broke out on October 21 in Cairo, dissatisfied with the taxation set by the French. In two days, the infantry of Friant fulfilled the mission entrusted to them with honor. However, there was no time to rest on the laurels, because Turkey , which declared war on France exactly one month after the defeat of the French squadron at Cape Aboukir (August 1-2, 1798), was not going to give up its Egyptian possessions so easily. Ahead were new battles (under Samanha, Abomach, Heliopolis, and Belbeis), in which Freean covered himself and his regiments with unfading glory. On September 4, 1799 he was promoted to divisional generals, although he was officially approved in this rank only on August 6, 1800 . From September 6, 1800, he served as governor of Alexandria . While at this post, he distinguished himself in the land battle at Aboukir on March 8, 1801 , during which the Anglo-Turkish landing force landed in the Nile Delta was dropped into the sea. On April 14 of the same year, the commander of the French troops, General Menoux, made him his assistant. Freean participated in the defense of Alexandria until August 31, 1801 and at the same time proved himself not only as a brave warrior, but also as a capable administrator. The Egyptian campaign became an important milestone in the life of Louis Friant. Later, in memory of his participation in it, on his earl of arms, an image of a golden pyramid appeared on a blood-red background. It was during the Egyptian expedition that he was honored with the honorary name " Sultan of Fire ."

At the end of 1801, Freean returns to his homeland. Up to 1803, he served as an infantry inspector general. Diligent service to the fatherland does not prevent the general from arranging his personal life. After long courtship, he marries Marshal Davout ’s wife’s sister and thus enters the circle of the closest associates of the future emperor. On August 30, 1805, a new relative identifies Friant as commander of the 2nd Division into his 3rd Corps of the Great Army . With this division he had to march half of Europe. However, the brave general then did not even think about it. On December 2, 1805, the battle of Austerlitz , grandiose in scale, took place, turning into a swan song for the 3rd anti-French coalition. In this battle, the division of Freeman was entrusted with the implementation of a rather complex distracting maneuver - a slow retreat and then a swift counter-offensive. As always, Frian brilliantly coped with his task. At the appointed time, his regiments rushed at the enemy, three horses were killed under the general, but he himself was not injured, and once again changing his horse, he led a bayonet attack on Sokolnits, thereby crushing the left flank of the Russian-Austrian army. After this battle, Freean is awarded the sign of the Big Eagle of the Order of the Legion of Honor .

During the Prussia 1806 campaign, the 3rd Corps of Davout showed miracles of courage. October 14th day immortalized the names of not only the "iron" marshal, but also his brave divisional generals: Moran , Freean and Gudin . While the troops of the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte smashed the Prussian army of Prince Hohenlohe near Jena , Davout’s corps alone dealt with the 60,000th army of the Duke of Brunswick . Thanks to these two battles that occurred on the same day, Prussia was defeated and left the war, and Davou received the title of Duke of Auerstedt and the laurels of the best marshal-tactic of the Great Army. In the meantime, the theater of war shifted to East Prussia, where Freean's division went along with the 3rd Corps. The battles were fought one after the other: Naselsk ( December 24, 1806), Golymin ( December 26 ), and finally, the bloody battle of Preussisch-Eylau ( February 8, 1807 ), during which Friant was wounded. The next appearance on the battlefield Davouw's brother-in-law took place on April 19, 1809 , when, together with the division of General Louis St. Iler at Tengen, he defeated the western Austrian corps. With Eckmühle with 8 thousand soldiers, Friant fights with 30 thousand Austrians, then participates in the siege of Regensburg . In the battle of Wagram, his division captures the Neusiedl Tower - the key of the Austrian position. Freean himself, during an attack, is wounded in the shoulder by a fragment of an artillery shell.

On April 1, 1812 , Davout's corps changed its number from the 3rd to the 1st, and as before, in the best corps of the Great Army, General Frian, who recovered from his wounds, along with his 2nd division, goes to military exploits in Russia . Already in the midst of the Russian campaign, on August 17, 1812, he was wounded during the assault of Smolensk , which does not prevent him from taking part in one of the most famous battles of the Napoleonic era that took place near the village of Borodino . Until the noon of September 7, Friant's division remained in reserve. Then the general receives an order from the emperor to take the village of Semenovskoye. In the bayonet battle, the 15th light regiment, regardless of losses, takes the village, but not for long. The Russians, gathering their strength, put on a counterattack and beat the French out of Semenovsky. In response, stubborn Freean, not wanting to put up with failure, again leads his regiments to the attack, and ... gets wounded in the chest. His fearless infantrymen continue to assault enemy positions and, after crushing the defenses of the Russian troops, regain the village. Joachim Murat, who was in the square of the 33rd Linear Regiment, was struck by the courage of these heroes. One of the officers said to the king: “Sire, these are General Friant’s soldiers!”, Implying that otherwise they cannot behave. In the course of the battle, receiving another wound - in the leg - Freean surrendered command of the division. The wounded general returned to Paris on January 11, 1813 .

Returning to France, Friant received the title of chamberlain of the court. However, the general fails to taste all the delights of peaceful life, and in June 1813 he returned to the army in which he was to lead the 4th Division of the Young Guard in Saxony . July 29, 1813 Freean replaced General Horn as commander of the division of the Old Guard , with whom he fought at Dresden and Hanau . From November 16, Freean has commanded the 2nd Infantry Division of the Old Guard. January 24, 1814 the general defeats the enemy at Rovre. In February, the emperor handed over the 1st Division of the Old Guard to Friant and at the head of it he fights at Shampober , Montmiraille , Vauches , Craone , Laone , Reims , Arcy-sur-Aubé . At the 1st Restoration, July 18, 1814 , the general receives the honorary position of 1st Colonel of the French Grenadiers on foot.

Napoleon retained his post for Friant and, on top of that, granted the general the title of Peer of France. Louis Frian, loyal to the soldiers' duty, bravely fights at Linyi , and at Waterloo . In the last battle of the Empire, he personally leads the Guard in the last attack on the British position and is wounded in the arm. After the second abdication of Napoleon, Louis XVIII , who did not forgive Friant of treason, sends him to resign. So rolled the star of one of the best divisional commanders of the French army.

The name of Louis Friant can be found among the 557 names of other generals of the Revolution and First Empire era engraved on the walls of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris .

• Corporal (July 1, 1782);
• Lieutenant colonel (September 23, 1792);
• Brigadier General (August 3, 1794, approved June 13, 1795);
• Divisional General (September 4, 1799, approved September 6, 1800).

•  

  Coat of Arms
  Count Friant and Empire ( Fr. comte Friant et de l'Empire ; decree of March 19, 1808, patent confirmed on October 5, 1808) ^[1] .

  Legionnaire of the Legion of Honor (December 11, 1803)

  Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor (June 14, 1804)

  Badge of the Big Eagle of the Legion of Honor (December 26, 1805)

  Commander of the Order of the Iron Crown (December 23, 1807)

  Cavalier of the Military Order of St. Louis (June 1, 1814)

• Sokolov O.V. Napoleon's army. SPb .: Empire, 1999. P.571.
• Louis Friant, dans Charles Mullié, Biographie des célébrités militaires des armées de terre et de mer de 1789 à 1850, 1852.
• Georges Six, Dictionnaire biographique des généraux & amiraux français de la Révolution et de l'Empire (1792-1814), Paris: Librairie G. Saffroy, 1934, 2 vol., P. 471-472.
• Jullien de Courcelles, Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français: depuis le onzième siècle jusqu'en 1822, Tome 6, l'Auteur, 1823, 500 p.

• Article about General Freean in the dictionary of K. A. Zalessky
• Biography of L. Friant on the website of the Napoleon Foundation (Fr.)
• L. Frian in the memoirs of Marshal L.-N. Davou (Fr.)
• R. Uvrar about General Freean (Fr.)
• The natives of Morlancourt who fell on the battlefield (Fr.)