Davout, Louis Nicola

Born in the burgundy town of in a noble family, he was the eldest of the children of the cavalry lieutenant Jean-François d'Avout (1739-1779) and Francoise -Adelaide Minard de Velars ( Françoise-Adelaide Minard de Velars ; 1741-1810). The remaining children: Julie (1771-1846; wife of the Count of the Empire, ), (1773-1820; Brigadier General and Baron of the Empire) and Charles-Isidore (1774-1854).

He was brought up at the Brienne military school , which Napoleon graduated a year before his admission. True to family tradition, in 1788 he entered the service in the cavalry regiment, where his grandfather, father and uncle had served before.

At the beginning of the revolutionary war, he commanded a battalion in the Northern Army, led by General Dumurier . When on April 4, 1793, Dumurier called on the troops to march against revolutionary Paris, Davout ordered first to arrest, and then shoot at the general ^[5] . Dumurier rode away, and Davout May 1, 1793 was promoted to colonel, and then to the brigadier generals. Sympathizing with the Girondins and reacting negatively to revolutionary terror , he abandons production as division generals and resigns on August 29, 1793. In 1794 he was briefly arrested, after the coup 9 Thermidor returned to military service.

During the Egyptian expedition of 1798-1801, much contributed to the victory at Abukir in 1799 . He returned to France with General Dese in 1800.

In 1805, Davout was already a marshal and took an outstanding part both in the Ulm operation and in the battle of Austerlitz . In the last battle, it was Marshal Davout's corps that withstood the main blow of the Russian troops, practically ensuring the victory in the battle for the Great Army .

In 1806 , heading a corps of 26 thousand people, Davout inflicted a crushing defeat on the twice-strongest army of the Duke of Braunschweig at Auerstedt , for which he received the ducal title .

In 1809, contributed to the defeat of the Austrians at Ekmule and Wagram , for which he received the princely title .

In 1812, Davout fought at Saltanovka , fought at Smolensk, was shell-shocked at Borodino.

In 1813 he led the garrison of Hamburg , defended it from the troops of General Bennigsen and surrendered only after the deposition of Napoleon.

During the first restoration, Davout was out of work. It turned out to be the only Napoleonic marshal who did not renounce the exile. Upon the return of Napoleon from the island of Elba, he was appointed Minister of War and commanded troops near Paris.

- this is how Napoleon motivated his decision not to involve Davout in active hostilities, contrary to the protests of the marshal, who was eager for the front line.

After the Battle of Waterloo, Davout urged the Allies to declare a full amnesty to all those who participated in the restoration of Napoleon, threatening otherwise to withdraw the army across the Loire River and continue the resistance. Marshal MacDonald was sent to negotiate with him, but he was not able to achieve a change of position for Davout, and the Allies were forced to accept his demand. Davout was the only marshal of Napoleon who never swore allegiance to the Bourbons, so they had no reason to put him on trial as a traitor after the second abdication of the emperor ^[6] .

In 1818, Davout received access to the court of Louis XVIII , and in 1819 was elevated to the rank of peer of France .

He died on June 1, 1823 in Paris from pulmonary tuberculosis .

Rewards

• Legion of Honor , large eagle (2.02.1805)
• Legion of Honor , great officer (06/14/804)
• Order of the Legion of Honor , Legionnaire (12/11/1803)
• Order of St. Louis (02/10/1819)
• Military Order of Maria Theresa , Grand Cross (Austria, 04/04/1810)
• Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen , Grand Cross (Austria, 04/04/1810)
• Military Order of Maximilian Joseph , Grand Cross ( Kingdom of Bavaria )
• Order of the White Eagle ( Duchy of Warsaw , 04.17.1809)
• Order of the Virtuti Militari , Grand Cross (Warsaw Duchy, 04.17.1809)
• Order of the Elephant (Denmark)
• Order of the Iron Crown ( Kingdom of Italy )
• Order of Christ , Great Cross (Portugal, 02.28.1806)
• Military Order of St. Heinrich , Grand Cross ( Kingdom of Saxony , 04.16.1808)

“The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary ” describes Davout as follows :

Of all the Napoleonic marshals, Davout was distinguished by the greatest severity, reaching cruelty.

Davout is considered one of the most prominent military leaders in France; unlike many other associates of Napoleon, who usually successfully acted under the direct command of the emperor himself, Davout distinguished himself in battles on several occasions and the only one of the 26 marshals of the First Empire remained undefeated on the battlefield.

It is also characteristic that during the occupation of Moscow, Davout's bedroom was located in the altar of the Chudov Monastery . Davout could not help but realize the blasphemy and insult of such a gesture against the Russians .

Davout is one of the characters in Leo Tolstoy ’s novel War and Peace . Tolstoy describes him like this:

Davout was the Arakcheyev emperor Napoleon - Arakcheyev is not a coward, but just as good, cruel and not able to express his devotion except as cruelty.

On the pages of the novel, Davout receives the envoy of Alexander I - Balashov . One of the central episodes of the fourth part of “War and Peace” is a conversation between Davout and Pierre. With a clear initial distrust, the marshal interrogates the captive Pierre Bezukhov in Moscow, but suddenly decides to spare him:

Davout raised his eyes and looked intently at Pierre. For a few seconds they looked at each other, and this look saved Pierre. In this view, in addition to all conditions of war and court, human relations were established between the two people. Both of them at that moment vaguely felt countless things and realized that they were both children of humanity, that they were brothers.

This characteristic of the marshal was followed by the Soviet historian E.V. Tarle . However, his pupil, A. Z. Manfred , did not agree with this assessment and wrote in his monograph Napoleon Bonaparte:

The name of Louis-Nicolas Davout was imprinted in the memory of generations as he painted his ingenious pen Leo Tolstoy - French Arakcheev, a cold, evil and petty person. Tolstoy was unfair to Dove; or rather, he was misled by sources unilaterally hostile to the general. I give ... who had considerable merit in the revolution, a direct and honest soldier, was one of the most talented commanders of the Napoleonic army.

In the novel “ Burned Moscow ” by G. P. Danilevsky ( 1885 ), a rather unpleasant image of Marshal Davout was revealed, who, being located in the stone single-tiered house of the manufacturer Milyukov, received the main character of the work - Russian officer Vasily Perovsky - and entered his name on the lists after a short audience. suicide bombers. True, later he changed his decision.

“Is it really that terrible and most cruel of all the marshals of Bonaparte?” Thought Perovsky, examining the back hunched in a faded blue uniform and the completely bald, shiny head of the skinny and frail old man sitting in front of him.

Some historians write that the marshal’s rod of Davout was delivered twice to the Russian troops: the first time it was captured by the Cossacks at the village of Bergfried on the Alla River in East Prussia in January 1807 ; the second time in near Krasnoye on November 5, 1812, when the wagon train was captured by the Life Guards Finnish Regiment .

In fact, L.-N. Davout lost his marshal regalia only once, in 1812. Now this trophy is in the collection of the Historical Museum in Moscow . The loss of the rod in 1807 is not confirmed by documents (then Ney's convoy was captured by the Cossacks, not Davout). The “Wand of Dawu”, now stored in the State Hermitage , is a copy slightly different in size from the original Marshal’s wand ^[7] .

He was twice married. The first time he married in 1791, Adelaide Séguenot (c. 1768 - 1795), but divorced her in 1794. In 1801, he married Louise Leclerc ( Louise Aimée Julie Leclerc ; 1782-1868), sister of General Leclerc ( Pauline Bonaparte's first husband).

Children (all from a second marriage):

1. Paul (1802-1803)
2. Josephine (1804-1805)
3. Antoinette Josephine (1805-1821)
4. Adele of Napoleon (1807-1885); wife of Count Etienne Cambaceres (1804-1878; nephew of the Duke of Parma )
5. Napoleon (1809-1810)
6. Napoleon-Louis (1811-1853), 2nd Duke of Auerstedt, 2nd and last Prince of Ekmul, Peer of France, Mayor of Savigny-sur-Orge (like his father before), was not married
7. Jules (1812-1813)
8. Adelaide-Louise (1815-1892; husband - Marquise de Blocqueville, prose writer, poetess, author of historical books about her father

In 1864, the title of Duke of Auerstedt was revived for the nephew of the Marshal - the son of Charles-Isidore d'Avu - Leopold , whose descendants bear it to this day.

• Chenier Davout, duc d'Auerstaedt. - P. , 1866.
• Marquise de Blocqueville (daughter of Davout). Le Maréchal Davout raconté par les siens et lui-même. - P. , 1870-1880, 1887.
• John G. Gallaher . The Iron Mashal - a biography of Louis N. Davout. - L .: The Greenhill Books, 2000.
• Russian military awards of the Patriotic War of 1812
• Chinyakov M.K. Louis-Nicola Davout. - Questions of history. - 1999. - No. 2. - S. 59-72.

• Davout, Louis-Nicolas // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Davout, Louis-Nicholas, Duke of Auerstedt, Prince of Ekmul // Gimry - Engines for ships. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1912. - S. 569-570. - ( Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Edited by K. I. Velichko [and others ]; 1911-1915, v. 8).
• Zakharov S. Dawou Louis Nicolas
• Zakharov S. Marshal Davout in 1815 .