Louis-Auguste-Victor, Count de Ghaisnes de Bourmont (2 September 1773 – 27 October 1846) was a French general, diplomat, and statesman who was named Marshal of France in 1830. A lifelong royalist, he emigrated from France soon after the outbreak of the French Revolution. Bourmont would later join the counter-revolutionary Army of Condé for two years, before joining the insurrection in France for three more years before going into exile. Returning to France he was arrested after assisting the Georges Cadoudal conspiracy, but escaped prison to Portugal.
In 1807, he took advantage of an amnesty to rejoin the French army and served in several campaigns until 1814. He rose in rank to become a général de division in the imperial army. During this period, he was suspected of being an agent of the Comte d'Artois, and of passing information to France's enemies. Though he was notoriously anti-Napoleon and many officers did not trust him, he was employed again during the Hundred Days. Immediately after the campaign began, he deserted to the Prussian army with Napoleon's plans.
Bourmont would give evidence against Michel Ney in 1815. King Louis XVIII gave Bourmont a command in the Spanish expedition of 1823. Charles X (the former Comte d'Artois), put Bourmont in command of the Invasion of Algiers in 1830. Despite Bourmont's military success, in his absence, the absolutist rule of Charles X fell to the July Revolution. Bourmont refused to recognize King Louis Philippe I. After being involved in a plot against the new government, he fled to Portugal in 1832, where he led the army of Dom Miguel in the Liberal Wars. After the liberals won, Bourmont fled to the Papal states. Bourmont lived in Rome until he accepted another amnesty in 1840, and died in France six years later.
Bourmont was born at the Château de Bourmont in modern day Freigné (then part of Anjou), to an old Angevin noble family, long established in the region.
He had a rigorous and classical upbringing, with strong emphasis on faith and loyalty. His mother, Joséphine Sophie de Coutances, played an important role in maintaining family bonds and values that would be tested during the turmoil of the French Revolution.
As a youth, he attended the Abbaye-école de Sorèze, a prestigious military style school, where he had contemporaries such as Henri de La Rochejacquelein (who would become a leading royalist fighting in the War in the Vendée).
On the eve of the French Revolution, aged fifteen, Bourmont entered the Gardes Françaises of the Royal Army and was present at the storming of the Bastille. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, he emigrated to Turin with his father in 1789.
In service to the Bourbons (1792-1801)
At the insistence of his mother, Bourmont served in Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (and the future Charles X's) royalist army in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793 taking part in the Battles of Wissembourg and Valmy. He served as chief of staff of the royalist forces in the Chouannerie revolt from 1794 to 1796, during which time he would often act as an intermediary between General Scepeaux [Fr] and the Bourbons in exile.
After fleeing to Switzerland in 1796, Bourmont was made colonel in the service of the Count of Artois the next year.
Bourmont sneaked into France in disguise to meet with General Jean-Charles Pichegru. After fleeing to London to avoid capture, he was made commander-in-chief of the Chouan army and defeated Republican forces at Saumur. He then concluded a peace agreement with Napoleon.
However, Bourmont did not remain inactive, and he was arrested in 1801 because of involvement with Georges Cadoudal, with whom he was suspected of complicity in the kidnapping [Fr] of Senator Clément de Ris but three years later he managed to escape imprisonment to Portugal.
A soldier of the Empire (1807-1814)
When Junot invaded Portugal in 1807, Bourmont offered him his services and was employed as chief of staff of General Louis Henri Loison's division. Arrested when re-entering France in 1809, he was released upon the intercession of Junot and employed in the Imperial Army.
He served in Italy and on the staff of Prince Eugène during the Russian campaign of 1812. Taken prisoner during the retreat from Moscow, he managed to escape and rejoin the French army. After the Battle of Lützen in 1813 he was promoted to général de brigade. Bourmont took part in the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. In 1814, he was promoted to général de division for defending Nogent-sur-Seine, during the engagement he suffered a wound to his knee. After the fall of Napoleon, Bourmont rallied to the restored Bourbons.
Bourbon Restoration and the Hundred days
However, the Bourbon restoration was not secure, Napoleon escaped Elba and made his way to Paris. At Grenoble, troops sent to stop him had defected. The Government of Louis XVIII frantically tried to stop Napoleon's march on Paris. Marshal Ney was ordered to report to Besançon, where he was to receive his orders from Bourmont. It irritated the proud Ney, Prince of the Moskva, to take instructions from such a junior general, so he demanded to see the king. During his interview with Louis, Ney boasted to the king that he would bring back the former emperor in an iron cage.
By the time Ney arrived in Besançon, he found that the royalist position was rapidly deteriorating and that Bourmont's assignment was to spy on him. At Besançon, Ney's direct subordinates were Bourmont and General Claude Lecourbe. Lecourbe was a strange companion for Bourmont the arch-royalist; a committed Republican Lecourbe had been removed from command upon the proclamation of the French Empire and deeply detested Napoleon for it.