Bouillé, FRANÇOIS CLAUDE AMOUR, MARQUIS DE

Bouillé, FRANÇOIS CLAUDE AMOUR, MARQUIS DE, a distinguished French general, was born in 1739 at the castle of Cluzel, in Auvergne, entered the army at the age of fourteen, and served with distinction in Germany during the Seven Years' War. In 1768 he was appointed governor of the island of Guadeloupe, and afterwards commander-in-chief of all the French forces in the West Indies. When war broke out in 1778, he successively took from the British, Dominica, Tobago, St Eustache, Saba, St Martin, St Christopher's, and Nevis. Louis XVI. nominated him a member of the Assembly of Notables in 1787-88; in 1790 he was made commander-in-chief of the army of the Meuse, the Saar, and the Moselle. His decision of character prevented the dissolution of the army and the outbreak of civil war. For his share in the attempted escape of Louis XVI. he had to flee from France. In 1791 he entered into the service of Gustavus III. of Sweden, and afterwards served in the corps of the Prince of Condé. He rejected a proposal made in 1793 that he should take the chief command in La Vendée; and went to England, where his advice in West Indian affairs was useful to the government, and where he wrote his Mémoires sur la Révolution Française. He died in London, 14th November 1800. See Gabriel's Louis XVI., Bouillé, et Varennes (1874).