Larochejaquelein, DU VERGER DE,

Larochejaquelein, DU VERGER DE, an old noble family of France. The name Du Verger is derived from a place in Poitou. Guy du Verger married, in 1505, the heiress of the seigneur of Larochejaquelein. Several of his descendants distinguished themselves by their devoted loyalty to the old royal house against the fury of the French Revolution.—HENRI, Comte de Larochejaquelein, born in 1772, was an officer in the guard of Louis XVI., and after the 10th of August 1792 left Paris to put himself at the head of the insurgent royalists in La Vendée. He signalised himself by many heroic deeds, and for a time successfully repelled the republican forces, but was severely defeated by Westermann, 21st December 1793, and escaped with difficulty. He raised a new body of troops, however, in Upper Poitou, but was killed in a battle at Nouillé, 4th March 1794. His heroic words to his soldiers are memorable beyond most: 'Si je recule, tuez-moi; si j'avance, suivez-moi; si je meurs, vengez-moi!'—His brother, LOUIS DU VERGER, Marquis de Larochejaquelein, born in 1777, emigrated at the commencement of the Revolution; returned to France in 1801, but resisted all Napoleon's efforts to win him, and in 1813 placed himself at the head of the royalists in La Vendée. Louis XVIII. appointed him in 1814 to the command of the army of La Vendée, and during the Hundred Days he maintained the royalist cause there, supported by the British. He fell in battle at Pont-des-Mathis, 4th June 1815. His wife, MARIE-LOUISE VICTOIRE, Marquise de Larochejaquelein (1772-1857), published Mémoires of the war, of which she was an eyewitness (Bordeaux, 1815), which are of real value to the historian. See her Life by Nettement (3d ed. Paris, 1876).