Marmont, AUGUSTE FRÉDÉRIC LOUIS VIESSE DE

Marmont, AUGUSTE FRÉDÉRIC LOUIS VIESSE DE, Duke of Ragusa and Marshal of France, was born 20th July 1774 at Châtillon-sur-Seine, entered the army at an early age, and made the acquaintance of Napoleon at Toulon. He accompanied him to Italy, where his courage at Lodi, Castiglione, and San Giorgio, earned him the rank of general of brigade in the campaign of Egypt. He returned with Bonaparte to France, supported him in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, and commanded his artillery at Marengo, after which he became general of division. He was sent to Dalmatia in 1805 to defend the Ragnsan territory against the Russians, defeated them at Castelnuovo, and was made Duke of Ragusa. Hence he was summoned to join the great army in 1809, the day before the battle of Wagram, was entrusted with the pursuit of the enemy, won the battle of Znaïm, and earned a marshal's baton. He was thereafter for eighteen months governor of the Illyrian provinces; and in 1811 succeeded Massena in the chief command in Portugal, where he showed skilful strategy in the presence of Wellington. A severe wound, received at the defeat of Salamanca, compelled him to retire to France. In 1813 he commanded a corps d'armée, fought at Lützen, Bautzen, and Dresden, and maintained the contest with great spirit in France in the beginning of 1814, till further resistance was hopeless, when he concluded a truce with Barclay de Tolly, which compelled Napoleon to abdicate, and earned himself from the Bonapartists the title of the traitor. The Bourbons loaded Marmont with honours. On the return of Napoleon from Elba he was obliged to flee. After the second restoration he lived in retirement till the revolution of 1830, when, at the head of a body of troops, he endeavoured to reduce Paris to submission, and finally retreating with 6000 Swiss, and a few battalions that had continued faithful to Charles X., conducted him across the frontier. From that time he travelled much and resided chiefly in Vienna and Venice, where he died, 2d March 1852. He was the last survivor of the marshals of the first French Empire. His chief work is his Esprit des Institutions Militaires (1845). His Mémoires fill nine volumes (1856-57). See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. vi.