Note 173 — 571.

François Claude Aymour, Marquis de Bouillé (1739-1800), born at the Château de Cluzel in Auvergne, died at London in 1800. He had distinguished himself both in the Seven Years' War and in the American War of Independence. In 1790 he became governor of the provinces of les Trois Évêchés, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, and commander-in-chief of the army of the Meuse, Sarre-et-Moselle, with his head-quarters at Metz. His letter to the National Assembly was written, as he states, to divert the wrath of the Assembly from the king to himself. In it he assumed the whole responsibility for the affair. His letter, says M. Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, vol. iv. pp. 469-471), produced a deep impression throughout Europe. Three autograph letters, addressed by Louis XVI., and the Kings of Sweden and Prussia, to the marquis, are there quoted. After the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes he fled to Coblentz, summoning officers and men to join him. He served in the army of the Prince of Condé in 1791, and in that of the Duke of York in 1793. He afterwards retired to England, where his Mémoires sur la Révolution were published in 1797.