Note 169 — BOOK XIV[162]

Louis Auguste Victor de Ghaisne, Comte de Bourmont (1773-1846), had commanded the Chouans in the Vendée from 1794 to 1799, and, in 1800, was imprisoned for complicity in the conspiracy resulting in the Infernal Machine. He made his escape from Besançon and fled to Lisbon, where he joined the French during their reverses and was taken into favour by Napoleon in 1808. He served under Bonaparte in all his subsequent campaigns. After the return from Elba he accepted a command from the Emperor, but reverted to the King a few days before the Battle of Waterloo. He was created a peer of France in 1823 and became Minister for War in 1829. In 1830, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Algerian Expedition. After the Revolution of July, true to his latent royalist sympathies, he fought for the Duchesse de Berry in the Vendée and subsequently for Dom Miguel in Portugal, but always without success. Eventually he abandoned politics and returned to France, where he died at the Château de Bourmont in 1846.—T.