Louis de Frotté

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Louis de Frotté
Louis de Frotté.jpg
Louis de Frotté (1755-1800), Général Vendéen. Portrait by Louise Bouteiller (1822)
Born (1766-08-01)1 August 1766
Alençon, Normandy,
Kingdom of France
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Verneuil-sur-Avre, Normandy,
French Republic
Allegiance  Kingdom of France
Kingdom of France Émigrés
Kingdom of France Chouan rebels
Service/branch Kingdom of France French Army
Years of service 1781–1800
Battles/wars French Revolutionary Wars

Marie Pierre Louis de Frotté (1 August 1766 – 18 February 1800) was a French soldier and the emblematic leader of the Norman Chouannerie.

Biography

Louis de Frotté was born in Alençon (Orne), the son of Pierre Henry de Frotté, squire, sieur de la Rimblière, and Agathe de Clairambault, married in Port-Louis, Brittany, on October 15, 1765. He joined the Royal Army in 1781, and was in command of infantry units by 1789, when the French Revolution broke out. Frotté joined the émigrés, and served in the combined Prussian and Austrian army of the Duke of Brunswick, which aimed to restore the monarchy in France.

Frotté fought at Valmy in 1792, and, after Brunswick's unsuccessful campaign, sailed to England.

The insurrection in Brittany

In England, he served in the regiment of the Knights of the Crown of the Viscount de Bussy and prepared the insurrection of his native province. Wanting to show his devotion to the cause of the Bourbons, in 1794, he asked Joseph de Puisaye, in charge of the king's interests in Brittany, for authorization to go to France to insurrect Normandy, where he had connections. He received his powers as well as a colonel's commission. Landing on the coast of Saint-Malo at the beginning of 1795, with several other gentlemen, he fought against the republican troops, escaped them, and reached Normandy through a thousand dangers.

There was then question in the Vendée and in Brittany of a rapprochement and a suspension of the conflict between the republicans and the royalists. The national convention flattered itself to decrease the number of its interior enemies by a peaceful system, repelled until then by the revolutionaries.

Normandy

Opposed to any pacification, Frotté went to Brittany on April 1, 1795 to the meetings for the drafting of the treaty of Mabilais. There, refusing to sign the treaty negotiated by Pierre Dezoteux de Cormatin, he declared that he would never bend his principles, and that there was no security for the royalists except in arms. He immediately returned to Normandy and, organizing for the insurrection the bordering cantons of Calvados and Manche, he succeeded in establishing a line of correspondence with Jersey through the islands of Saint-Marcouf.[1] He then sought, through the district of Domfront and in particular the canton of Tinchebray, to link his operations with those of the royalists of Maine.

At first, Frotté had only three hundred men under his command, and they were not very well trained. But his perseverance and tireless activity earned him partial and repeated successes against the numerous Republican cantonments. He endeavored to win the confidence of the inhabitants of the countryside, and increased the number of his supporters every day. His correspondence with England and the French princes was soon in full swing. Several emigrant officers were sent to him from London, and defectors joined his party. Having refused to lay down his arms, he saw with joy, in July 1795, the renewal of hostilities between the royalists and the republicans in almost all the departments of the West. Around this time, he made an incursion into Maine where, together with other leaders, he momentarily seized the city of Mayenne.

On the return from this expedition, he brought back to Normandy the famous Picot, a secondary leader, whom he had the art of employing, he tried to coordinate his operations with those of the other leaders of Anjou, Maine and Brittany; but the outcome of the Quiberon expedition came to halt the development of his vast projects. On November 15, he was attacked in his headquarters by the garrison of Mortain. He repulsed it, and immediately moved to the post of Teilleul, and after a very lively engagement, set fire to it, thus forcing the republicans to retreat. He held them in check by showing himself everywhere, extended his organization into Lower Normandy, had a staff, division chiefs, and tried to introduce a severe discipline among his troops, which, all together, could have formed a corps of four to five thousand men; but the nature of this war almost never allowed a general meeting.

Frotté, however, joined the columns of Scépeaux and Rochecotte in the vicinity of Mayenne. He attacked, in concert, several Republican battalions, which were at first driven back, but, reinforced later by the Mayenne garrison, they returned to the charge and in their turn overpowered the royalists. The latter rallied after their rout, however, and the leaders held a council to decide on their future operations.

The royalist generals preferred to act in isolation in their respective districts; and combined expeditions almost never had happy results. Rochecotte, Scépeaux and Frotté separated; each returned to his own territory. Back in Normandy, Frotté was joined by his father, who had just landed with dispatches and subsidies from the English ministry.

Thus encouraged, he redoubled his efforts; he formed a company, organized under the name of Knights of the Crown; his system of insurrection spread and propagated. Frotté became formidable to the republicans, whom he worried and harassed ceaselessly.

At that time, he formed a large gathering in the forest of Halouze, where he usually had his headquarters; and he marched with about fifteen hundred men to attack Tinchebray, about which he had complaints. The garrison was not numerous, but a great number of republicans, enclosed in the city, had taken up arms to resist the royalists. The town was palisaded; the bell tower and the church were crenellated and surrounded by loopholes. The attack was fierce and the fight bloody. Frotté showed intrepidity and composure; he was everywhere: but after various assaults he almost retreated. The result of the expedition only served to make the royalists fearful, and this moral success was almost the only real one.

Return to England

Charles Philippe de France, Comte d'Artois (1757-1836). Portrait by Henri-Pierre Danloux (c. 1796)

He was enlisted by Charles, Count of Artois (Louis XVI's younger brother), in an attempt to start yet another rebellion in his native Normandy. Almost all the cantons had leaders who obeyed Frotté. But in the Vendée, on the banks of the Loire, in Brittany and in Maine, the affairs of the royalists were now desperate. General Hoche subdued everything, using in turn force of arms, politics and moderation; he already covered all Normandy and Brittany with his numerous battalions. In spite of the most obstinate resistance, Frotté was forced to leave for England, refusing any kind of adhesion or personal submission to the republican government.

Before his departure, he had dismissed his divisions until further notice and charged the royal council of Normandy with the details of the pacification, recommending to his soldiers to keep their weapons, and establishing between Normandy and England two points of correspondence, one by the islands of Saint-Marcouf, the other by Carteret.

Arriving in London in 1796, he was sent by the royalist committee established in this city, to the Count of Artois, then in Edinburgh, to urge His Royal Highness to attempt an expedition to Brittany. The circumstances did not seem favorable.

Seizure of power by Bonaparte

The advent of Napoleon Bonaparte to the supreme power in the day of the 18 brumaire became fatal to the armed royalist party. Frotté was perhaps the one among all the leaders who foresaw the consequences with the most accuracy and, in one of his proclamations, he recalled with the most vivid colors this day in Saint-Cloud. He represented Bonaparte almost falling into the arms of his grenadiers, and on the eve of failing in its usurpation. A similar manifesto could not be forgotten by Bonaparte. The war waged against the Republic by the intractable "General of the Royalists of Normandy" was so ruthless that the First Consul considered him his personal enemy.

From this moment, the fall of Frotté was decided. One began to dissolve the royalist confederation with words of peace. In the conferences of Montfaucon,[nb 1] Frotté was adamant for the continuation of the war. Almost all the other leaders had already capitulated, and he still resisted, rejecting any kind of pacification. Wanting to rally the insurgents of Maine under his flag, he went with several columns on the road to Alençon. In the middle of winter, he fought three bloody battles at Mortagne, La Chaux and Le Mesle, where he lost his best officers, while his lieutenant, Hingant de Saint-Maur, threatened Évreux and spreaded the alarm in the surroundings.

But abandoned by his party and overwhelmed by ever-increasing forces, Frotté wrote to General d'Hédouville, in charge of pacification, that he subscribed to the laws accepted by the other royalist leaders; and he announced this, on January 28, 1800, to General Guidal, who commanded the department of Orne. He was immediately sent a safe-conduct to go to Alençon, in order to negotiate his accommodation.

Betrayal and death

Frotté was on his way when, in violation of the oath, he was arrested with six of his officers.[2][3] On February 15, 1800, he was taken prisoner by treason in Alençon, at the Hôtel du Cygne, while he was negotiating with General Guidal.

Cenotaph of the Count of Frotté by David d'Angers in the church of the Madeleine in Verneuil-sur-Avre

Three days later, a military commission condemned him to death, without a lawyer or witnesses, at Verneuil-sur-Avre, where he was shot.[nb 2] Frotté appeared before his judges with the audacity that had always characterized him.

An intercepted letter was produced against him, in which he announced to one of his friends that he had to submit to disarmament at all costs. In the middle of the debates, he had wine brought to him and, on his invitation, his co-defendants shouted with him, while drinking: "Long live the king!"

The next day he was led on foot to the place where he was to be killed. A grenadier of his escort pointed out to him that he was not walking at a walking pace: "You are right," said Frotté, "I was not paying attention to that," and then resumed walking. He did not allow himself to be blindfolded and waited for the rifle shots, standing upright and calmly.

Today, there is a plaque in his memory inside the Madeleine church in Verneuil-sur-Avre. A memorial erected at the place of his execution is also visible, at the frères Lumière street, in the Verneuil business park.

Notes

Footnotes

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Citations

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References

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External links

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