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MAXIMILIEN SEBASTIEN FOY (1775-1825)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 772 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MAXIMILIEN SEBASTIEN

FOY (1775-1825)  , French general and statesman, was born at
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Ham in Picardy on the 3rd of
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February 1775 . He was the son of an old soldier who had fought at
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Fontenoy and had become
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post-master of the
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town in which he lived . His
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father died in 178o, and his early instruc- occur in Shetland or in some of the eastern counties of England . I tion was given by his
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mother, a woman of
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English origin and of
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superior ability . He continued his
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education at the college of
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Soissons, and thence passed at the age of fifteen to the artillery school of La Fere . After eighteen months' successful study he entered the army, served his first
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campaign in Flanders (1791—92) , and was
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present at the
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battle of Jemmapes . He soon attained the rank of captain, and served successively under Dampierre, Jourdan, Pichegru and Houchard . In 1794, in consequence of having spoken freely against the violence of the extreme party st Paris, he was imprisoned by order of the
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commissioner of the Convention, Joseph Lebon, at Cambray, but regained his liberty soon after the fall of Robespierre . He served under Moreau in the
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campaigns of 1796 and 1797, distinguishing himself in many engagements . The leisure which the treaty of Campo Formio gave him he devoted to the study of public law and
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modern
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history, attending the lectures of Christoph Wilhelm von Koch (1737-1813), the famous professor of public law at Strassburg . He was recommended by Desaix to the
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notice of General
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Bonaparte, but declined to serve on the staff of the
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Egyptian expedition . In the campaign of
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Switzerland (1798) he distinguished himself afresh, though he served only with the greatest reluctance against a
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people which possessed republican institutions .

In

Massena's brilliant campaign of 1799 Foy won the rank of chef de brigade . In the following
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year he served under Moncey in the
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Marengo campaign and afterwards in Tirol . Foy's republican principles caused him to oppose the gradual rise of
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Napoleon to the supreme power and at the time of Moreau's trial he escaped arrest only by joining the army in Holland . Foy voted against the establishment of the
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empire, but the only penalty for his independence was a long delay before attaining the rank of general . In x8o6 he married a daughter of General Baraguay d'Hilliers . In the following year he was sent to Constantinople, and there took
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part in the defence of the Dardanelles against the English
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fleet . He was next sent to
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Portugal, and thenceforward he served in the
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Peninsular War from first to last . Under Junot he won at last his rank of general of brigade, under Soult he held a command in the pursuit of
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Sir John Moore's army, and under Massena he fought in the third invasion of Portugal (181o) . Massena reposed the greatest confidence in Foy, and employed him after Busaco in a
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mission to the emperor . Napoleon now made Foy's acquaintance for the first time, and was so far impressed with his merits as to make him a general of division at once . The part played by General Foy at the battle of Salamanca won him new laurels, but above all he distinguished himself when the disaster of
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Vittoria had broken the spirit of the army . Foy rose to the occasion; his resistance in the Pyrenees was steady and successful, and only a wound (at first thought mortal) which he received at
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Orthez prevented him from keeping the field to the last .

At the first restoration of the Bourbons he received the

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grand
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cross of the Legion of Honour and a command, and on the return of Napoleon from Elba he declined to join him until the king had fled from the country . He held a divisional command in the
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Waterloo campaign, and at Waterloo was again severely wounded at the head of his division (see WATERLOO CAMPAIGN) . After the second restoration he returned to
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civil
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life, devoting his energies for a time to his projected history of the Peninsular War, and in 1819 was elected to the chamber of deputies . For this position his experience and his studies had especially fitted him, and by his first speech he gained a commanding place in the chamber, which he never lost, his clear, manly eloquence being always employed on the side of the liberal principles of 1789 . In 1823 he made a powerful protest against French intervention in Spain, and after the dissolution of 1824 he was re-elected for three constituencies . He died at Paris on the 28th of November 1825, and his funeral was attended, it is said, by xoo,000 persons . His early
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death was regarded by all as a
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national calamity . His
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family was provided for by a general subscription . The Histoire de la guerre de la Peninsula sous Napoleon was published from his notes in 1827, and a collection of his speeches (with memoir by Tissot) appeared in 1826 soon after his death . See Cuisin,
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Vie militaire, politique, &c., du general Foy; Vidal, Vie militaire et politique du general Foy .

End of Article: MAXIMILIEN SEBASTIEN FOY (1775-1825)
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