DUKE OF

See also:

• CONEGLIANO

CONEGLIANO BON ADRIEN JEANNOT DE

See also:

• DUKE OF CONEGLIANO BON ADRIEN JEANNOT DE MONCEY (1754-1842)

MONCEY (1754-1842)  , marshal of France, was the son of a lawyer of Besancon, where he was born on the 31st of July 1754 . In his boyhood he twice enlisted in the French army, but his father procured his discharge on both occasions . His desire was at last gratified in 1778, when he received a commission . He was a captain when, in 1791, he embraced the principles of the French Revolution . Moncey won great distinction in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 on the Spanish frontier (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), rising from the command of a battalion to the command in chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees in a few months, and his successful operations were largely instrumental in compelling the Spanish government to make peace . After this he was employed in the highest commands until 1799, when the government, suspecting him of Royalist views, dismissed him . But the coup d'etat of 18 . Brumaire brought him back to the active list, and in Napoleon's Italian campaign of 1800 he led a corps from Switzerland into Italy, surmounting all the difficulties of bringing horses and guns over the then formidable pass of St Gothard . In ,8o, Napoleon made him inspector-general of gendarmerie, and on the assumption of the imperial title created him a marshal of France . In 18o5 Moncey received the grand cordon of the legion of honour, and in 18o8 the title of duke of Conegliano . In the latter year, the first of the Peninsular War, Moncey was sent to Spain in command of an army corps . He signalized himself by his victorious advance on Valencia, the effect of which was, however, destroyed by the disaster to Dupont at Baylen, and took a leading part in the emperor's campaign on the Ebro and in the second siege of Saragossa in 1809 .

He refused. to serve in the invasion of

Russia, and therefore had no share in the campaign of the grande armee in 1812 and 1813 . When, however, France was invaded (1814) Marshal Moncey reappeared in the field and fought the last battle for Paris on the heights of Montmartre and at the barrier of Clichy . He remained neutral during the Hundred Days, feeling himself bound to Louis XVIII. by his engagements as a peer of France, but after Waterloo he was punished for refusing to take part in the court-martial on Ney by imprisonment and the loss of his marshalate . He was reinstated in 1816, and re-entered the chamber of peers three years later . His last active service was as commander of an army corps in the short war with Spain, 1823 . In 1833 he became governor of the Invalides . He died on the loth of April 1842 .