1. Divisional-General Jean Louis Ebenezer Reynier was a French Army officer who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
10 Facts About Jean Reynier
1. 2.
Jean Reynier rose in rank to become a general officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and led a division under Napoleon in the French invasion of Egypt and Syria.
3.
Jean Reynier was granted French citizenship through the 1791 constitution, which guaranteed right of return to descendants of French individuals who had fled the country due to religious persecution under the ancien regime.
4.
Jean Reynier participated in the French invasion of Malta and the subsequent invasion of Egypt and Syria, commanding a division at the Battle of the Pyramids and, in 1799, at the sieges of El Arish and Acre.
5.
Jean Reynier's division was present but not engaged in the Battle of Alexandria.
6.
On his return to duty in 1803, Jean Reynier went to fight in Italy with the army of Marshal Andre Massena, whom he later replaced as head of the Army of Naples in 1807.
7.
Jean Reynier was later able to reassert French control of the area via the French victory at Mileto and served under King Joseph as his Minister of War and Marine.
8.
Jean Reynier's corps was not seriously engaged at the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro in Spain.
9.
Jean Reynier was released after being exchanged for the Austrian general Maximilian von Merveldt, captured at Leipzig, and arrived in Paris on 15 February 1814.
10.
Jean Reynier's name is inscribed in column 24 on the southern pillar of the Arc de Triomphe as REYNIER, right above that of fellow Vaudois volunteer Laharpe.