Louis-Nicolas Davout is ranked along with Marshals Andre Massena and Jean Lannes as one of Napoleon's finest commanders.
26 Facts About Louis-Nicolas Davout
2.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was born in the small village Annoux as the eldest son of Jean-Francois d'Avout, a cavalry officer and his wife Francoise-Adelaide Minard de Velars.
3.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was chef de bataillon in a volunteer corps in the campaign of 1792, and distinguished himself at the Battle of Neerwinden the following spring.
4.
Louis-Nicolas Davout had just been promoted to general of brigade when he was removed from the active list because of his noble birth.
5.
At the ascension of Napoleon as emperor in 1804, Louis-Nicolas Davout was named as one of the original 18 Marshals of the Empire.
6.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was the youngest and least experienced the generals promoted to marshal, which earned him the hostility of other generals throughout his career.
7.
Louis-Nicolas Davout added to his renown in the battles of Eylau and Friedland.
8.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was later made Prince of Eckmuhl following the campaign.
9.
In 1810 Louis-Nicolas Davout travelled to Compiegne with Napoleon to collect the 18-year-old bride Marie-Louise of Austria.
10.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was entrusted by Napoleon with the task of organizing the "corps of observation of the Elbe", which would become the gigantic army with which Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812.
11.
Louis-Nicolas Davout defeated the Russians at Mohilev before he joined the main army at Smolensk, with which he continued throughout the campaign.
12.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was a stern disciplinarian, who exacted rigid and precise obedience from his troops, and consequently his corps was more trustworthy and exact in the performance of its duty than any other.
13.
For example, Louis-Nicolas Davout forbade his troops from plundering enemy villages, a policy he would enforce by the use of the death penalty.
14.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the ablest of Napoleon's marshals.
15.
Louis-Nicolas Davout directed the gallant, but hopeless, defence of Paris after the Battle of Waterloo.
16.
Louis-Nicolas Davout received the command of the army assembled under the walls of Paris, and would have fought, had he not received the order of the provisional government to negotiate with the enemy.
17.
On 24 June 1815, Louis-Nicolas Davout was sent by Joseph Fouche, the president of the provisional government, to the dethroned emperor at the Elysee Palace with a request to quit Paris, where his continued presence could lead to trouble and public danger.
18.
Louis-Nicolas Davout has a wife and children; he thought that all was lost; he wanted to keep what he had got," while on another occasion he remarked that, "I thought that Davout loved me, but he loved only France.
19.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was deprived of his titles upon the second restoration.
20.
In 1822, Louis-Nicolas Davout was elected mayor of Savigny-sur-Orge, a position he held for a year.
21.
Louis-Nicolas Davout's remains rest in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where an elaborate tomb marks his grave.
22.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was known as a methodical person in both military and personal affairs.
23.
Louis-Nicolas Davout's anger was so intense that Davout requested to settle the matter with a personal duel, averted only by Napoleon's personal intervention.
24.
When Sweden threw in her lot against Napoleon in the War of the Sixth Coalition, Louis-Nicolas Davout personally asked to be placed opposite Bernadotte's contingent, in order to gain retribution for the latter's betrayal.
25.
Louis-Nicolas Davout was noted for his loyalty to his long-time second wife Louise Aimee Julie Louis-Nicolas Davout, whom he married in 1801 and who remained with him until his death.
26.
Louis-Nicolas Davout had a sister Julie, married in 1801 to Marc-Antoine Bonnin de La Bonniniere, 1st Count de Beaumont, and another brother, Alexandre-Louis-Edme, 1st Baron d'Avout, married in 1808 to Alire Parisot.