Augustin Tuncq | |
---|---|
Born | 27 August 1746 Conteville |
Died |
9 February 1800 (aged 53) Paris |
Allegiance |
France French Republic |
Service/branch | French Army |
Years of service | 1762–1800 |
Rank | Général de division |
Battles/wars |
War in the Vendée Rhine Campaign of 1796 |
Relations | Brutus Tuncq |
Augustin Tuncq, born in Conteville (Somme) on 27 August 1746 and died in Paris on 9 February 1800, served in the French military during the reign of the House of Bourbon and was a general of the French Revolutionary Wars. Most notably, he commanded Republican forces during the War in the Vendée and successfully defended Chalot from Vendean attack. He was a severe critic of his commander, Jean Antoine Rossignol, who later had him arrested and returned to Paris for trial. Accused by Jacques Hébert, he was saved from conviction only by the fall of the Hébertists, and the execution of Hébert himself. He subsequently commanded the coastal defenses at Brest, and was a divisional commander in Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino's column of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle during the Rhine Campaign of 1796. After the campaign he tried several times to retire; he died of injuries from a carriage accident in Paris in 1800.
Born on 27 August 1746 in Conteville, Somme, he was the son of a weaver, Jean Tuncq, and his wife Marie-Francoise Trogneux (or Trongneux). He married Marie-Francios Pelagie Chefeville, of Liancourt, Oise, in St. Philippe du Roule, Paris, on 26 November 1789. The couple had three children. One, Brutus, became a battalion chief by 1848.
Tunq entered the royal army as a private in 1762, first as a volunteer in the Regiment of Provence, and was a sergeant on 1 January 1768. He deserted on 30 June 1770, yet by 1773, he was a rider in the provost marshal's guard. When it was decommissioned on 19 October, he joined the guard of the General Provost (13 March 1774). In 1780, he became a captain in the Legion of the Pyrenees. By 1789 he was a captain in the National Guard.