Charles Pichegru
| Jean-Charles Pichegru | |
|---|---|
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Commander-in-Chief, Army of the Rhine
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| Born | 16 February 1761 Arbois or Les Planches-près-Arbois |
| Died |
5 April 1804 (aged 43) Paris |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of France Kingdom of the French French First Republic
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| Years of service | 1783–1797 |
| Battles/wars | French Revolutionary Wars |
Jean-Charles Pichegru (16 February 1761 – 5 April 1804) was a distinguished French general of the Revolutionary Wars. Under his command, French troops overran Belgium and the Netherlands before fighting on the Rhine front. His subsequent involvement in a royalist conspiracy to remove Napoleon from power led to his arrest and death. Despite his defection, his surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.
Pichegru was born in a peasant family at Arbois (or, according to Charles Nodier, at Les Planches-près-Arbois, near Lons-le-Saulnier), in the Jura department of France. The friars of Arbois were entrusted with his education, and sent him to the military school of Brienne-le-Château. There, he taught mathematics, and among his pupils was the young Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1783, he entered the 1st regiment of artillery, where he rapidly rose to the rank of adjutant-second lieutenant, and briefly served in the American Revolutionary War.
When the Revolution erupted in 1789, he became leader of the Jacobin Club in Besançon, and, when a regiment of volunteers of the départment of the Gard marched through the city, he was elected lieutenant colonel.
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