Charles de Fitz-James

Charles de Fitz-James, Duke of Fitz-James (4 November 1712 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye – 22 March 1787 at his hôtel particulier, Paris) was a French general and 4th Duke of Fitz-James, who descended from the British House of Stuart. He rose to become a peer and Marshal of France.

He was the son of James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, who was in turn the illegitimate son of James II of Great Britain. He was known from birth as the "count of Fitz-James". When his elder brother Henri de Fitz-James was dismissed and his younger brother François de Fitz-James took holy orders, Charles was made governor and lieutenant-general of Limousin on 28 December 1729, aged only 17. In 1730 he joined the musketeers, on 31 March 1732 he was given a commission to command a company in the Montreval cavalry regiment, and in 1733 he was put in command of an Irish cavalry regiment, which was renamed the Fitz-James regiment after him.

1733 also saw Europe's peace broken for the first time in twenty years after the death of Augustus, king of Poland. A French army under Charles's father invaded Germany, whilst Charles saw his first active service at the head of his regiment at the sieges of Kehl (1733) and Philippsbourg (1734). He was standing next to his father when the latter was killed by a cannonball and was splattered with his blood and brains. Inheriting his father's dukedom and becoming a peer of France, Charles continued serving with the French army on the Rhine under the orders of Marshal de Coigny from 1735 until the peace of Vienna in 1738. In 1735 he also became one of the first French Freemasons in the Bussy Lodge.

Charles VI's death in 1740 triggered another European war, with France backing the elector of Bavaria's claims to the imperial throne. In 1741. In 1741 a French army of 40,000 men crossed the Rhine at Fort-Louis, under the orders of the Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, whilst another army the same size crossed the Meuse at the same time - Charles served in the latter as a brigadier, under the orders of Jean-Baptiste Francois des Marets, marquis de Maillebois. He took part in most of the war's battles and also served in Belle-Isle's army at the Siege of Prague and the retreat which followed.

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