Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul
| Jean Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
13 May 1754 Château de Salette, Cahuzac-sur-Vère, France |
| Died |
14 February 1807 (aged 52) Eylau, Prussia |
| Allegiance |
 France |
| Service/branch | French Army |
| Years of service | 1771–1807 |
| Rank | Général de division |
| Battles/wars |
French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars |
| Awards | Member of the Légion d'honneur (11 December 1803) Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur (14 June 1804) Grand Eagle of the Légion d'honneur (8 February 1806) |
| Other work | Sénat conservateur |
Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul (13 May 1754 – 14 February 1807) was a French cavalry general of the Napoleonic wars. He came from an old noble family of France whose military tradition extended for several centuries.
Efforts by the French Revolutionary government to remove him from his command failed when his soldiers refused to give him up. A big, loud-voiced man, he led from the front of his troops. Although the failure of his cavalry to deploy at the resulted in a court martial, he was exonerated and went on to serve in the Swiss campaign in 1799, at the , the Battle of Biberach, and later at Battle of Hohenlinden. He served under Michel Ney and Joachim Murat. He was killed in Murat's massive cavalry charge of the Battle of Eylau in 1807.
Born in an ancient noble family from the Languedoc, he entered the French royal army as a volunteer in 1769. After having served in the Corsican legion, he transferred in 1771 to a Dragoon regiment. From 1777, he served as an officer in the Dragoon Regiment of the Languedoc. By 1792, he had become its colonel.
In 1802, he married Alexandrine Daumy, and they had one child, born 29 May 1806, named Alexandre Joseph Napoléon. His cousin, Alphonse Henri, comte d'Hautpoul, also served in the Napoleonic Wars, as a lieutenant in the Iberian peninsula, and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Salamanca. He later became the 28th prime minister of France, from 1849–1851.
By contemporary accounts, d'Hautpoul was a big man, possibly taller than Joachim Murat, who was nearly six feet tall. Endowed with broad shoulders and a big voice. He spoke the language of the common soldier, and led from the front. Early in the French Revolution, commissioners visited the various regiments to weed out dangerous, and prospectively traitorous nobles; generally, the commissioners cowed the army into submission, but d'Hautpoul's cavalry regiment refused to be intimidated. When the commissioners came for their colonel, a scion of impoverished nobility, his soldiers refused to give him up: "No d'Hautpoul, no 6th Chasseurs." Thus, despite his noble birth, at the exhortations of his soldiers he remained in the French Revolutionary Army.
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