Maurice-Louis-Joseph Gigot d'Elbée
| Louis d'Elbée | |
|---|---|
Louis d'Elbée, by Girodet
|
|
| Nickname(s) | General Providence |
| Born |
21 March 1752 Dresden, Electorate of Saxony |
| Died | 6 January 1794 (aged 41) Noirmoutier, French First Republic |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of FranceRoyalist rebels |
| Service/branch | French Royal Army |
| Years of service | 1777–1783 1793–1794 |
| Rank |
Major General (France) Generalissimo (Vendée) |
| Battles/wars | |
Maurice-Joseph-Louis Gigost d'Elbée (pronounced [mɔʁis ʒɔzɛf lwi ʒiɡo dɛlˈbe]; 21 March 1752 – 6 January 1794) was a French Royalist military leader. Initially enthusiastic about the Revolution, he became disenchanted with the disestablishment of the Catholic Church and retired to his estates in Brittany. He was the second commander in chief of the Royal and Catholic Army formed by Royalist forces of the Vendean insurrection against the Republic and the French Revolution.
Louis d'Elbee was born in Dresden, Electorate of Saxony to a French family in 1752. He moved to France in 1777, becoming a naturalised citizen and joining the French Royal Army. He embarked on a military career, reaching the rank of lieutenant, but resigned from the army in 1783 and married, thereafter living a retired country life near Beaupréau in Anjou. He then served as an officer in the army of Frederick Augustus I, the Prince-Elector of Saxony. After the Revolution, he returned in obedience to the law which ordered emigrants to return to France.
The peasantry and much of the middle class in the Vendée remained loyal to the Catholic Church and, in 1792, the Marquess de la Rouërie had organized a general rising, although this was frustrated by the count's arrest. However, when the Convention decreed the levee en masse of 300,000 men, the Vendée mounted a war against what they considered the atheist Republic. The peasants of Beaupréau to appoint him as their leader. His troop joined those of François de Charette, Charles Bonchamps, Jacques Cathelineau and Jean-Nicolas Stofflet. The army experienced several successes: Stofflet defeated the republic army at St. Vincent; D'Elbée and Bonchamps won at Beaupreau; and Henri de la Rochejaquelein won the victories at the Aubiers and First Cholet. He is famous for his actions after the Battle of Chemillé, on 11 April 1793: after the insurgents' victory, many of them planned to avenge their dead and slaughter the Republican prisoners (approx. 400). D'Elbée tried to prevent them, and eventually asked them to recite the Our Father, which they did; then, when they had reached the sentence "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us", he interrupted them with the words: "Do not lie to God!". Moved by this reproach, his men turned away, and d'Elbée was able to save the prisoners. This episode has since become known as "Le Pater d'Elbée" (d'Elbée's Pater Noster).
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