Charles Leclerc | |
|---|---|
.jpg) 1804 portrait of Leclerc byFrançois Kinson | |
| Born | 17 March 1772 (1772-03-17) |
| Died | 2 November 1802(1802-11-02) (aged 30) |
| Allegiance | Kingdom of France French First Republic |
| Branch | French Royal Army French Revolutionary Army |
| Service years | 1791–1802 |
| Rank | Divisional general |
| Conflicts | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Dermide Leclerc |
Divisional-GeneralCharles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc (French pronunciation:[ʃaʁlviktwaʁemanɥɛlləklɛʁ]; 17 March 1772 – 2 November 1802) was aFrench Army officer who served in theFrench Revolutionary Wars. He was the husband ofPauline Bonaparte, the younger sister ofNapoleon. In 1801, Leclerc was appointed commander of theSaint-Domingue expedition with the goal of restoring French rule and slavery in the colony ofSaint-Domingue and deposing Governor-GeneralToussaint Louverture. The expedition defeated Louverture's army and deported him to France, but Leclerc died ofyellow fever after the colony's Black population revolted against French rule.
Charles Leclerc was born on 17 March 1772 inPontoise,Île-de-France. In 1791, he volunteered to join theFrench Royal Army, serving as asecond lieutenant in the12th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval before becoming anaide-de-camp toJean François Cornu de La Poype. Leclerc remained loyal to theFrench First Republic which replaced theKingdom of France and was promoted to the rank ofcaptain, serving as thechief of staff of aFrench Revolutionary Army division during thesiege of Toulon in 1793, where he metNapoleon for the first time.[citation needed]
Following the capture of Toulon, he served in theArmy of the Rhine and fought in theItalian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars, participating in the battles ofCastiglione andRivoli and rising to the rank ofbrigade general by 1797. Leclerc was subsequently ordered to bring news of thePeace of Leoben to theFrench Directory inParis. Napoleon's sisterPauline Bonaparte, who had a large number of suitors, was pressing him to have her married off to a man of his choosing. Upon Leclerc's return to Paris, he accepted Napoleon's offer to marry Pauline. The couple would go on to have one child,Dermide Leclerc, and resided in theChâteau de Montgobert.[citation needed]
Leclerc was later appointed aschief of staff underLouis-Alexandre Berthier andGuillaume Brune, participating in thesecond French expedition to Ireland led byJean Joseph Amable Humbert in 1798. After Napoleon returned from theFrench invasion of Egypt and Syria, he promoted Leclerc to the rank ofdivisional general and sent him back to the Army of the Rhine, then underJean Victor Marie Moreau's command. He subsequently participated in theCoup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799 which made Napoleon theFirst Consul of France. During the coup, supported byJoachim Murat, Leclerc ordered a detachment ofgrenadiers to march into theCouncil of Five Hundred.[citation needed]
He later fought in theWar of the Second Coalition, including at thebattle of Hohenlinden, receiving the supreme command of the 17th, 18th, and 19th divisions of the French army. Leclerc was then appointed ascommander-in-chief of a French armycorps that Napoleon planned to send toPortugal to force the Portuguese government to renounce theAnglo-Portuguese Alliance, though that expedition never took place.[citation needed]
In 1791,enslaved Black people in the French colony ofSaint-Domingue (modern-dayHaiti) launched aslave rebellion which initiated theHaitian Revolution. Two years later in August 1793, French commissionerLéger-Félicité Sonthonax officially abolished slavery on Saint-Domingue as part of an effort to win over Haitians to the cause of the French First Republic. Prominent Haitian leaderToussaint Louverture, himself a former slave, joined the French Republicans shortly afterwards. By 1801, Louverture had consolidated his rule over the entire island ofHispaniola. In July 1801, he promulgated a new constitution for Saint-Domingue which appointed himself as governor for life, while simultaneously reaffirming the colony's position as "part of the French empire."[1]
Upon receiving news from Saint-Domingue in October 1801, Napoleon interpreted Louverture's new constitution as an unacceptable offense to French colonial authority, and subsequently appointed Leclerc as the commander of amilitary expedition to restore France's authority in Saint-Domingue.[2][3] In his initial instructions, Napoleon directed Leclerc to liquidate Louverture's government and deport his military officers to France, while publicly maintaining the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue. Napoleon announced his intentions to reinstate slavery in the neighbouringCaptaincy General of Santo Domingo, which Louverture's forces had recently occupied.[4] Secretly, Napoleon planned to reinstate slavery in Saint-Domingue once Louverture had been detained by French troops.[5]
Leclerc leftBrest, France on 14 December 1801 at the head of aFrench Navy fleet transporting 40,000 troops, publicly repeating Bonaparte's promise that "all of the people of Saint-Domingue are French" and would remain forever free. Louverture's harsh discipline had made him numerous enemies, and Leclerc played off the ambitions of Louverture's officers and competitors against each other, promising them that they would maintain their ranks in the French army and convincing them to abandon Louverture. The French won several victories against Haitian forces and regained control of Saint-Domingue in three months after fierce fighting, with Louverture forced to negotiate a surrender with Leclerc which resulted in him being placed underhouse arrest in hisplantations. However, Napoleon had given secret instructions to Leclerc to arrest Louverture, which he did during a meeting before deporting him to France, where Louverture died in 1803 while imprisoned atFort de Joux in theJura Mountains.[citation needed]
Despite his superiors' warnings, Leclerc did not consolidate his victory by disarming Louverture's officers and troops. After a brief period in which he incorporated many of Louverture's officers into his own army, Haitians in Leclerc's forces began to desert during the second half of 1802. These desertions, along with uprisings by Haitians against French rule, occurred in response to news that slavery had been reestablished in the nearby French colony ofGuadeloupe. The prospect of a similar restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue swung the tide inexorably against French hopes of reimposing control, as Leclerc began summarily executing suspected conspirators en masse.[citation needed]
By October 1802, Leclerc wrote a letter to Napoleon advocating for awar of annihilation, declaring that "We must destroy all the blacks of the mountains – men and women – and spare only children under 12 years of age. We must destroy half of those in the plains and must not leave a single colored person in the colony who has worn an epaulette." He also lamented his assignment in the letter, declaring "My soul is withered, and no joyful thought can ever make forget these hideous scenes."[6] In the meantime, more Black officers defected from Leclerc's army, includingJean-Jacques Dessalines,Alexandre Pétion andHenri Christophe. After Christophe massacred several hundredPolish soldiers atPort-de-Paix following his defection, Leclerc ordered the arrest of all remaining Black troops in French service inLe Cap, executing 1,000 of them by tying sacks of flour to their necks and pushing them off the side of ships.[7]
In November 1802, Leclerc died ofyellow fever, which had already decimated his army. Pauline returned to Europe, where she later married the Italian noblemanCamillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona. Leclerc was succeeded in his command byDonatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, whose similarly brutal tactics drove more Haitians to resist the French. On 18 November 1803,François Capois defeated Rochambeau's army in theBattle of Vertières. Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue asHaiti on 1 January 1804. In the meantime, Leclerc's body had been transported to France by Pauline and buried on one of his estates.[citation needed]
A statue atPontoise depicts Leclerc in his French army uniform, his scabbard touching the earth. It was placed byLouis Nicolas Davout and his second wife Louise-Aimée-Julie at the top of a staircase built in 1869 by François Lemot. Around three metres high, the statue is on a square stone pedestal inscribed with information on him in goldmajuscule letters. It adjoins the south side of thePontoise Cathedral. There is also a statue of him byJean Guillaume Moitte in thePantheon de Paris, and another statue of Leclerc fully nude at thePalace of Versailles which was sculpted byCharles Dupaty.[8]
