François Dutertre

François Dutertre (4 September 1760 – 11 April 1843). was a French Brigadier general who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. François Dutertre is most known for being accused of numerous criminal activities. Dutertre is also known for his controversial role in the War in the Vendée and for commanding the escort of the Fructidor deportees to Cayenne in 1797. In his 1800 work, Départ du temple, pour Cayenne, François Dutertre sought to refute the atrocities attributed to him . In 1789, he was convicted of robbing a pharmacist’s shop and reselling the goods in Brittany, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison or even the galleys. in the Antilles . In 1789, he was again convicted of theft and sentenced to prison .

He joined the National Volunteers and was promoted to second lieutenant of the grenadiers by his comrades-in-arms on July 18, 1792 ) . He provided information on Chouan leaders in the Fougères . On 14 Brumaire Year V, he was acquitted of these charges . The fifth war council annulled the first judgment and acquitted Dutertre on 4 Brumaire Year IV. Dutertre claimed to have been the guardian of the Temple Tower when William Sidney Smith was imprisoned there. On 19 Fructidor Year V (after the Coup of 18 Fructidor), he was reinstated as brigadier general in the 17th Military Division, commanded by Charles-Pierre Augereau . He amassed numerous Biens nationaux in Mayenne, seized from émigré families such as the de Montesson and de Froulay.

Role in the Fructidor Deportation The Deportation In September 1797, after the Coup of 18 Fructidor, the French Directory (despite Dutertre’s prior in absentia conviction for theft and embezzlement) and Charles-Pierre Augereau tasked him with escorting 18 political figures—suspected of Royalist sympathies and condemned to deportation—to Rochefort and then to Sinnamary, French Guiana. Among the deportees were Jean-Charles Pichegru, François Barthélemy, Jean-Pierre Ramel, André-Daniel Laffon de Ladebat, and François Barbé-Marbois. His mission was politically sensitive: ensure the deportees’ security while treating them humanely, despite strict instructions and risks of attacks or escapes . According to several sources, Dutertre’s mission was carried out with indelicacy and ferocity . Dismissal and Arrest On 1 Complementary Day Year V (September 17, 1797), the French Directory relieved him of command and ordered his return from Lusignan to Paris. En route, he was insulted, assaulted . On the night of July 22–23, 1799, near Saint-Cyr-en-Pail , he mistook three merchants for 300 Chouans and beat a retreat toward Javron. This episode was later ridiculed by Delelée, commissioner of Pré-en-Pail. Another version states that Dutertre and four cavalrymen dispersed the attackers and prevented the theft of transported goods . He ceased to be considered a military man, was suspended from his retirement pay, arrested, and imprisoned in the Prison de l'Abbaye. He was sent under surveillance to Douai on May 31, 1800. On 4 Brumaire Year VIII, Pierre-Mathieu Joubert, Prefect of Nord, denounced Dutertre as an immoral being and enemy of the government; his letter was forwarded to the Prefect of Police . He was then sent to Menin due to remarks he made against the prefect and the arms commander of Douai, Louis Jean Dessaubaz of General Claude François de Malet against Napoleon. In the summer of 1808, Malet, Dutertre, Hunet, and other officers were arrested and charged with anti-government conspiracy aimed at restoring the Republic .

On March 10, 1809, he appeared before the Mayenne court with a man named Noël for fraud on October 13, 1812 , he was returned to France by the Gendarmerie and imprisoned in Lyon . In 1820, he was in Soissons, where the king’s prosecutor inquired about his presence and requested information on "Mr. Dutertre" from the Minister of War . After the May 1839 Insurrection in Paris, Dutertre was in Villebernier, Maine-et-Loire, and was included on the list of the most dangerous individuals for the July Monarchy established by the sub-prefect of Saumur . The circumstances of his death remain unknown that, later placed in Saint-Malo, he abandoned his wife (with whom he had reconciled) and children there. Alphonse-Victor Angot indicated that he arrived in Paris under the name Dutertre de la Bouverie (La Bouverie being land in Chantrigné he had acquired as a bien national from the de Hercé family). It is possible that his son was the secretary of Jacques-Joseph Corbière, Minister of the Interior under the Bourbon Restoration

Death The newspaper Le Commerce announced the death of Maréchal de Camp Duport-Dutertre in Villebernier on April 11, 1843, at the age of 83.