Jacques Pastur

Jacques Pastur, chevalier de Saint-Lazare (Waterloo, 12 June 1659 – Waterloo, 3 May 1723 ) was a Southern Netherlands officer who fought on the Allied side in the Nine Years' War and on the French side in the War of the Spanish Succession and reached the rank of Mestre de camp. He was especially active in petite guerre actions, where he earned great renown with cavalry raids.

Life Personal life Pastur was born the son of Gérard Pastur, farmer, and Marie Wits. To ensure payment about sixty hostages were taken, mostly people in authority, like burgomasters, bailiffs, and other magistrates. In retaliation for the depredations of Grovestins, according to Quincy, Pastur could have burned down Tholen and Steenbergen in their entirety, but it sufficed for him to just put a few houses to the torch, to make his point, and left it to the inhabitants to extinguish the fire. His troopers showed less moderation as they pillaged the communities, taking most of the possessions of the richer inhabitants. While Pastur was busy with his punitive expedition, the garrisons of the fortified places in the area mobilized to pursue him and if possible, surround him. Prince Eugene sent a detachment of 30 squadrons of cavalry to Leuven to try and cut him off at the pass, but it was in vain as they arrived three hours after Pastur had already passed the city on his way back to Namur, where he arrived on the night of 27 August, with his sixty hostages, and a large amount of war booty, among which a hundred drayhorses. He had lost just one dragoon.

After the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, Pastur went into French service. He took part in the Rhine campaign of 1713. On 15 September 1713, he was in Landau after the fourth Siege of that city had been victorious for the French. He again received the rank of mestre de camp on 20 March 1716. In 1718, he is Maréchal de camp and Louis XV has created him a Chevalier de Saint-Lazare.

Pastur died in his birthplace Waterloo on 2 May 1723.