Jean-Marie Defrance

Jean-Marie Defrance (; 1771–1835) was a French military officer and politician who was a General in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was also a member of the Council of Five Hundred (the lower house of the legislative branch of the French government under The Directory), and a teacher at the military school of Rebais, Champagne.

Defrance had an extensive and successful military career in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. After the First Battle of Zurich, he refused a battlefield promotion to brigadier general, asking instead for a cavalry regiment; he received command of the 12th Regiment of Chasseurs-a-Cheval (light cavalry) as Chef-de-Brigade, a rank equivalent to colonel. He led this brigade in the campaigns of 1799–1800 in southwestern Germany and northern Italy. By 1805, he had been promoted to brigadier general. At the Battle of Austerlitz and the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, he commanded a cavalry brigade of carabiniers in Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty's First Division. By the Battle of Borodino in September 1812, he had been promoted to general of division, commanding the 4th Cuirassier Division of Nansouty's reserves, where they charged the Shevardino redoubt. He fought his way across Germany to the Rhine River after the French loss at Leipzig and participated in the Six Days' Campaign.

In the Hundred Days, he commanded part of Jean Maximilien Lamarques Army of the West. At the second Bourbon Restoration, he retained his titles and honours and subsequently held several command posts until retirement in 1829. He died in 1835.

Family

Jean-Marie Defrance was born on 21 September 1771 at Vassy, in the Champagne province and died 6 July 1835. On his mother's side, he was the grandson of the French writer Pierre Chompré (16981760); his father, Jean-Claude Defrance, was the medical doctor at the Royal Military School of Rebais, in Champagne. Jean-Marie Defrance married the daughter of the richest jeweler in Paris, by the name Foncier.

Military career Defrance was stationed in Saint-Domingue during the first Haitian revolt and served in the volunteers Cape Dragoons. On his return to France in 1792, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the cavalry regiment royal-étranger. After serving in the Army of the North, he was appointed adjutant-general brigadier in the Army of Sambre and t-Meuse. He also served in the Council of Five Hundred. As Chef-de-Brigade, the equivalent of colonel in France's revolutionary-era field army, Defrance went to Italy and participated in the actions leading up to the Battle of Marengo. During the winter of 1800–1801, he campaigned in the Grisons in Switzerland and returned to France after the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801.

Honors Napoleon raised him to Count of the Empire on 2 July 1808. These were assigned to Nansouty's Reserves and assaulted the Shevardino redoubt on 5–6 September.

During the Saxon campaign, Defrance was appointed Inspector General for the Grande Armée.

In January 1814, for the last few months of Napoleon's rule, Defrance commanded four regiments of Imperial Guard and fought in the action of 11 February at Montmirail, during the Six Days' Campaign. On 7 March, with much smaller force than his opponent, he repulsed the Russian assault at Rheims, but on 12 March was forced to relinquish the city as more Coalition troops arrived. The following day, he attacked the Russian cavalry, but was again forced to withdraw when faced with superior numbers. Defrance did not participate in the Battle of Rocheserviere, in which Lemarque's army brutally crushed the anticipated Vendéen uprising. He remained instead at his post of the 18th military division, inspecting the cavalry depots in the upper Loire. Defrance retained his rank after the second restoration and commanded the First Military Division in Paris from 1819 to 1822. He also taught at the military school in Rebais.

Defrance's name is engraved on the east side of the Arc de Triomphe.