Pierre Dumanoir Le Pelley

Vice-Admiral Pierre Étienne René Marie Dumanoir Le Pelley (2 August 1770 – 7 July 1829) was a French Navy officer best known for commanding the vanguard of the French fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. His conduct during this battle was the subject of controversy.

Family Pierre Étienne René Marie Dumanoir Le Pelley was descended from a very old family of the Granville bourgeoisie, who had once earned a considerable fortune in maritime armaments and was ennobled by King Louis XVIII.

His father Louis Pierre Etienne Le Pelley (1733-1807), Sieur du Manoir, was a privateer captain, shipowner and bourgeois of Granville. Pierre Dumanoir Le Pelley is the 2nd cousin of Georges René Le Peley de Pléville (1726-1805).

His mother

Promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1790, he was appointed to the staff of Admiral Martin. He served on Sans-Culotte. He was not yet twenty-three years old when he was appointed Lieutenant de vaisseau in June 1793. After the battle, Dumanoir was reprimanded for failing to reinforce Linois. On the death of Admiral de Latouche-Tréville on 20 August 1804, he was aboard the Formidable and was provisionally in command of the Toulon squadron and hoped to retain command. However, the Emperor called Vice-Admiral de Villeneuve there. A letter from Napoleon dated 28 August 1804 gives the reasons for it: Other authors write that he remained a motionless spectator even though he still had the Formidable, the Duguay-Trouin, the Scipion and the Mont Blanc under his command, and that he walked away without fighting. He remained unassigned, was brought before a board of enquiry in December 1809, and reprimanded; he demanded to appear before a maritime war council composed of senators Fleuriot and Bougainville and admirals Thévenard and de Rosily in March 1810, he was acquitted.

Dumanoir explained the retreat of his ships as a measure of prudence: "To arrive at this moment on the enemy, would have been a blow of despair which would only have resulted in increasing the number of our losses and adding to the advantage of the enemy, to whom by the dilapidation of my division I would not have been able to cause much damage".

The commission concluded that : Dumanoir had manoeuvred in accordance with the signals he had received and that he had followed the impulse of duty and honour. That he had done what the winds and circumstances had allowed him to do to come to the rescue of the flagship. That he had fought as closely as possible against all the ships he had dealt with. Finally, he had only left the battle when he was forced to do so by the damage to his ship and the impossibility of manoeuvring in the state his mast was in.

Bourbon Restoration Returning to France in July 1814, he received the title of Count from King Louis XVIII during the first First Restoration by letters patent dated 2 December 1814; he was made a Knight of Saint-Louis in 1815. He then commanded the naval division that led the Marquis de Rivière, Louis XVIII's ambassador to Constantinople. An order of 22 August 1816 had reduced the number of counter-admirals from 21 to 12. In 1817, in accordance with this order, the list of general officers to be retained was drawn up: Dumanoir was the first on it.

He died suddenly in Paris during the night of 6–7 July 1829 and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery (19th division).

Honours