Jean-Charles Pichegru was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars. Under his command, French troops overran Belgium and the Netherlands before fighting on the Rhine front. His royalist positions led to his loss of power and imprisonment in Cayenne, French Guiana during the Coup of 18 Fructidor in 1797. After escaping into exile in London and joining the staff of Alexander Korsakov, he returned to France and planned the Pichegru Conspiracy to remove Napoleon from power, which led to his arrest and death. Despite his defection, his surname is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe, on Column 3.
Portrait by Charles Howard Hodges, 1795
"The Death of Pichegru" (painting by Georges Moreau de Tours, 1891).
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and the Rhineland. French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
French Revolutionary Wars
Anonymous caricature depicting the treatment given to the Brunswick Manifesto by the French population
While the First Coalition attacked the new Republic, France faced civil war and counter-revolutionary guerrilla war. Here, several insurgents of the Chouannerie have been taken prisoner.
General Jourdan at the battle of Fleurus, 26 June 1794