Jean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello,1st Prince de Siewierz (10 April 1769 – 31 May 1809), was a Marshal of the Empire. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant". A personal friend of the emperor, he was allowed to address him with the familiar "tu", as opposed to the formal "vous". Lannes ranks with Louis Nicolas Davout and André Masséna as the ablest of all of Napoleon's marshals.
During a lull in the Battle of Aspern-Essling, Marshal Lannes went and sat down at the edge of a ditch, his hand over his eyes and his legs crossed. As he sat there, plunged in gloomy meditation on having seen his friend general de brigade Pouzet killed mid-conversation by a cannonball, a cannonball, fired from a gun at Enzersdorf, ricochetted, and struck him just where his legs crossed. Both his legs had to be amputated. On 23 May he was transported by boat to the finest house in Kaiserebersdorf. Eight days later he succumbed to his wounds at daybreak on 31 May. Lannes was initially buried in Les Invalides, Paris. But in 1810, Lannes was exhumed and reinterred in the Panthéon national after a grandiose ceremony.
No comments:
Post a Comment