Charles François Dumouriez Biography

Dromo's Den

DUMOURIEZ, Charles François (1739-1823). A French general and politician, born at Cambrai, Jan. 25, 1739. His father was a commissary officer in the French army, and young Dumouriez obtained a commission and fought in the Seven Years' War, retiring in 1763 with the rank of captain, a small pension, and the cross of St. Louis. After some years spent in travel Dumouriez was appointed quartermaster-general to the Corsican expedition by the Duke de Choiseul and was later sent on a secret mission to Poland. Though employed by D'Aiguillon, the successor of Choiseul, Dumouriez fell into disgrace while on a mission in Sweden and spent the last months of Louis XV's reign in the Bastille and the Château at Caen. Under Louis XVI, however, he was made commandant at Cherbourg, where he commenced the creation of a great naval establishment. In 1788 he was made a major general, and on the outbreak of the Revolution attached himself at first to Lafayette and Mirabeau, but in 1790 became connected with the Jacobin Club and managed to secure a command in Normandy. In 1792 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, but resigned to become lieutenant general of the Army of the North. He operated successfully against the Duke of Brunswick, who received a severe check at Valmy (September 20) and was forced to abandon the invasion of French territory. He then pressed into the Austrian Netherlands and defeated the enemy at Jemappes, on Nov. 6, 1792. This was the period of his highest power, and for the moment he was the greatest man in France. In 1793, after several small successes, Dumouriez was checked in his career of conquest by the Austrians under Prince Coburg in the battle of Neerwinden. Denounced at Paris as a traitor, he refused to appear before the bar of the Assembly to answer to the charges. After vainly trying to induce his army to embrace the cause of royalty, Dumouriez in despair deserted to the Austrians, with a few of his officers. The Convention set a price of 300,000 francs upon his head. After wandering through many countries of Europe, he finally settled in England, where he died in exile at Turville Park, near Henley-upon-Thames. March 14, 1823. Besides a multitude of pamphlets, Dumouriez wrote Mémoires du général Dumouriez (Hamburg, 1796) and La vie et les Mémoires du général Dumouriez (3d ed., Paris, 1822-24). Consult: Welschinger, Le roman de Dumouriez (ib., 1890); Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals (London, 1891); Chuquet, La première invasion prussienne (Paris, 1856); Valmy (1887); La retraite de Brunswick (1887); Jemappes (1890); La trahison de Duniouriez (lß91); Rose and Broadley, Dumouriez and the Defence of England Against Napoleon (London, 1908).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 323-324.