Enlisted at seventeen, a fencing master in Naples, he was made a general five years after the start of the Revolution, then Duke of Castiglione. At Eylau, ill, he had himself tied to his horse. In 1814 he refused to fight and called Napoleon a tyrant: the Emperor struck him off the list of marshals.
The story
Born in Paris in 1757 into a very poor family, Augereau enlisted at seventeen, served in the Prussian army and then at Naples, where he lived for a while as a fencing master. The Revolution took him back into the National Guard: he was a general of division within five years.
Italy made his name. Ceva in April 1796, Lodi on 10 May under Austrian fire, then Castiglione on 5 August 1796, where his intervention decided the victory; on 15 November he rushed the bridge at Arcole at the head of his men. He then carried out in Paris the anti-royalist orders of 18 Fructidor.
Opposed to 18 Brumaire, he came round on the morning itself by embracing Bonaparte. Marshal of France on the original list of 1804, he attended the coronation, beat the Saxons and crushed Rüchel at Jena on 14 October 1806, and received the title of Duke of Castiglione on 19 March 1808.
At Eylau, on 8 February 1807, ill, he had himself strapped to his horse; his corps, lost in a snowstorm, was cut to pieces by the Russian guns. Spain then brought him as many defeats as victories and a dismissal to his estates, before Leipzig in October 1813, where his stubborn defence won back the Emperor's favour.
In 1814, commanding the corps at Lyon, he declined battle, had the white cockade put up and called Napoleon a tyrant. During the Hundred Days the Emperor struck him from the roll of marshals as a “traitor to France”; Louis XVIII dropped him in turn. He died at La Houssaye on 12 June 1816, of a disease of the chest, leaving no heir.
The grave
A family chapel whose pediment bears the arms of the Duke of Castiglione: the title, granted in 1808, is the only thing the stone keeps of a career that ended in a double disgrace. Dead without issue in 1816, Augereau rests there with the Sainte-Aldegonde family, allied to his own. His name is elsewhere, engraved on the twenty-third column of the Arc de Triomphe, and on a street in the 7th arrondissement.
On site, do not miss
The ducal arms carved on the pediment of the chapel — a title won at Castiglione and lost twice, in 1815 and then under the Restoration.
Visitors' questions
Where is Marshal Augereau's grave?
In Division 59, Avenue Circulaire, second row, in the upper part of the cemetery. It is a family chapel, recognisable by the arms of the Duke of Castiglione carved into its pediment — the only sign of his rank on the stone.
Nestor MakhnoWhy was he Duke of Castiglione?
In memory of the Battle of Castiglione, on 5 August 1796, where his intervention decided the French victory in Italy. Napoleon granted him the title on 19 March 1808, four years after making him a Marshal of France.
Henri CurielWhy did Napoleon strike him from the list of marshals?
Because in 1814, commanding the Lyon corps, he refused to fight, had his troops adopt the white cockade, and issued a proclamation calling the Emperor a tyrant. During the Hundred Days, Napoleon struck him off as a “traitor to France”.
Alexandre AguadoWhere did Marshal Augereau come from?
From a very modest Parisian family. Enlisting at seventeen, he served in the Prussian army and then in Naples as a fencing master, before the Revolution made him a divisional general within five years.
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