page_title: Pierre Augereau
section_title: Napoleonic Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Pierre Augereau / Biography / Napoleonic Wars
caption_attribution_description: Maréchal Pierre Augereau (1757-1816), duc de Castiglione
context_page_description: Charles Pierre François Augereau, 1st Duke of Castiglione was a French military commander and a Marshal of the Empire who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. After serving in the Revolutionary Wars, he earned rapid promotion while fighting against Spain and soon found himself as a division commander under Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy. He fought in all of Bonaparte's battles of 1796 with great distinction. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon entrusted Augereau with important commands. His life ended under a cloud because of his poor timing in switching sides between Napoleon and King Louis XVIII of France. Napoleon wrote of Augereau that he "has plenty of character, courage, firmness, activity; is inured to war; is well liked by the soldiery; is fortunate in his operations."
context_section_description: Augereau commanded a camp in Brest, Brittany, during preparations for the invasion of Britain. When Napoleon called off the invasion because of the growing threat from Austria and Russia, the camp became the VII Corps of the Grande Armée. With this force, Augereau fought in the War of the Third Coalition. His corps was charged with protecting the army’s lines of communications during the Ulm campaign. He fought in the battles of Konstanz and Bregenz, before tracking down and destroying General Franz Jellacic's Austrian division at Dornbirn in Vorarlberg on 13 November 1805. This was followed by the occupation of Frankfurt am Main. His wife Gabrielle died while he was away.
  During the War of the Fourth Coalition, Augereau was again commander of the VII Corps. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Jena on 14 October 1806 where his corps made up the left flank. Early in 1807, he fell ill with fever, and at the Battle of Eylau on 7 February 1807, he had to be supported on his horse. Nevertheless, he directed the movements of his corps with his usual bravery. Augereau's corps was almost annihilated and the marshal himself received a wound in the arm from grapeshot.
  Augereau became Duke of Castiglione on 19 March 1808, a hereditary victory title (i.e. not in chief of an actual fief, but a hollow title), in honour of the 1796 victory. In 1809, he married the 19-year-old Adélaïde Josephine Bourlon de Chavange (1789 – 1869) whom he had become infatuated with. Adélaïde, the daughter of Gilles Bernard Bourlon de Chavange and wife Jeanne Françoise Launuy, had no children with Augereau and the ducal title became extinct upon his death. His wife later remarried Camille de Sainte-Aldegonde (1787 – 1853), by whom she had a daughter Valentine de Sainte-Aldegonde (1820 – 1891), who married the 3rd Duke of Dino.
  While serving in Catalonia during the Peninsular War from February to May 1810, Augereau gained some successes but tarnished his name with cruelty. During the Russian campaign in 1812, Augereau guarded the Grande Armée's rear flanks. He sat out the German campaign in spring 1813 due to illness. Before the Battle of Leipzig in October, Napoleon reproached him with not being the Augereau of Castiglione; to which he replied, "Give me back the old soldiers of Italy, and I will show you that I am." Yet, he led the IX Corps at Leipzig with skill and brought off his command in good order.
  In 1814, Augereau was given command of the army of Lyon, and his slackness exposed him to the charge of having come to an understanding with the Allies. Thereafter, he served the restored Bourbon King Louis XVIII of France. But, after reviling Napoleon, he went over to him during the Hundred Days. The emperor repulsed Augereau and charged him with being a traitor to France in 1814.
  After being re-restored to the throne in 1815 following Napoleon's defeat, King Louis XVIII deprived Augereau of his military title and pension. Augereau died at his estate of La Houssaye only a year later. He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
caption: Marshal Pierre Augereau, duke of Castiglione by Robert Lefèvre
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