page_title: Nicolas Léonard Beker
section_title: Hundred Days
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Léonard Beker / Hundred Days
context_page_description: Nicolas Léonard Beker or Nicolas Léonard Becker or Nicolas Léonard Bagert, born 18 January 1770 – died 18 November 1840, joined the French army as a dragoon before the French Revolutionary Wars and rose in rank to become a general officer. In 1800 he married the sister of Louis Desaix, who was killed at the Battle of Marengo. He led an infantry brigade in the 1805 campaign and commanded a dragoon division in 1806 and 1807. In 1809 he became chief of staff to Marshal André Masséna but ran afoul of Emperor Napoleon and was banished from the army for several years.
  After Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and the collapse of his regime, the interim French government appointed Beker to guard the ex-emperor. The general behaved correctly during the intrigues surrounding Napoleon before he went into exile at Saint Helena. Nevertheless, he was summarily retired during the Bourbon Restoration and only received the honors due him many years later. Beker is one of the names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe.
context_section_description: King Louis XVIII of France restored Beker to service on 3 June 1814. Described as "stubborn and hard-headed", he ran for office and was elected as the representative from Puy-de-Dôme on 8 May 1815. This was during the Hundred Days when Napoleon returned and the king fled. Within weeks, Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and on 20 June Beker was ordered to report to Paul Grenier and assist in the defense of Paris.
  At the orders of Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout, Beker was sent to the Château de Malmaison purportedly "to ensure the Emperor's safety". Actually, Joseph Fouché, who controlled the interim government, feared that Napoleon might rejoin the French army and continue the war. Fouché and Davout knew there was every reason for Beker to dislike Napoleon and found him the perfect person to keep a close guard on the abdicated emperor. Beker tried to avoid the unpleasant task, but his duty as a soldier overcame his disgust at the intrigues going on in Paris at the time.
  Napoleon hoped to flee to the United States from the port of Rochefort, while Fouché wished to hand the ex-emperor over to the Allies. Beker accompanied his former sovereign until 15 July, when Napoleon surrendered his person to the captain of a British man-of-war at the Île-d'Aix. After the event, Louis XVIII's war minister Marshal Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr peremptorily ordered Beker to go home and remain there. He was not reinstated in rank until 1818. He belatedly received the Order of Saint Louis in 1825 and the Grand Cordon of the Légion d'Honneur in 1831.
  Beker died at Aubiat, Puy-de-Dôme on 18 November 1840. His name is engraved on Column 26 of the Arc de Triomphe. His only son Napoleon Beker became a staff officer in the French royal army. After his son died on 21 April 1829, Beker adopted his sister's son Victor-Felix Martha Beker as the heir to the title Count of Mons.
caption: Napoleon going into exile aboard HMS Bellerophon.
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