page_title: Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty
section_title: Bourbon Restoration
hierarchical_section_title: Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty / Bourbon Restoration
caption_attribution_description: English: General count Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty.
context_page_description: Étienne-Marie-Antoine Champion, comte de Nansouty was a French cavalry commander during the French Revolutionary Wars who rose to the rank of General of Division in 1803 and subsequently held important military commands during the Napoleonic Wars.
  Of noble Burgundian descent, he was a student at the Brienne military school, then was a graduate of the Paris military school. Nansouty began his military career in 1785, as a sub-lieutenant in the regiment Bourgogne-Infanterie, where his father had served during the wars of Louis XV. A cavalry officer at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, Nansouty was commissioned as an aide-de-camp to Marshal Nicolas Luckner. During the First Coalition, he saw service as a lieutenant-colonel and squadron commander in the 9th Cavalry Regiment, campaigning with the French armies on the Rhine and in Germany. Promoted to Colonel in 1793 and given the command of the 9th Cavalry, he was noted for several well-led cavalry actions.
context_section_description: Having left his command to General Belliard on 8 March, three days later, Nansouty was a part of a convoy of several officers, heading to Paris. On the road to the capital, they were attacked by a pulk of Cossacks, which managed to disperse the convoy's escort. Nansouty and his officers fought their way out sabre in hand and made a run for it towards the river Aisne. Reaching the riverbanks, the General got isolated and, as he was preparing to cross the river on horseback, his horse was shot under him, throwing the General to the ground. Nevertheless, he stood up and swam to the other bank of the river and safety. This event, as well as his tireless activity during the campaign, seem to suggest that his health was not the main reason of his departure from the army. It is also unlikely that the Emperor himself decided to replace him, given Belliard's tentative approach at the Battle of Craonne and this General's subsequent provisional status as commander, after Nansouty's departure. It is thus more likely that Nansouty resigned, following his disputes with the Emperor.
  General Nansouty arrived in Paris and there he remained during the Bourbon Restoration that followed Napoleon's abdication. He was one of the first general officers to swear allegiance to the new King of France, Louis XVIII, who would bestow a number of honours upon the General. His gesture encouraged many other generals to also swear allegiance to the new regime. On 12 April 1814, Nansouty was named extraordinary commissioner of the King in the 2nd military division, then, on 20 April, became a member of the commission that was in charge of the dissolution of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. He was given the distinction of Knight of the Order of Saint Louis on 1 June and on 6 July he was called to a command in the Military Household of the King of France, as captain-lieutenant of the 1st company of musketeers (grey musketeers). Despite these positions, Nansouty's financial situation declined severely under the Restoration. The General had had a highly honourable behaviour during the Napoleonic Wars and, unlike some of his fellow Napoleonic Generals, had drawn no revenues from pillaging. He had also been living a lofty and very costly lifestyle, which he considered normal for a nobleman such as himself. Nansouty had been earning a high revenue from his various positions during the Empire and additionally Napoleon was constantly paying high endowments to his best generals. Napoleonic endowments aside, Nansouty's salaries during the first four months of 1814 had brought him no less than 104,000 Francs, but, under the Bourbons, his dignity as Colonel-General of dragoons had been suppressed and transformed into an honorific title of Inspector of dragoons, leaving him with only a 25,000 Francs salary as captain-lieutenant in the King's Military Household.
caption: General Nansouty portrayed as Colonel-General of Dragoons, a position he held between January 1813 and until the Bourbon Restoration
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