Jean - Baptiste Meynier Jean - Baptiste Meynier , born 22 April 1749 – died 3 December 1813 , was a French soldier who served during the American Revolutionary War , the French Revolutionary Wars , and the Napoleonic Wars . Between 1792 and 1793 , he rose from a captain to a general of division . During the Montenotte Campaign in 1796 , he commanded a division under Napoleon Bonaparte , who had a low opinion of his military talent . In 1803 he was appointed to command the fortress of Mainz . He died there in 1813 . Career . Meynier enlisted in the French royal army in 1765 and later fought in the American Revolutionary War . He returned to France in 1785 and was promoted to sous - lieutenant in 1788 , lieutenant in 1791 , and captain in 1792 . Thereafter , promotion was rapid during the French Revolutionary Wars . He was captured on 3 March 1793 and soon released . He was appointed commander of Landau on 7 April 1793 . On 20 May 1793 , Meynier was promoted to general of brigade and on 27 September that year he became a general of division . Meynier led the Avantgarde of the Army of the Rhine at the First Battle of Wissembourg on 13 October 1793 . Augustin Joseph Isambert ' s brigade included the 6th , 48th , and 105th Line Infantry Regiments and the Corrèze , Lot - et - Garonne , and Jura National Guard Battalions . Ferette ' s brigade was made up of the 93rd and 95th Line Infantry Regiments . Jean - François Combez commanded the 1st and 2nd Grenadier Battalions , and the 7th Hussars , 8th and 10th Chasseurs à Cheval , and 8th , 11th , and 17th Dragoons . An 30 October 1793 order of battle shows Meynier ' s Avantgarde consisting of the same units as at Wissembourg , with the 93rd and 95th Line subtracted and the 12th Line added . In addition , the cavalry regiments were regrouped under the command of Jean Claude Loubat de Bohan . On 17 to 20 September 1794 , Meynier led a division in the battle of Kaiserslautern . In the Coalition victory , both sides lost about 1 , 000 killed and wounded , but the Coalition forces captured 3 , 100 Frenchmen , four guns , and three colors . A muster roll for Napoleon Bonaparte ' s Army of Italy on 9 April 1796 shows Meynier in command of one of two divisions in André Masséna ' s Advance Guard . Under his leadership were 9 , 526 troops in the 11th and 27th Light Infantry Demi - Brigades , the 25th , 51st , old 51st , and 55th Line Infantry Demi - Brigades . He led these troops during the Montenotte Campaign . On 22 April 1796 , Bonaparte broke up his division and attached Meynier to headquarters . On 14 August 1796 , Bonaparte wrote a brutally frank assessment of his generals . He considered Meynier , Pierre Dominique Garnier , and Raphael Casabianca as , " incapable ; not fit to command a battalion in a war as active as this one . " Meynier was appointed commander of the 18th Military District in 1800 . He was named governor of the fortress of Mainz in 1803 . He received the Commander ' s Cross of the Légion d ' Honneur in 1804 . He died at Mainz on 3 December 1813 . Meynier ' s death occurred during the Allied blockade of Mainz , which lasted from 21 November 1813 and ended on 4 May 1814 after Emperor Napoleon ' s abdication . Charles Antoine Morand was the general in command of the 17 , 000 defenders .