Antoine François Brenier de Montmorand Antoine - François Brenier de Montmorand ( 12 November 1767 at Saint - Marcellin , Isère - 8 October 1832 ) served as a French general of division during the period of the First French Empire and became an officer of the Légion d ' honneur . Early career . Brenier enlisted in 1786 and gained rapid promotion during the period of the French Revolutionary Wars , becoming an aide - de - camp in 1792 and in 1793 a Chef de brigade ( colonel ) in the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees ( " Armée des Pyrénées orientales " ) . He served with distinction in various campaigns of the Revolutionary Wars , in Italy and in Holland . In 1799 he became Général de brigade . From 1801 to 1807 he served in administrative posts . Peninsular War . At the start of the Peninsular War , Brenier was assigned to Jean Andoche Junot ' s army for the 1807 Invasion of Portugal . During the Battle of Vimeiro on 20 August 1808 , Brenier ' s brigade surprised and drove back two British battalions , but it was soon defeated . Wounded and captured by the British , he returned to France from captivity in 1809 . In 1810 he again went to Portugal , serving under Marshal André Masséna . After the first Siege of Almeida , Brenier became its governor and held the post during Massena ' s unsuccessful third French invasion of Portugal in 1810 - 1811 . After the French army ' s retreat from Portugal , Arthur Wellesley , 1st Duke of Wellington ' s British army blockaded Almeida . While marching to Brenier ' s relief , Massena failed to fight his way past Wellington in the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro . During the night of 10 May 1811 Brenier threaded his 1 , 400 - man garrison through the lines of the 13 , 000 - strong British investment force in the second Siege of Almeida . His engineers set explosives which demolished the fortifications after his men got away . During the pursuit he lost 360 men , but the pursuing British ran into an ambush set by some troops of Jean Reynier ' s II Corps and the rest of Brenier ' s soldiers safely reached French lines . Wellington wrote , " I have never been so much distressed by any military event as by the escape of even a man of them . " This brilliant exploit earned Brenier promotion to general of division . During the Battle of Salamanca , Brenier ' s 4 , 300 - man 6th Division arrived inopportunely at the unfolding disaster on the left flank . Wellington ' s forces had just crushed the divisions of Jean Guillaume Barthélemy Thomières and Antoine Louis Popon de Maucune when Brenier ' s men came up , winded from a rapid march . Still in battalion columns , the division was first swamped with fleeing troops from Maucune ' s division , then beset by a brigade of British heavy dragoons led by John Le Marchant . Attacked before they could form square , Brenier ' s battalions were overrun and routed . However , some troops managed to rally in a forest and emerged from the woods in battle order . The heavy dragoons attacked again , this time breaking the division for good , but Le Marchant was killed in the action . Later career . Brenier played an honorable part in the campaign of 1813 . Leading the 9th Division in Marshal Michel Ney ' s III Corps , he was severely wounded at the Battle of Lützen in Saxony on 2 May 1813 . In 1814 he became commander of the 16th military district and supervised the fortification of Lille . Afterwards he took over the command of the city of Brest , where his actions during the Hundred Days earned him a sword of honour voted him by the municipal council . Brenier became a Count , the Inspector General of the Infantry from 1816 to 1818 , and the supreme commander in Corsica from 1820 to 1823 . He retired in 1827 and died on 8 October 1832 . His name appears on the west side of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris , on Column 35 .