Louis Klein Louis Klein ( full name : Dominique Louis Antoine Klein ) served in the French military during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars as a general of cavalry . Initially part of the house guard at the royal residences for Louis XVI , Klein left the military in 1787 . During the French Revolution , he enlisted and rose rapidly from a lieutenant to a brigadier general ; he participated in the French invasion of southwestern Germany in 1796 , and was part of the Army of the Danube in 1799 . His cavalry played critical roles in the battles of Austerlitz and Jena and Auerstadt . Following the Prussian campaign , he retired from active service , entered politics , and performed administrative duties in Paris . Klein served in the French Senate , and voted for Napoleon Bonaparte s abdication in 1814 ; he did not participate in the Hundred Days and Louis XVIII of France raised him to the French peerage upon the second restoration . Military career . Initially , Klein served in the royal house guard for the King of France , holding the prestigious position as guard of the gate . He left military service in 1787 . After the French Revolution began in 1789 , he rejoined the military and in 1792 , he was listed as an infantry lieutenant in the Army of the North . His cavalry regiment participated in the Battle of Fleurus . French Revolutionary Wars . By 1795 , Klein was a brigadier general in the Army of Sambre - et - Meuse , where he replaced Adjutant - General Michel Ney . Klein was appointed general of division in 1799 and crossed the Rhine at Kehl in Jean - Baptiste Jourdan s Army of the Danube . He commanded the right flank of the Advance Guard , under command of François Joseph Lefebvre . His command included the 4th and 5th Hussar Regiments , the 17th Dragoons , the 1st " Chasseurs à cheval " , a light horse regiment , two companies of horse artillery , two of foot artillery , and a company of sappers . At the Battle of Ostrach , Klein ' s cavalry helped to secure the village of Hosskirch , a strategically important forward post , prior to the general engagement . After the French losses at Ostrach and the subsequent Battle of Stockach , Jourdan ordered a general withdrawal to the Black Forest . The reserve cavalry and most of Klein ' s division crossed the mountains and quartered near Offenburg , where their horses could find better forage . Despite the organized withdrawal and the relatively secure positions on the western side of the Black Forest , the army was in shambles . Jourdan placed his chief of staff Jean Augustin Ernouf in provisional command and went to Paris to complain about the state of his army , its equipment and its provisions . Discipline in the ranks disintegrated . Most of the divisional generals left their posts , except for Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino , Joseph Souham , Dominique Vandamme and Klein . In May , Andre Massena received overall command of both the Army of the Danube and the Army of Helvetia ; Klein ' s column joined Massena near Zurich . In May 1799 , Klein led a cavalry division of 2 , 010 prior to the Battle of Winterthur . A few days later , he commanded the cavalry reserve against the Archduke Charles and the Austrian army at the First Battle of Zurich . Charles ' superior numbers and position forced the French to retreat from Zurich , taking up position on the western side of the Limmat River . In September , he again commanded the cavalry reserve , the VII . Division , of 3 , 696 on the left ( west ) bank of the Aar river . He was responsible for guarding the Frick valley ( Fricktal ) . There , as the dispositions developed for the Second Battle of Zurich on 25 September , Klein remained under direct command of Massena . Klein prepared to support either the troops of Jean Thomas Guillaume Lorge or Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier , on the north or south flanks respectively , as required . The Austrian assault fell hardest on Mortier , who was driven back from the strategically placed Dietikon . Klein ' s reserve enabled the French to retake and hold the village . This convinced the Russian commander in Zurich , Alexander Korsakov , that he should draw his troops back to the city fortifications . Later , as Korsakoff relinquished these , the Russians executed a confused withdrawal to Constance . In the chaos , Honoré Théodore Maxime Gazan ' s division , supported by Klein ' s reserve , pressed the Coalition forces hard at the west end of Constance , by the bridge to the abbey at Petershausen . They nearly captured the Prince Condé and the Duke d ' Enghien themselves . Although the French took many prisoners , including many of the Army of Condé , the French emigrant army , these prisoners were not massacred whole - sale , as had happened after earlier battles . Klein and Mortier issued instructions , which were supported by Massena , that the émigrés be assigned Russian names — they were , after all , under Russian pay and wearing the Russian cockade in their caps — and treated with dignity ; they were eventually exchanged for French officers held prisoner by the Austrians and Russians . Returning to France after the Peace of Lunéville in 1801 , Klein remained inactive for several months . In 1802 he was recalled to military service as Inspector of Cavalry . He was given command of the 1st Division of Dragoons and in 1804 was made a Grand Officer of the Legion d ' honneur . Napoleonic Wars . In 1805 , Klein ' s division was part of the newly created VIII . Corps , under command of Édouard Mortier ; the role of the Corps was to patrol and secure the northern shore of the Danube river , limiting the Austro - Russian activity . Napoleon incorrectly assumed that the Russians and the Austrians would make a stand near St . Polten , northwest of Vienna . Klein ' s entire regiment of dragoons patrolled the northern Danube shore , while the rest of his division , the last in the extended line of march , was more than a day behind Maxime Gazan ' s lead division . Klein ' s division did not take part in the Battle of Dürenstein , although his dragoons were with Mortier and Gazan immediately prior to the engagement . Klein ' s division was part of the decisive defeat of the Austrian and Russian force at the subsequent Battle of Austerlitz three weeks later . Initially , his dragoons , assigned to support Friant ' s division , occupied a position of observation on the Marchfeld . The rest of his dragoons remained near Stockerau , just to the west of Vienna , and these dragoons , plus Louis - Nicolas Davout ' s , François Antoine Louis Bourcier ' s and Marc Antoine Beaumont ' s divisions of dragoons , formed a cordon between Pohrlitz and Pressburg , and could move either west or east , depending on the actions of the Archduke Charles or the Russian commander Kutuzov . Consequently , Klein ' s dragoons , held the road between Austerlitz and Vienna , eliminating a possible Austrian retreat . In the War of the Fourth Coalition , Klein fought in the Grande Armée under command of Joachim Murat . After the Battle of Jena - Auerstadt , Klein was with his division of dragoons in the village of Weissensee , the only escape route open to the Prussian General Blücher . Blücher was surprised to find Klein in possession of the village , but convinced him an armistice has been concluded between Prussia and Napoleon . Reports differ on the conduct of Klein and Blücher . William Milligan Sloane insists that Frederick William III of Prussia was with Blücher and that only the old general ' s bluff prevented the King ' s capture . Some historians assert that Klein believed him , and learned too late that he had been deceived . Others assert that Klein ' s force was too weak to resist the greater Prussian numbers . He had only 800 cavalry and Antoine Lasalle , to the west , had two regiments . Blücher had either 7 , 000 , according to Charles Mullié , or more than 12 , 000 Prussian infantry , artillery and horse . Regardless , Klein and Lasalle either pragmatically maintained the fiction or fell for the ruse ; Blücher and his Prussians passed through the village . Charles Mullié maintains that Klein vowed revenge ; with his division , he pursued and attacked Blücher force the following day . He took 10 Prussian standards and 1 , 000 prisoners , including a general officer , although he did not capture Blücher . Frances Lorraine Petrie gives that credit to Soult , and so does Adolphe Thiers ; furthermore , Petre maintains , Klein ' s dragoons were sent to guard the communications lines between Erfurt and Weimar , where several groups of Prussians had skirmished with the French rear guard . Administrative and political duties . Following the Prussian campaign , Napoleon appointed Klein as governor of the Imperial palace . In 1807 , Klein was called to the Senate . In 1808 , he was raised by letters of patent to a count of the empire and awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Bavarian Lion . In 1812 , he was placed in command of the recruitment and training of a cohort of the National Guard . He remained in the Senate until April 1814 , when he voted for Napoleon ' s abdication . In 1814 , during the Bourbon Restoration , he was named a knight of the Order of Saint Louis . He did not support Napoleon ' s return in the Hundred Days . In the Second Restoration , Louis XVIII raised him to the French peerage . Family and personal life . Louis Klein was born in 25 January 1761 in Blâmont ( Meurthe ) , in the Lorraine region . He married 7 January 1783 to Marie - Agathe Pierron , with whom he had a son Edouard Marie Arsène ( 17841843 ) . Edouard had two daughters , Arsène Louise Marie , born 1820 , married Mathieu Prosper Morey ; and Louise Françoise Clémence , born in Hebreville , 1825 , married in Paris to Henri Tollier . In 1808 , Klein divorced Pierron , with the Emperor ' s permission , and on 2 July of that year remarried to Caroline of Valangin - Arberg , daughter of the Countess of Arberg , a lady - in - waiting to the Empress Josephine de Beauharnais . In this marriage , he had a son , Eugene Joseph Napoleon , who was born in 1813 in Paris and died in 1872 without issue . Louis Klein died 2 November 1845 in Paris .