Louis - François Lejeune Louis - François , Baron Lejeune ( 3 February 1775 , Strasbourg - 29 February 1848 ) was a French general , painter , and lithographer . His memoirs have frequently been republished and his name is engraved on the Arc de Triomphe . Life . He studied painting in the studio of Pierre - Henri de Valenciennes , alongside Jean - Victor Bertin , but left the studio to volunteer in the Compagnie des arts de Paris in 1792 . He received his baptism of fire in the battle of Valmy later that year . He became a sergeant in the 1st Arsenal battalion and in 1793 moved to the artillery at La Fère , assisting in the sieges of Landrecies , Le Quesnoy and Valenciennes . At Valenciennes he became aide - de - camp to general Jacob then , as a lieutenant on attachment to the engineers , took part in the 1794 Holland campaign and the 1795 campaign . Called to the depot in 1798 , he succeeded brilliantly in his exams and was made a captain on attachment to the engineers . He became aide - de - camp to Marshal Berthier in 1800 , a post he retained until 1812 and in which he took an active part in practically all of the Napoleonic campaigns . He was wounded and captured in Spain . He was promoted to full captain after and chef de bataillon after , also become a knight of the Légion d ' honneur and a colonel at the Siege of Saragossa . The German campaign of 1806 brought him to Munich , where he visited the workshop of Alois Senefelder , the inventor of lithography . Lejeune was fascinated by the possibilities of the new method and whilst there he made the drawing on stone of his famous Cossack ( printed by C . and ~ f . Senefelder , 1806 ) . Whilst he was taking his dinner , and with his horses harnessed and waiting to take him back to Paris , one hundred proofs were printed , one of which he subsequently submitted to Napoleon . The introduction of lithography into France was greatly due to the efforts of Lejeune . In 1812 , during the French invasion of Russia , he was made général de brigade and chief of staff to Davout . Frostbitten on the face , Lejeune left his post during the retreat from Russia and was arrested on the orders of Napoleon . Freed in March 1813 , Lejeune was then sent to the Illyrian provinces , before rejoining the army under the orders of marshal Oudinot , becoming his chief of staff . During the Saxony campaign , Lejeune was present at the Battle of Lutzen ( 1813 ) , the crossing of the River Spree and at . He was made an officer of the Légion d ' honneur and a commander of the Order of Maximilian of Bavaria . At the battle of Hoyersverda , when Bülow ' s corps wiped out the 12th corps formed up in square on the plain , Lejeune ( at risk of being kidnapped ) ventured into the enemy lines with one battalion , general Wolf ' s cavalry and six 12 pounder guns . He thus broke the whole of the Prussian artillery and saved marshal Oudinot and his army . Wounded several times and lastly at , he was authorised to leave the army in November 1813 after more than 20 years ' service . After his departure from the army , he devoted himself to painting . After an initial grant in Hanover in 1808 , and a second in Westphalia in 1810 , he was made a baron d ' Empire in 1810 . Already a member of the cross of the Order of Leopold , Lejeune was made a knight of St Louis by Louis XVIII and in 1823 a commander of the Légion d ' honneur . He returned to the army ( now under the Bourbons ) from 1818 to 1824 , becoming commander of Haute - Garonne in 1831 . On 2 September 1821 he married Louise Clary , sister of general Marius Clary and niece of Désirée Clary , queen of Sweden by her marriage with Jean - Baptiste Bernadotte . In 1824 the king of Sweden conferred on Lejeune the grand - cross of the Order of the Sword . In 1837 he became director of the École des beaux - arts et de l ’ industrie in Toulouse , a city of which he became mayor in 1841 and in which he died of a heart attack aged 73 . Honours and awards . Lejeune ' s name has been inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris ( 19th Column ) . Works . He produced an important series of battle - pictures based on his experiences . He had kept his paintbrushes with him on the battlefield and the popularity he enjoyed was due to the truth and vigour of his work , which was generally executed from sketches and studies made on the battlefield . When his battle - pictures were shown at the Egyptian Hall in London , a rail had to be put up to protect them from the eager crowds of sightseers . He is best known for his paintings of the battle of Guirando , which appeared in 1819 to enormous success , and of the battle of Borodino , his masterwork . Many of his battle - pictures were engraved by Jacques Joseph Coiny and Edme Bovinet . He also produced several studies of uniforms in the French Imperial Army , such as those of the lancers of Berg under Murat and of Berthier ' s aides - de - camp . Among his chief works are " The Entry of Charles X . into Paris , 6 June 1825 " at Versailles ; " Episode of the Prussian War , October 1807 " at Douai Museum ; " Marengo ( 1801 ) " ; " Lodi , Thabor , Aboukir " ( 1804 ) ; " The Pyramids " ( 1806 ) ; " Passage of the Rhine in 1795 " ( 1824 ) , and " Moskawa " ( ? ? ) . In fiction . In the historical novel " The Battle " Lejeune is a main character .