Claude Louis Petiet Claude Louis Petiet ( 9 February 1749 , Châtillon - sur - Seine , Côte - d ' Or – 25 May 1806 ) was a Commissioner of war in 1778 , elected to the Council of Elders in 1795 , and was appointed Minister of War on 8 February 1796 . He was dismissed on 14 July 1797 by the French Directory of Paul Barras , Jean - François Reubell and Louis Marie de La Révellière - Lépeaux . Appointed to the State Council by Napoleon Bonaparte , he became steward of the army camp at Boulogne in 1805 and senator in 1806 . Career . His name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe . Service . Suspended by the representatives of the people and placed under arrest on 2 December 1793 , he returned to his post by the same representatives on 29 December 1793 . Out of the legislature , 20 May 1797 , he was removed from his post as Minister of War on 23 July 1797 . He died on 25 May 1806 in his hotel , the current 8 Rue Monsieur in Paris 7th then 6 rue de Frejus . Napoleon did make a grandiose funeral on 27 May , attended the Senate , and the principal dignitaries of the Empire . After the ceremony , which took place in the Church of Foreign Missions Rue du Bac , his body was transported to the Pantheon . His eulogy was delivered by the Gaspard Monge , President of the Senate who traced his long career . Legacy . Fifty years after the death of the surveyor - general on 13 February 1854 , Sainte - Beuve wrote in his Lectures on Monday : Amidst the scandals that characterize the administration of the Directory , the Ministry Petiet was an honorable exception . This minister , a good and deserving man , strove to keep proper accounts and after a fiscal year , he submitted the complete picture of its operations to the judgment of Legislative Council and the public ; He did without hesitation and with sincerity At the time of the coup d ' état Fructidor , he warned his friends in the passage of Hoche ' s troops within the " constitutional radius " no troops should cross without the permission of the legislature . This leads to the arrest of the Executive to the rostrum of the Five Hundred , 30 Messidor by Delahaye . At the time of the coup d ' état of 30 Messidor with Lucien Bonaparte , Jourdan and Augereau , he will ask for their resignation Larevelliere and Merlin . In a letter dated 17 October 1799 , to Caesar de la Tour - Maubourg , Lafayette wrote : Petiet , a close friend of Moreau , requested to inform me that his friend did not . . . the character out of the ordinary course and in a word , good for a head battle , it was not clean a company . It has caused yet fully with it and wait for news of this conversation . It is true that as minister of war , Petiet had signed the appointment of Bonaparte at the head of the army of Italy and Moreau to the head of the Rhine . In a note to General Regnier , Moreau says : Aubert de Bayet no longer minister of war , the commissioner who replaces Petiet . I know he is a man of great talent . In her memoires , his son Augustine Petiet writes : I delivered my dispatches to the Emperor asking for my name , I replied through my tears , remembering he had probably seen me at Austerlitz , Napoleon again point of the question he had posed . " Your father told me he was an honest man , he has done a lot for the state , he will live in history " .