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. Biography. 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. However, when a friend of the family seeking a pension for Petiet's widow, the Emperor refused stating It was the Senate and not the Emperor who awarded a pension to his widow of 6,000 f. Later when a prisoner on St. Helena, Napoleon seems to have had a change of heart for he wrote: Family. Petiet had three notable sons: Another son, Sylvain, wrote "Souvenirs d'un page de l'empereur" in which he describes his father's career, and that his  father married a woman from Brittany. Legacy. Fifty years after the death of the surveyor-general on 13 February 1854, Sainte-Beuve wrote in his Lectures on Monday: 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: 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: In his memoires, his son Auguste-Louis wrote: