Marshal General of France explained

Marshal General of France, originally "Marshal General of the King's camps and armies" (French: maréchal général des camps et armées du roi), was a title given to signify that the recipient had authority over all of the French armies, in the days when a Marshal of France usually governed only one army.

This title was bestowed only on Marshals of France, usually when the title of Constable of France was unavailable or, after 1626, suppressed. Unlike the title of marshal, marshal general was rarely granted to active military commanders. Rather, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was an end-of-career reward for particularly deserving or loyal marshals.

List of titleholders

There have only been six holders of this title in the history of France:

Six in the pre-revolutionary kingdom of France:

• Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron (1562 - 1602):
  • Admiral of France, 1592
  • Admiral and Marshal, 26 January 1594
  • unclear when promoted to Marshal General
  • executed in 1602
• François de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguières (1543 - 1626):
  • Marshal, 27 September 1609
  • Marshal General, 30 March 1621
  • Constable of France, 6 July 1622
• Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne (1611 - 1675):
  • Marshal, 16 November 1643
  • Marshal General, 4 April 1660
• Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars (1653 - 1734):
  • Marshal, 20 October 1702
  • Marshal General, 18 October 1733
• Maurice, comte de Saxe (1696 - 1750):
  • Marshal, 26 March 1744
  • Marshal General, 12 January 1747
• Victor François de Broglie, 2nd Duke of Broglie (1718 - 1804):
  • Marshal, 1759
  • Marshal General, 1789
  • Broglie emigrated the same day the king signed the title papers. He therefore never exercised the functions of marshal general and was removed from the list of marshals of France in 1792.^[1]

One during the July Monarchy under the House of Orléans' sole, constitutional king, Louis Philippe:

• Jean-de-Dieu Soult, duc de Dalmatie (1769 - 1851):
  • Marshal of the Empire, 19 May 1804
  • Marshal General, 15 September 1847

Sources

• Quid.fr (French language online encyclopedia)
• web.genealogie: les militaires (also online)
• Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, edited by Trevor N. Dupuy et al. (most dates are from the latter)

Notes and References

1. https://ahrf.revues.org/10877 Fadi El Hage, « Comment la Révolution abolit la dignité de maréchal de France », Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 354 | 2008, 51-75.