Aimé Picquet Du Boisguy

Aimé Casimir Marie Picquet, chevalier du Boisguy, sometimes spelt Bois-Guy, (15 March 1776 – 25 October 1839), was a Breton

chouan Chouan ("the silent one", or "owl") is a French nickname. It was used as a nom de guerre by the Chouan brothers, most notably Jean Cottereau, better known as Jean Chouan, who led a major revolt in Bas-Maine against the French Revolution. Par ...

general during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

. He was nicknamed "the little general" by his men due to his youth. Still a child at the outbreak of the Revolution, he signalled his precocity to fight on the Royalist side, joining the Breton Association at 15 and becoming aide de camp to La Rouërie. At 17 he was made leader of the chouannerie in the pays de Fougères, and a general at 19. Boisguy made the north-east of the

Ille-et-Vilaine Ille-et-Vilaine (; br, Il-ha-Gwilen) is a department of France, located in the region of Brittany in the northwest of the country. It is named after the two rivers of the Ille and the Vilaine. It had a population of 1,079,498 in 2019.

one of the most active areas of the Breton

chouannerie The Chouannerie (from the Chouan brothers, two of its leaders) was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in twelve of the western ''départements'' of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the First Repub ...

, and showed himself an excellent tactician. Rarely beaten, the chouans there were among the best organised and best disciplined. Fighting in uniform from the end of 1795 and made up of elite troops, even so they suffered from a lack of cavalry and a near-total lack of artillery. The Republicans had to raise major forces to defeat them, and then only with difficulty. In both 1796 and 1800, Boisguy was the last general to surrender, making him one of the main figures of the

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boisguy 1776 births 1839 deaths People from Fougères French counter-revolutionaries Royalist insurgents during the French Revolution Burials at Picpus Cemetery