Jean Le Michaud D'Arçon
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Jean Claude Eléonore Le Michaud d’Arçon (18 November 1733 – 1 July 1800) was a French general, specializing in fortification. His designs include the forts at Pontarlier and Fort-Dauphin in
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.


Life


Early life

He was the son of a lawyer who also wrote several short works on ancient custom of the
Franche-Comté Franche-Comté (, ; ; Frainc-Comtou dialect, Frainc-Comtou: ''Fraintche-Comtè''; ; also ; ; all ) is a cultural and Provinces of France, historical region of eastern France. It is composed of the modern departments of France, departments of Doub ...
. Jean Claude was born in
Besançon Besançon (, ; , ; archaic ; ) is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland. Capi ...
and was originally intended for a career in the church – he was sent to view a parish to win him round to this career, but he was keener on an army career, drawing and mapping fortifications instead of studying Latin. When someone was sent to draw his portrait for his parents, he opted to be shown in the dress of an engineer not a clergyman and his father agreed to support his choice of career. He studied at the
École royale du génie de Mézières The École royale du génie de Mézières (Royal Engineering School of Mézières) was a military engineering school in what is now Charleville-Mézières, France. It was founded in 1748 on proposal of the comte d'Argenson, then Secretary of st ...
in 1754 and was made an engineer-in-ordinary the following year, fighting with distinction in the
Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
, particularly in the defence of
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in 1761.


Mapping and Gibraltar

In 1774 he was charged with mapping the southern Alps, the Jura and the
Vosges The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian and ) is a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and ...
. To speed up his work he invented a new form of
ink wash painting Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses Wash (visual arts), washes of black ink, such as that used in East Asian calligraphy, in different concentrations. It emerged duri ...
with only one brush.
/ref> In 1774 and 1775 he got into a debate with Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert, comte de Guibert over ''ordre profond'' versus ''ordre mince'' and ended up publishing two pamphlets entitled ''Correspondance sur l’art militaire'' which (as with all his writings) showed many new engineering ideas but also several
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
s and mistakes. Attached to marshal Broglie's force in 1780, he looked for ways to win the siege of Gibraltar. Attacking by land was impossible and so d’Arçon began designing "unsinkable and fire-proof batteries" intended to breakthrough from the coast in tandem with other batteries advancing the British rear from inland. These floating batteries would have strong thick wooden armour and water pumped around them to avoid fire breaking out, whilst old cables would also deaden the fall of enemy shot and their ballast would counterbalance the guns' weight. They would also be supported by ships of the line and bomb ships, who would try to draw away and split up the enemy fire. Five machines with two rows of batteries and a single row of five batteries would make up a total of 150 guns. The Spanish enthusiastically received the proposal and D'Arcon sailed close to shore under enemy fire in a skiff to get more accurate calculations and intelligence. The attack took place on 13 September 1782 and was a complete failure. According to the ''Biographie Universelle'' (Michaud, 1843) some of its officers had the "evident intention of making he attemptfail" – two of them set off but eight followed too far behind, meaning that the first two drew all the enemy fire. Instead of having these ten ships retire to rejoin the rest of the force, orders were given to set fire to all ten to avoid them falling into enemy hands. This "reduced General d'Arcon to despair, and he was deeply resentful of the failure for the rest of his life", printing a vindication in 1783 under the title "Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du siège de Gibraltar, par l’auteur des batteries flottantes". Jealousy between the Spanish and French officers had caused the plan to fail but the British governor of Gibraltar, George Eliott, praised D'Arcon.


French Revolution

He wrote and published an article on backward-firing batteries and on the outbreak of the
War of the First Coalition The War of the First Coalition () was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797, initially against the Constitutional Cabinet of Louis XVI, constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French First Republic, Frenc ...
he initially fought in the
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under
Charles François Dumouriez Charles-François du Périer Dumouriez (; 26 January 1739 – 14 March 1823) was a French military officer, French minister of foreign affairs, minister of Foreign Affairs, French minister of Defense, minister of War in a Constitutional Cabin ...
before being promoted to
maréchal de camp ''Maréchal de camp'' (sometimes incorrectly translated as field marshal) was a general officer rank used by the French Army until 1848. The rank originated from the older rank of sergeant major general ( French: ''sergent-major général'') ...
on 13 June 1791. The
Committee of Public Safety The Committee of Public Safety () was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General D ...
made him a member of the military committee charged with the direction of the war. He was sent on a reconnaissance mission to Mont Saint-Bernard in 1793, but there he was denounced and forced to retire to Saint-Germain, where he drew up a plan for a French invasion of Holland. He then became a divisional general and he and Pichegru successfully captured the fortress at
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in January 1795, though that campaign damaged his health and forced him to leave active service.


Academia and death

In February 1795 he became professor of fortification at the École centrale des travaux publics, where he presented it as a combination of other sciences with important economic and political implications. Printed by order of the government, his last work was ''Considérations militaires et politiques sur les fortifications'', summarizing all his previous work. He was appointed to the
Sénat conservateur The (, "Conservative Senate") was an advisory body established in France during the French Consulate, Consulate following the French Revolution. It was established in 1799 under the Constitution of the Year VIII following the Napoleon Bonapa ...
in 1799 by Bonaparte during the latter's time as
First Consul The Consulate () was the top-level government of the First French Republic from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799 until the start of the French Empire on 18 May 1804. During this period, Napoleon Bonap ...
, but died at the château de la Tuilerie in aged 67 the following year. Until his death he was a non-resident member of the geography section of the
Institut de France The ; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the . It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately ...
. One of the Lunettes of Trois-Châtels and Tousey was named after him, whilst his daughter
Élisabeth le Michaud d'Arcon de Vaudey Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Empress Elisabeth (disambiguation), lists various empresses named ''Elisabeth'' or ''Elizabeth'' * Princess Elizabeth ( ...
was a lady in waiting to
empress Josephine The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...
and mistress to
Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
.


Published works

# ''Réflexions d’un ingénieur, en réponse à un tacticien'', Amsterdam, 1773, in-12° ; # ''Correspondance sur l’art de la guerre, entre un colonel de dragons et un capitaine d’infanterie'', Bouillon, 1774, deux parties, in-8° ; # ''Défense d’un système de guerre national, ou analyse raisonnée d’un ouvrage intitulé : réfutation complette du système de M. de Mesnil-Durand'' (1779), Amsterdam, in-8°, 283 p. # ''Conseil de guerre privé sur l’événement de Gibraltar en 1782'' (1785), in-8° # ''Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du siège de Gibraltar, par l’auteur des batteries flottantes'', Cadix, Hernill, 1783, in-8° # ''Considérations sur l’influence du génie de Vauban dans la balance des forces de l’État'', 1786, in-8° # ''Examen détaillé de l’importante question de l’utilité des places-fortes et retranchements'', Strasbourg, 1789, in-8° # ''De la force militaire considérée dans ses rapports conservateurs'', 1789 (Lire en ligne) # ''Réponse aux mémoires de M. de Montalembert sur la fortification dite perpendiculaire'', 1790, in-8° # ''Considérations militaires et politiques sur les fortifications'' (an III, 1795), impr. De la République, in-8°, Paris.


References


Bibliography (in French)

* Marie-Nicolas Bouillet et Alexis Chassang (dir.), " Jean Le Michaud d'Arçon " dans Dictionnaire universel d’histoire et de géographie, 1878 * Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne : histoire par ordre alphabétique de la vie publique et privée de tous les hommes (Michaud), article "Arçon" * J. Girod de Chantrans – ''Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages du général d’Arçon'' (imprimerie de Daclin, Besançon, an IX-1801, réimpr. chez Magimel, Paris, An X-1802). * Jean-Marie Thiébaud et Gérard Tissot-Robbe, ''Elisabeth Le Michaud d’Arçon, maîtresse de Napoléon'', Yens (Suisse), Cabédita, 2006 * " Jean Le Michaud d'Arçon ", in Robert et Cougny, Dictionnaire des parlementaires français, 1889 étail de l’édition {{DEFAULTSORT:Arcon, Jean Le Michaud d' 1733 births 1800 deaths Military personnel from Besançon French Republican military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars Members of the Sénat conservateur Military theorists French military engineers French military writers People of the War of the First Coalition