Victor de Broglie, Prince of Broglie (22 September 1756 – 27 June 1794) was a

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (, , ), is the principal Army, land warfare force of France, and the largest component of the French Armed Forces; it is responsible to the Government of France, alongside the French Navy, Fren ...

officer and politician who was executed by

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

during the French Revolution.

Biography

Victor de Broglie was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, the eldest son of

Victor François de Broglie, 2nd Duke of Broglie Victor François de Broglie, 2nd Duke of Broglie (19 October 171830 March 1804) was a French army officer. He served with his father, François Marie de Broglie, 1st Duke of Broglie, at Parma and Guastalla, and in 1734 obtained a colonelcy. ...

, who had attained the rank of ''

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'') ...

'' in the

French Royal Army The French Royal Army () was the principal land force of the Kingdom of France. It served the Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another du ...

. Victor adopted radical opinions and served with the

Marquis de La Fayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...

and the

Comte de Rochambeau Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1 July 1725 – 10 May 1807) was a French Royal Army officer who played a critical role in the Franco-American victory at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. ...

in the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. The prince was a member of the

Jacobin Club The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential List of polit ...

, and sat in the National Constituent Assembly after the French Revolution, constantly voting on the Liberal side. He served as chief of the staff to the First Republic's Army on the Rhine, but, during the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...

, he was denounced, arrested, and

d in Paris. Since the old duc de Broglie survived him, the prince de Broglie's eldest son, Victor, eventually became the third

duc de Broglie The House of Broglie (, also ; , or ) is a distinguished French noble family, originally Piedmontese, who migrated to France in the year 1643. Members of this family bore the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, granted to them in 1759 by ...

. The prince's dying admonition to his little son was to remain faithful to the principles of the Revolution, however unjust and ungrateful it seemed then to be.

Family

The prince's wife shared her husband's imprisonment, but managed to escape to Switzerland, where she remained till the fall of

Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre fer ...

. She then returned to Paris with her children and lived there quietly until 1796, when she married Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, grandson of the

Comte d'Argenson Marc-Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy, comte d'Argenson (16 August 1696, Paris22 August 1764, Paris) was a French politician. Biography D'Argenson, a younger son of Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson (1652–1721), was born on 16 August 1696. F ...

(minister of war during the reign of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...

). Under the care of his step-father, Victor de Broglie received a careful and liberal education and made his entrée into the aristocratic and literary society of Paris under the

First French Empire The First French Empire or French Empire (; ), also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from ...

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Broglie, Charles-Louis-Victor, prince de 1756 births 1794 deaths French generals 18th-century French politicians Victor, prince de Victor, prince de Military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars Politicians from Paris French people executed by guillotine during the French Revolution French people of the American Revolution Heirs apparent who never acceded