Macdonald, Jacques Etienne Joseph Alexandre

Macdonald, Jacques Etienne Joseph Alexandre 

Born Nov. 17, 1765, in Sedan, Ardennes Department; died Sept. 25, 1840, in Courcelles-le-Roi, Seine-et-Oise Department. Marshal of France (1809); duke of Taranto (1809). A Scot by nationality. The son of an emigre who was a partisan of the deposed Stuart dynasty.

Macdonald was in the French Army from 1784. He joined the revolutionary army during the Great French Revolution, was promoted to general of brigade in 1793 and general of division in 1796, and won several victories over the interventionists. After occupying Rome in 1798, Macdonald was made military governor of the papal enclave and of Rome. In 1799, while commanding the Neapolitan Army, he was defeated by A. V. Suvorov on the Trebbia River. He was commander of the French troops in Switzerland in 1800 and 1801. He was ambassador to Denmark from 1801 to 1803. In 1804 he was dismissed from military service for his connections with the convicted general J. V. Moreau, but he returned to service in 1809 and distinguished himself at Wagram as the commander of a corps. In 1810-11, Macdonald commanded a corps in Spain; in 1812 he commanded the Prussian-French X Corps, which laid siege to Riga. He also participated in the campaigns of 1813-14. After Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, Macdonald entered the service of Louis XVIII and was made a peer of France (1814). He remained on the side of the Bourbons during the Hundred Days. Macdonald was grand chancellor of the Legion of Honor from 1816 to 1830.