French Revolutionary Wars general and commander of the Guadeloupe expedition
Commander of the Guadeloupe expedition Napoleon sent in 1801–1802; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance but died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802, and the insurgency continued until 1804.
Born in Metz in 1770, he joined his father's Conti Dragoon Regiment as a cadet at five. A supporter of the Revolution, he rose from second lieutenant in 1791 to captain in 1793 and chef d'escadron in 1794, and Kléber made him a brigade general in 1796. He served under Hoche in the Army of Sambre and Meuse and distinguished himself at Neuwied. In 1800 he commanded a division in Moreau's Army of the Rhine, leading the flank envelopment at Hohenlinden on 3 December that decided the victory. After the army was dissolved in 1801 he became inspector-general of cavalry of the Batavian Republic. In 1801–1802 Napoleon named him commander of the Guadeloupe expedition; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance and enforced the forcible reinstatement of slavery. He died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802.
Also known as: Antoine Richepance
Activities and affiliations
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1797–
French First Republic state institutionsDivisional Commander, Army of the RhineMain
Military command -
1801–1802
Consulate and First Empire state institutionsGovernor of Guadeloupe
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1785Quartermaster sergeant, Conti Dragoon Regiment
- 1791Second lieutenant
- 1796Promoted brigade general by Kléber
- 1797Fought at Neuwied in the Army of Sambre and Meuse
- 1800Divisional commander in Moreau's Army of the Rhine; enveloped the Austrian left at Hohenlinden, 3 December
- 1802Commander of the Guadeloupe expedition; landed at Pointe-à-Pitre on 6 May and suppressed Delgrès's resistance
Related historical events
- 1791–1804The Haitian RevolutionCommander of the Guadeloupe expeditionRe-established slavery in Guadeloupe in 1802, news of which set off the new rising in Saint-Domingue. Died of yellow fever in September.
- 1792–1802French Revolutionary Warscommander of the flanking attack at HohenlindenAt Hohenlinden he struck the enemy flank and rear, helping secure the victory, and later took command of the colonial expedition to Guadeloupe.
Posthumous honours and the reversal of his memorial
After his death Richepanse was long commemorated as a military hero of the Republic and the Empire. The nineteenth-century biographer Charles Mullié judged him "one of the bravest generals of the Republic"; Napoleon ordered in 1803 that Fort Saint-Charles in Guadeloupe be renamed for him, and in 1810 granted his widow and eldest son an imperial barony. The decision to engrave his name under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was taken in 1836. His tomb, now anonymous, stands inside Fort Delgrès in Guadeloupe under an epitaph reading "Died at 32. But how much he did not live for glory and for the fatherland."
That commemoration was later reversed. For Guadeloupeans, Richepanse embodies a negative memory of the island because of his role in reinstating slavery: the fort that took his name in 1803 became Fort Saint-Charles in 1960 and in 1989 was renamed Fort Delgrès, after Louis Delgrès, who resisted the troops sent to restore slavery. In December 2001 Paris renamed the rue Richepance the rue du Chevalier-de-Saint-George, and in 2004 Metz, his birthplace, renamed its quai Richepance the quai Wiltzer. In letters to Presidents François Hollande in 2014 and Emmanuel Macron on 14 May 2018 the LKP collective demanded that his remains leave Guadeloupe; the demand has not been granted.