Brigadier general seized by his own soldiers and shot on 18 March 1871 after being sent to take the Montmartre cannon
Born at Thionville in 1817, he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1837. Colonel in 1865 and second in command of the Prytanée at La Flèche in 1869, he served as a brigadier general in 1870 in Faidherbe's Army of the North at Amiens, Saint-Quentin and Pont-Noyelles. On 18 March 1871 Thiers's government sent him to retrieve the cannon the National Guard had gathered at Montmartre; while he waited in vain for the teams to haul them away, a crowd surrounded his men. When he ordered them to fire, the soldiers raised their rifle butts, fraternised with the inhabitants and took him prisoner to the Château Rouge. Late that afternoon he was shot with General Clément-Thomas in a garden in the rue des Rosiers. The story that both were shot by a regular firing squad comes from a photograph staged by Eugène Appert in June.
Also known as: Claude-Martin Lecomte
Activities and affiliations
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1837–1871
France state institutionsBrigadier GeneralMain
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1837Graduated from Saint-Cyr
- 1869Second in command of the Prytanée at La Flèche
- 1870–1871Brigadier general in the Army of the North and the defence of Paris
- 1871Seized at Montmartre and shot