Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, Laurent, marquis de, French History, Biographies

Related Category: French History, Biographies

Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, Laurent, marquis de[lOrAN´ mArkE´ du gOOvyON´-saN-sEr] Pronunciation Key, 1764–1830, marshal of France. He served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was made marshal following his victory at Polotsk (1812). After the Bourbon restoration he served twice (1815, 1817–19) as minister of war and was instrumental in passing a law to organize military recruitment by voluntary pledges and lottery and limit the arbitrariness of promotions. Because of these attempts to limit the influence of the EmigrE nobility in the officer corps, he was forced from office by the ultraroyalists. He wrote on the Napoleonic Wars and left personal memoirs.