Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth
Command Ratings
Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth (28 October 1760 – 18 March 1829) was a French nobleman, soldier, and political figure of the early Revolution whose military career intersected the opening of the War of the First Coalition and then continued in civil office under the Consulate and Empire. He belonged to the Lameth brothers (with Charles and Théodore), a family of the French nobility active in late–eighteenth-century military and political life. He served overseas during the American War of Independence and returned to France as a professional cavalry officer before 1789.
Lameth held a cavalry colonelcy before the Revolution and entered national politics in 1789 as a deputy of the nobility to the Estates-General convened on 5 May 1789. On 25 June 1789 he joined the Third Estate after it had constituted itself as the National Assembly, and he became active in the Constituent Assembly’s work during 1789–1791. During this period he participated in Major constitutional debates, supported measures aimed at dismantling feudal structures, and took part in shaping early revolutionary political alignments, including the circle later characterized as a “triumvirate” with Antoine Barnave and Adrien Duport. He also helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789). Political positioning shifted as the monarchy’s situation deteriorated in 1791; Lameth and his associates separated from the Jacobin Club and organized with the Feuillants, aiming to stabilize a constitutional monarchy after the crisis surrounding the king’s attempted flight in June 1791.
With the outbreak of war between France and Austria in April 1792, Lameth moved into active military employment with the Army of the North. In 1792 he held general officer rank (recorded in contemporary and later listings as a promotion to maréchal de camp in May 1792), and served in the environment of the northern frontier armies during the rapidly radicalizing political situation in Paris. After the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792, Lameth left France with Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, and other former constitutional monarchists; the group was captured and Lameth was subsequently interned by Austrian authorities. His imprisonment lasted for several years, after which he settled at Hamburg by 1796 and engaged in business activities rather than returning immediately to France.
Lameth returned to France after the political consolidation of the Consulate (1800). Under Napoleon’s regime he entered administrative service and held a sequence of prefectural appointments from 1802 until 1815, representing a transition from active soldier-politician of the early Revolution to imperial civil administrator. Under the Empire he also received formal distinctions, including appointment as an officer of the Légion d’honneur (June 1811 in compiled service listings) and elevation as a baron of the Empire (February 1810). After the fall of Napoleon, Lameth aligned himself with the restored Bourbon monarchy and continued public life during the Restoration, sitting as a deputy and acting within the liberal opposition under Louis XVIII and Charles X.
He died in Paris on 18 March 1829.
Sources
X 09 in Bavaria