Pierre Quétineau
Command Ratings
Pierre Quétineau (born 25 August 1756) was a French Revolutionary general officer whose brief tenure in high command in the west during 1793 ended in defeat, arrest, and execution during the Terror. He was born at Le Puy-Notre-Dame (Anjou). He entered the royal army on 4 July 1772 as a private soldier in the Régiment de Champagne-Infanterie and served until receiving his discharge on 4 July 1781. After leaving active service he settled in the region of Thouars and lived as a farmer at Saint-Léger-de-Montbrun.
With the organization of volunteer units after the Revolution, Quétineau returned to military activity through local election. On 6 October 1791 he was elected captain of grenadiers in a volunteer battalion raised in the Deux-Sèvres. In 1792 he was attached to the staff of the Armée du Nord in the early phase of the war against the First Coalition, in an appointment associated with Charles-François Dumouriez. When the insurrection in the Vendée began in March 1793, he was promoted to Général de Brigade in March 1793 and sent into the western theatre, serving in the Armée des côtes de La Rochelle.
In early April 1793 Quétineau took position at Bressuire with a small garrison and then moved toward the area of Les Aubiers against insurgent concentrations. He dispersed a minor gathering but was then engaged by a larger Vendéan force. On 13 April 1793 he was attacked and defeated at the battle of Les Aubiers by forces under Henri de La Rochejaquelein. Judging Bressuire untenable, he evacuated the town on 3 May 1793 and withdrew to Thouars, concentrating his remaining troops there behind inadequate defenses.
On 5 May 1793 the Vendéan army stormed Thouars in the battle of Thouars and captured the town after assault. Quétineau capitulated with a substantial portion of his command and became a prisoner. He was treated with marked courtesy by several Vendéan leaders and was pressed to join their cause, an offer he refused. He was released and attempted to return to Republican authority, but on reaching Tours and then moving onward he was arrested by Republican representatives and imprisoned, first in the west and then transferred to Paris, where he was held for months in the prison of the Abbaye.
In June 1793, after the Vendéan victory at Saumur on 11 June 1793, Quétineau again fell into insurgent hands, having been found in confinement there. He was again urged to remain with the insurgents under arrangements that would have spared him from fighting against the Republic, and again he refused and returned to Republican territory. His return did not mitigate suspicion. The Convention ordered him sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal by decree of 26 December 1793. He was tried, condemned to death, and executed by guillotine in Paris on 17 March 1794.
His wife, Jeanne (or Marie-Anne) Robert Latreille, intervened publicly after the verdict and was herself condemned; she was executed in 1794.
Sources
XX 93 Aubier (4/13/93) & surrendered 5/5/93 to Vendee rebels