Antoine Drouot
Command Ratings
Antoine Drouot (born at Nancy on 11 January 1774; died at Nancy on 24 March 1847) was a French artillery officer who rose from the Revolutionary armies to high command in the artillery of the Imperial Guard, serving in the Major campaigns of the Empire and holding senior appointments during the last phase of Napoleon I’s rule. In formal imperial styling he was Count Antoine Drouot, and under the Restoration he became a pair de France. His surname is among those inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe.
Drouot entered military training at the artillery school at Châlons in 1793 and was sent rapidly to field service as an artillery subaltern amid wartime shortages of trained officers. He fought in the northern theater in 1793, including the action at Hondschoote (8 September 1793), where accounts of his early career place him in battery command under fire. He served thereafter with armies operating on the Rhine and in the Low Countries, and he was present at Fleurus (26 June 1794) with the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. His early promotions followed: he became a captain on 25 February 1796.
In the later Revolutionary wars he held artillery staff and administrative responsibilities as well as field command. He was employed as a director of artillery at Bayonne, where an accident during inspection work badly damaged his eyesight, an injury that remained a lasting infirmity. In December 1798 he was assigned to the Army of Naples, and he fought during the 1799 Italian campaign. At the Trebbia (19 June 1799), he is repeatedly described in biographical notices as using his guns to cover the retreat of Macdonald’s army in the hard fighting against the Austro-Russian forces. By 1800 he was serving as a captain of artillery in Moreau’s Army of the Rhine and was engaged at Hohenlinden (3 December 1800), an action frequently cited as the battle in which he drew favorable notice for steadiness and technical competence.
After the Peace of Amiens and the renewal of war, Drouot continued in artillery employment and advanced into the naval and expeditionary dimensions of the Empire’s warfare. He was present with the fleet at Trafalgar (21 October 1805), attached as an artillery officer in the French naval order of battle. While Trafalgar was not an artillery campaign in the land sense, it marked him as one of the comparatively few senior French officers later able to claim personal presence at both Trafalgar and Waterloo.
Drouot’s decisive professional step came with his entry into the Imperial Guard artillery. In 1808 he became a commandant (major) in the Guard and was appointed director of the Guard’s artillery park, a technical and administrative post centered on matériel condition, issue, reserves of ammunition, and the readiness of batteries and train elements. His Guard career then broadened into campaign experience in Spain and on the Danube. During the 1809 war against Austria, he served in the Danube theater and was wounded at Wagram (5–6 July 1809), a disabling wound to the foot that left him with a limp. Shortly afterward he was promoted to Colonel within the Guard, and in 1810 he was made a Baron of the Empire.
In the 1812 campaign against Russia, Drouot served with the Guard artillery and distinguished himself at Borodino (7 September 1812). The battle’s scale and the concentration of artillery fire across critical sectors made the performance of Guard gun lines and their ammunition service a central element in French tactical effort. Drouot’s standing after 1812 placed him among the small circle of artillery officers trusted for employment at the highest level during the rebuilding of French forces in Germany.
In the spring campaign of 1813, Drouot was promoted général de brigade and appointed an aide-de-camp to Napoleon I. He took command of the artillery of the Imperial Guard in May 1813 and directed it in the actions around Weißenfels (2 May 1813), Lützen (2 May 1813), and Bautzen (20–21 May 1813). Narratives of Lützen consistently associate Drouot with aggressive massing and forward employment of Guard batteries to break up enemy infantry and stabilize threatened points on the French line. His performance in these actions contributed directly to his further elevation: in 1813 he became a général de division, with continuing employment close to the Emperor.
During the 1814 campaign and the collapse of the Empire, Drouot remained attached to Napoleon’s immediate military household and Guard command structure. When Napoleon abdicated and departed for Elba, Drouot accompanied him and was appointed governor of the Principality of Elba (11 April 1814 – 26 February 1815). In that capacity he combined civil administration with the supervision of the small Elban garrison and artillery resources allotted to Napoleon under the terms of the settlement. His tenure ended with Napoleon’s departure from the island in late February 1815.
During the Hundred Days, Drouot rejoined the Imperial establishment and returned to Guard command. In the Waterloo campaign he served with the Imperial Guard; on the eve of the battle Marshal Mortier—normally associated with Guard command at that moment—was incapacitated, and Drouot took command of the Imperial Guard for the battle itself (18 June 1815). His responsibilities encompassed the employment of the Guard’s infantry and artillery elements in the final, high-stakes phase of Napoleon’s attack, including the coordination of Guard movements under intense allied fire and the management of a deteriorating tactical situation as French attacks failed and the coalition pressure mounted. After the defeat, Drouot served as commandant of the Imperial Guard in Paris during the final days of the regime and the transition following Napoleon’s second abdication.
Under the Second Restoration he was prosecuted for treason, defended himself in court, and was acquitted; he then received a state pension. His later life remained marked by his identification with the Guard and with professional artillery service, and he died in 1847.