Rémy Joseph Isidore Exelmans

Rémy Joseph Isidore Exelmans (also frequently styled in the nineteenth century as “Henry-Joseph-Isidore, comte Exelmans” in parliamentary/biographical compilations) was a French cavalry officer whose active service began in the Revolutionary wars and continued through the Napoleonic campaigns, culminating in senior mounted commands during the final operations of 1813–1815. He was born at Bar-le-Duc on 13 November 1775 and entered the army as a volunteer on 6 September 1791 in the 3rd battalion of Meuse volunteers, initially in a company of gunners. He served on the Rhine front with the Army of the Moselle and then the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse, rising from enlisted ranks to sergent (11 January 1792) and later sergent-major. During the campaigns of 1792–1796 he saw sustained field service, and on 22 October 1796 he received a commission as sous-lieutenant.

In 1797 Exelmans transferred to the Army of Italy, serving in the formations associated with Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s division. Promoted lieutenant on 19 June 1798, he served with the 34th and 43rd demi-brigades and entered staff work as aide-de-camp to General Jean Baptiste Eblé on 22 October 1798. With Eblé he accompanied operations in Italy and into the Kingdom of Naples. On 13 April 1799 he received appointment as provisional capitaine attached to the 16th régiment de dragons (a rank confirmed in 1800), a decisive transition into mounted service that shaped the remainder of his career. In the same phase he became aide-de-camp to General Broussier (from 21 July 1799 to 20 May 1801) and distinguished himself in a series of actions noted in contemporary biographical registers: combat at the passage of the Adda, engagements at Castelnuovo and Gera, and the affair near Cremona in which he was credited with taking prisoners and striking down a senior opposing officer in close action. These episodes established a reputation for personal daring allied to staff reliability, a combination that made him employable both as regimental commander and as a senior cavalry staff officer.

Exelmans’ long association with Joachim Murat began in 1801, when he became Murat’s aide-de-camp. His advancement followed quickly: on 3 October 1803 he was promoted chef d’escadron. Under Murat’s cavalry command in the 1805 campaign, Exelmans served at the head of advance cavalry screens and in the coordination of mounted concentrations. At Wertingen (8 October 1805) he came to particular notice for directing cavalry action in Murat’s absence and for remaining in the thick of combat with multiple horses killed under him. In the immediate aftermath he carried captured enemy standards to Napoleon at Donauwörth, a duty that reflected both trust and the political value attached to trophies taken by the cavalry. On 27 December 1805 he was promoted colonel and given command of the 1st régiment de chasseurs à cheval. He fought with this regiment through the 1806 operations in Prussia and into the winter campaign in Poland, appearing in the fighting around the occupation of Poznań and in the December actions culminating at Golymin. The regiment’s employment in those months relied heavily on reconnaissance, protection of marching columns, and rapid concentration for shock action against exposed infantry or disrupted cavalry—tasks in which Exelmans’ earlier staff grounding complemented aggressive leadership at regimental level.

During the 1807 campaign he served under General Marulaz and was promoted général de brigade on 14 May 1807, following service in the operations that led through Eylau and toward Friedland. His movement into general officer rank coincided with a broader imperial reorganization of cavalry brigades and divisions, and he became part of the cadre of energetic mounted commanders used for pursuit, flank security, and exploitation. In 1808 he was sent to Spain in the opening phase of the Peninsular War, serving in the mounted forces during the attempt to reduce Valencia with Marshal Moncey. In the turbulence of insurgency and irregular warfare, Exelmans fell into enemy hands and became a prisoner of war. British custody took him to England, and his captivity interrupted an otherwise continuous rise through field commands. After escaping in 1811, he made his way to Naples, where Murat—then king—received him and appointed him to high household-military functions, including the office of grand Maréchal du palais. The position placed him close to Murat’s court and mounted establishment, but Exelmans’ principal professional trajectory remained tied to French imperial service, and he returned to France to rejoin the forces being assembled for renewed continental war.

In 1811 Exelmans was named major attached to the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, and in early 1812 he received the imperial title of baron. On 9 July 1812 he entered the Guard’s grenadiers à cheval, and on 6 September 1812—on the eve of the battle of Borodino (the Moskowa)—he was promoted général de division. The promotion placed him among the senior cavalry commanders of the Grande Armée in the Russian campaign, a theater that rapidly tested the endurance, control, and tactical judgment of mounted leaders amid vast distances and increasingly fragile horse supply. In the fighting and subsequent retreat he was repeatedly engaged in rearguard and covering actions; he was wounded at Vilna during the closing stage of the withdrawal, an injury that briefly removed him from the front at a moment when experienced cavalry leadership was in short supply.

Restored to active service in 1813, Exelmans was ordered to rejoin the army and took command of the 4th Light Cavalry Division of the II Cavalry Corps (2e corps de cavalerie), a command that placed him within the reorganized cavalry mass intended to provide Napoleon with operational mobility after the catastrophic losses of 1812. The II Cavalry Corps operated in the German theater, and Exelmans participated in the campaigns that culminated in Leipzig (16–19 October 1813). In this period he received advancement within the Légion d’honneur (raised to grand officier in November 1813) and was used in the shifting mounted engagements characteristic of the late-1813 operations—screening retreats, contesting crossings, and seeking opportunities to disrupt allied movement with concentrated charges when terrain and fatigue permitted.

In 1814, during the defense of France, Exelmans served in the mounted forces employed in Napoleon’s rapid counterstrokes in Champagne and along the Marne and Aisne. Biographical registers of the Second Empire Senate and related nineteenth-century compilations place him with the forces operating under Marshal MacDonald in the Netherlands and during the retreat into northeastern France, and then in the fighting around Châlons and Vitry, followed by actions at Craonne (7 March 1814), the recapture of Reims (13 March 1814), and later combat at Plancy and Arcis-sur-Aube (20–21 March 1814). These engagements were marked by repeated commitments of cavalry to hold open lines of movement, to punish overextended enemy detachments, and to exploit brief windows created by Napoleon’s concentration of force. Exelmans’ divisional leadership in this phase, though constrained by diminished horse quality and remount scarcity, still depended on rapid assembly, disciplined charge control, and the ability to disengage under artillery pressure—skills that distinguished capable cavalry generals from mere bravado.

After the first Bourbon Restoration, Exelmans retained his military grade and was awarded the royal order of Saint-Louis, while also receiving the title of count. His political and personal connections, however, created immediate vulnerability. A seized correspondence with Murat led to an order requiring him to leave Paris; he refused, was arrested, and was tried by a military council on accusations that included unauthorized correspondence. He was acquitted, but the episode placed him under renewed suspicion and sharpened his identification with the imperial faction.

In 1815, during the Hundred Days, Exelmans returned to active service for Napoleon and was named a pair des Cent-Jours on 2 June 1815. Although the main campaign ended with Waterloo, Exelmans’ most noted combat of this final year occurred after the battle, in the closing days of organized resistance around Paris. At Rocquencourt on 1 July 1815, he fought what French military tradition often described as the last engagement of the campaign, leading cavalry in a sharp action against pursuing forces in the western approaches to Paris. Contemporary summaries credit him with energetic mounted leadership in this engagement, which combined local knowledge, rapid concentration, and aggressive pursuit to strike an enemy column in constrained terrain. The action at Rocquencourt formed a final illustration of Exelmans’ professional identity: a cavalry commander adept at sudden blows and at maintaining cohesion while operating close to an enemy’s advancing front.

Following the second Restoration he was included in the ordonnance of 24 July 1815 against officers who had rallied to Napoleon, and he went into exile in the Low Countries. He received amnesty effective 1 January 1819 and returned to France later that month, being restored to the general officer list. In the later stages of his long career he held senior inspection responsibilities in the cavalry, and under the Second Republic and the rise of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte he regained high ceremonial and institutional standing: he became grand chancelier of the Légion d’honneur in 1849 and was made maréchal de France in 1851. He was elected senator on 26 January 1852. Exelmans died at Sèvres in 1852 after a fatal riding accident at the Pont de Sèvres; nineteenth-century official and encyclopedic notices disagree on the precise day in July, but they are consistent in placing the cause as a fall from his horse and the location as the Sèvres/Saint-Cloud area.

Sources

• Wikipedia (English): Rémy Joseph Isidore Exelmans
• Wikipedia (French): Rémy Joseph Isidore Exelmans
• Larousse: Rémy Joseph Isidore comte Exelmans
• Sénat (France): EXELMANS Rémy-Joseph-Isidore (ancien sénateur du Second Empire)
• Bibale / IRHT-CNRS: Exelmans, Rémy Joseph Isidore (1775-1852)
• Paris Musées Collections: Portrait de Rémy-Isidore-Joseph, comte Exelmans (S665)