David Maurice Champouliès de Barrau de Muratel

David Maurice Champouliès de Barrau de Muratel was born at Lacaune (Tarn) on 14 February 1741, and entered military service in the final years of the Ancien Régime. He belonged to the Barrau family, seigneurs of Muratel, and pursued a professional cavalry career that began in the provincial forces of Languedoc before he moved into the line regiments of the royal army. His earliest recorded appointment placed him as a lieutenant in the Languedoc militia on 30 April 1757, at a time when France was already engaged in the Seven Years’ War. His progression in mounted service continued with his admission to the Orléans-dragoons (Orléans Dragoons), where he became a cornette on 19 April 1760. In the cavalry hierarchy of the period this grade marked him as a junior commissioned officer in a regiment that could be employed for reconnaissance, screening, and shock action, and his subsequent war service included the German campaigns of 1760, 1761, and 1762.

On 12 April 1762 he obtained a captaincy in the regiment of the King’s Dragoons (dragons du Roi). He remained in dragoon service for decades, and the surviving outlines of his career show a long interval in regimental employment, with promotion within the same arm rather than frequent transfers between corps. In 1766 he is reported as governor of Lacaune, a local civil appointment that he held alongside his military status. In the years after the Seven Years’ War he continued as a serving cavalry officer in a peacetime army where advancement was often slow, and he is recorded as a captain-commander (capitaine-commandant) in 1777. His seniority and length of service were recognized within the royal system of military honors when he was made chevalier of the ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis on 13 September 1781 (also given as 15 September 1781 in some summaries), and his reception or decoration is recorded as occurring on 30 April 1782.

Muratel’s regimental advancement resumed in the late 1780s. He became lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Dragoons (Royal-Dragons) on 9 October 1786 (also given as 29 October 1786), an appointment that placed him among the senior field officers responsible for discipline, training, and operational readiness in a mounted regiment. He held this rank through the onset of the French Revolution, and in the first phase of the revolutionary reorganization of the army he was promoted to colonel on 21 October 1791. In accounts that follow his regiment through the first campaigns of the War of the First Coalition, this colonelcy is associated with command of the 1er Régiment de dragons, reflecting the revolutionary renumbering and renaming of cavalry regiments.

In 1792 Muratel served with forces operating on the northeastern frontier. In July 1792 he distinguished himself in an engagement near Landau (affaire de Landau), dated in different summaries either 9 July or 29 July 1792. The frontier situation in that period involved rapid movements, raiding, and attempts to contain incursions as French armies reorganized after the declaration of war against Austria and the subsequent entry of Prussia into the conflict. In early August 1792 he again saw combat at Arnhem (combat d’Arnheim), variously dated 3 August or 5 August 1792. Contemporary and later accounts note that his nephew, David-Maurice-Joseph Mathieu de La Redorte, served under him during this action. Muratel’s conduct in these early encounters brought support for his elevation to general officer rank; General Kellermann is recorded as requesting his promotion, and Muratel was promoted maréchal de camp on 8 August 1792, with the request and ministerial decision described in some narratives as occurring on 10 August and 8 August respectively.

After his promotion, Muratel was ordered to conduct reinforcements toward the Armée du Centre and rejoined Kellermann in early September 1792. He was present at the battle of Valmy on 20 September 1792, where he is described as commanding the first line of infantry. His assignment at Valmy placed him within the deployed battle array in the encounter that checked the Prussian advance and stabilized the operational situation around Sainte-Menehould and the Argonne. Following Valmy, he continued in active service through the reconfigurations of the French field forces in late 1792 and early 1793. He served under General Beurnonville and General de Ligniville in the subsequent phase of operations, and by April 1793 he held a command within the Armée de la Moselle under General Houchard, indicating continued employment in the frontier armies responsible for the sector between the Rhine and the northern approaches.

Administrative decisions during the reorganization of the armies in spring 1793 affected his career. He was placed in non-activity on 15 May 1793 (also summarized as retiring from service on 1 June 1793), and he ceased to be employed with a field force thereafter. Later revolutionary administrative records associate him in 1794 with the cavalry bureau of the military committee (bureau de la cavalerie du comité militaire), indicating at least a period of attachment to central military administration even after the end of his frontline employment. In the mid-1790s he appears again in the personnel movements of the Republic: in 1795 he received a pension and returned briefly to duty with the Armée des Côtes de Cherbourg, being restored to activity on 13 June 1795 in one summary. That return was short, and he resigned later in 1795 for reasons of health in the same account; other summaries give his resignation as 5 August 1796. After this final separation from active service, he lived in retirement.

Muratel died at Lacaune on 5 February 1827. Accounts of his burial place state that he was buried in the garden of the Château of Muratel. His recorded life thus spanned the late Bourbon army, the first revolutionary campaigns, and the subsequent Napoleonic and Restoration periods, though his active military employment ended during the early years of the Revolutionary Wars after his presence at Landau, Arnhem, and Valmy and his later short-lived return to duty on the Channel coast.

Sources

• Wikipédia (French): David Maurice de Barrau de Muratel
• Wikipedia (English): David Maurice Champouliès de Barrau de Muratel
• FrenchEmpire.net: General David-Maurice Champouliès de Barrau de Muratel
• GeneaWiki (French): Famille de Barrau de Muratel (Brusque, Rouergue)
• Wikipédia (French): Famille de Barrau de Muratel