1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bouchotte, Jean Baptiste Noël

BOUCHOTTE, JEAN BAPTISTE NOËL (1754–1840), French minister, was born at Metz on the 25th of December 1754. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a captain of cavalry, and his zeal led to his being made colonel and given the command at Cambrai. When Dumouriez delivered up to the Austrians the minister of war, the marquis de Beurnonville, in April 1793, Bouchotte, who had bravely defended Cambrai, was called by the Convention to be minister of war, where he remained until the 31st of March 1794. The predominant rôle of the Committee of Public Safety during that period did not leave much scope for the new minister, yet he rendered some services in the organization of the republican armies, and chose his officers with insight, among them Kléber, Masséna, Moreau and Bonaparte. During the Thermidorian reaction, in spite of his incontestable honesty, he was accused by the anti-revolutionists. He was tried by the tribunal of the Eure-et-Loire and acquitted. Then he withdrew from politics, and lived in retirement until his death on the 8th of June 1840.