mother went into service and the father took the post of usher in a public school. He went to Paris before 1830, and lived a Bohemian life. He was habitually houseless, and exposed himself to the dangers of a cholera hospital in the great epidemic of 1832 simply to obtain shelter and food. Then he revisited Provins and published a kind of satirical serial called Diogène. Some years of this life entirely ruined his health, and it was only just before his death that he succeeded in getting his collected poems published, selling the copyright for £4 sterling and 80 copies of the book. This volume, Myosotis, was received not unfavourably, but the author’s death on the 20th of December 1838, in a refuge of the destitute, created an interest in it which was proportionately excessive. Moreau’s work has a strong note of imitation, especially in his earlier songs, distinguished from those of his model, Béranger, chiefly by their elegiac note. Some of his poems, such as the elegy La Voulzie (1837) and the charming romance La Fermière (1835), have great sweetness and show incontestable poetic power. Moreau wrote some charming prose stories: Le Gui de chêne, La Souris blanche, &c.
MOREAU, JEAN VICTOR MARIE (1763–1813), French
general, was born at Morlaix in Brittany on the 14th of February
1763. His father was an avocat in good practice, and instead
of allowing him to enter the army, as he attempted to do,
insisted on his studying law at the university of Rennes.
Young Moreau showed no inclination for law, but revelled in
the freedom of a student’s life. Instead of taking his degree
he continued to live with the students as their hero and leader,
formed them into a sort of army, which he commanded as their
provost, and when 1789 came he commanded the students in the
daily affrays which took place at Rennes between the young
noblesse and the populace. In 1791 he was elected a lieut.-colonel
of the volunteers of Ille-et-Vilaine. With them he served
under Dumouriez, and in 1793 the good order of his battalion,
and his own martial character and republican principles secured
his promotion as general of brigade. Carnot, who had an eye
for the true qualities of a general, promoted him to be general
of division early in 1794, and gave him command of the right
wing of the army under Pichegru, in Flanders. The battle
of Tourcoing established his military fame, and in 1795 he was
given the command of the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle,
with which he crossed the Rhine and advanced into Germany.
He was at first completely successful, won several victories
and penetrated to the Isar (see French Revolutionary Wars),
but at last had to retreat before the archduke Charles. However,
the skill he displayed in conducting his retreat—which was
considered a model for such operations—greatly enhanced his
own reputation, the more so as he managed to bring back with
him more than 5000 prisoners. In 1797 he again, after prolonged
difficulties caused by want of funds and material, crossed the
Rhine, but his operations were checked by the conclusion of
the preliminaries of Leoben between Bonaparte and the Austrians.
It was at this time he found out the traitorous correspondence
between his old comrade and commander Pichegru
and the émigré prince de Condé. He had already appeared as
Pichegru’s defender against imputations of disloyalty, and now he
foolishly concealed his discovery, with the result that he has
ever since been suspected of at least partial complicity. Too
late to clear himself, he sent the correspondence to Paris and
issued a proclamation to the army denouncing Pichegru as
a traitor. He was dismissed, and it was only when in 1799
the absence of Bonaparte and the victorious advance of Suvárov
made it necessary to have some tried and experienced general
in Italy that he was re-employed. He commanded the Army
of Italy, with little success, for a short time before being appointed
to the Army of the Rhine, and remained with Joubert, his
successor in Italy, till Novi had been fought and lost. Joubert
fell in the battle, and Moreau then conducted the retreat of
the army to Genoa, where he handed over the command to
Championnet. When Bonaparte returned from Egypt he found
Moreau at Paris, greatly dissatisfied with the Directory both
as a general and as a republican, and obtained his assistance in
the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, when Moreau commanded the
force which confined two of the directors in the Luxembourg. In
reward, the First Consul again gave him command of the Army
of the Rhine, with which he forced back the Austrians from
the Rhine to the Isar. On his return to Paris he married Mlle
Hullot, a Creole of Josephine’s circle, an ambitious woman
who gained a complete ascendancy over him, and after spending
a few glorious weeks with the army in Germany and winning
the celebrated victory of Hohenlinden (Dec. 3, 1800) he settled
down to enjoy the fortune he had acquired during his campaigns.
His wife collected around her all who were discontented
with the aggrandisement of Napoleon. This “club Moreau”
annoyed Napoleon, and encouraged the Royalists, but Moreau,
though not unwilling to become a military dictator to restore
the republic, would be no party to an intrigue for the restoration
of Louis XVIII. All this was well known to Napoleon, who
seized the conspirators. Moreau’s condemnation was procured
only by great pressure being brought to bear by Bonaparte on
the judges; and after it was pronounced the First Consul treated
him with a pretence of leniency, commuting a sentence of imprisonment
to one of banishment. Moreau passed through Spain
and embarked for America, where he lived in quiet and obscurity
for some years at Morrisville, New Jersey, till news came of
the destruction of the grande armée in Russia. Then, probably
at the instigation of his wife, he committed the last and least
excusable of the series of well-meant political errors that marked
his career. Negotiations were set on foot with an old friend
in the circle of republican intriguers, Bernadotte, who, being
now crown prince of Sweden and at the head of an army opposing
Napoleon, introduced Moreau to the tsar Alexander. In the
hope of returning to France to re-establish the régime of popular
government, Moreau gave advice to the allied sovereigns as
to the conduct of the war, but fortunately for his fame as a
patriot he did not live to invade France. He was mortally
wounded while talking to the tsar at the battle of Dresden on
the 27th of August 1813, and died on the 2nd of September.
He was buried at St Petersburg. His wife received a pension
from the tsar, and was given the rank of maréchale by Louis XVIII.,
but his countrymen spoke of his “defection” and
compared him to Dumouriez and Pichegru.
Moreau’s fame as a general stands very high, though he was far from possessing Napoleon’s transcendent gifts. His combinations were skilful and elaborate, and his temper always unruffled when most closely pressed. Moreau was a sincere republican, though his own father was guillotined in the Terror. He was fortunate in the moment of his death, though he would have been more so had he died in America. He seems by his final words, “Soyez tranquilles, messieurs; c’est mon sort,” not to have regretted being removed from his equivocal position as a general in arms against his country.
The literature on Moreau is copious, the best book being C. Jochmus, General Moreau—Abriss einer Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Feldzüge (Berlin, 1814). A more ordinary work is A. de Beauchamp, Vie politique, militaire, et privée du Général Moreau, translated by Philippart (London, 1814); and there is a curious tract on his death in Russian, translated into English under the title, Some Details Concerning General Moreau and his Last Moments, by Paul Svinin (London, 1814).
MOREAU DE SAINT MÉRY, MÉDÉRIC LOUIS ÉLIE (1750–1819),
French politician, was born at Fort de France, in the
island of Martinique, on the 28th of January 1750. He came
to Paris at the age of nineteen, and became an avocat at the
parlement of Paris. He subsequently returned to Martinique
to practise law, and in 1780 was appointed member of the colonial
council of San Domingo. Returning to Paris in 1784, he received
a commission to study the legislation of the French colonies,
and published Lois et constitutions des colonies françaises de
l’Amérique sous le Vent de 1550 à 1785. In 1789 he was president
of the assembly of the electors of Paris, played an active part
in the early days of the Revolution, and was designated by
Martinique deputy to the Constituent Assembly. His moderate
ideas were the occasion of his arrest after the 10th of August
1792, but he contrived to escape to the United States, opened
