Louis-Nicolas Davout

Born into minor Burgundian nobility in 1770, Davout passed through the École Militaire and joined a cavalry regiment just in time for the ancien régime to collapse. He threw in with the Revolution, proved himself at Neerwinden, and climbed fast - Rhine campaign, Egypt, divisional general by 1800. Napoleon made him one of the original eighteen Marshals of the Empire in 1804. Leading III Corps, he helped win Austerlitz, then pulled off Auerstedt: vastly outnumbered, he routed the Duke of Brunswick's Prussian force while Napoleon fought elsewhere. Eckmühl, Eylau, Wagram followed. He governed the Duchy of Warsaw, survived the nightmare of Russia, and was holding Hamburg under siege when Napoleon abdicated. The Bourbons sidelined him; the Hundred Days brought him back as Minister of War, but not to the field. After Waterloo he held Paris until July, then submitted. Exile, stripped titles, then in 1819 restoration and a seat among the Peers of France. He died in 1823.