Joseph of Cadoudal — Wikipedia
For homonymous articles, see Cadoudal.
Joseph Cadoudal Then Joseph of Cadoudal ( in Kerléano, then commune of Brech – ) is a French soldier, younger brother of the famous chouannerie chief, Georges Cadoudal.
He is head of division in the Royal Army of Brittany, colonel of the Legion of Morbihan, camp marshal, honorary gentleman of the king’s chamber, knight of Saint-Louis, commander of the Legion of Honor. He is ennobled by King Louis XVIII, as well as his family, and maintained in his nobility (letters patent of ).
Bonaparte, first consul, no doubt fearing the influence of Joseph Cadoudal in Brittany, wanted to seize him and have him drive to Brienne. He wrote to General Louis Joseph Victor Jullien de Brovi, prefect of Morbihan, to give him the order to have the young Cadoudal took to this house where he would finish his education at the expense of the government. This order was therefore transmitted to Kerléano, but Pierre Guillemot, the famous King of Bignan , former lieutenant of Georges Cadoudal, made him understand that with the name he wore he could, at any price, accept a similar proposal, and hired him to go to London with him.
This is how the , before dawn, the boat Victory , under the orders of Captain François Le Court, of the island of the monks, was heading on the mouth of the Auray river with Pierre and François Guillemot on board as well as Joseph Cadoudal. They went to the island of Houat, hoping to find a boat there that leads them to England. But the English ship on which they counted did not appear and they had to extend their stay on this island.
The , a marine gendarme, in search of deserting sailors, presented himself on board the boat and asked the boss to present his role to him and insisted to see the passports of passengers. Pushed back strongly, he returned to Belle-Île, where he reported to the competent authorities. The vicinity of Houat becoming unsafe, the captain put in the sail for Guernsey. But the sea was agitated and Guillemot, sick, gave the order to land in Concarneau. The fugitives, of which Joseph, proscribed for not having accepted the government’s proposals, found there, for a few days, hospitality, then they returned to Morbihan and separated to escape prosecution more easily, confide in the dedication of the inhabitants campaigns. Unfortunately for him, Guillemot was taken and shot.
Joseph Cadoudal reached, by other ways, to win London, where he joined the small colony of emigrants. His younger brother Louis came to join him there and both resumed their studies, under the direction of M gr Amelot, the former bishop of Vannes, himself emigrated. They followed the landing and restoration projects developed by the Count of Provence and his entourage with an attentive eye.
Back in France in 1814 with the Bourbons, Joseph commanded a division of the insurrectionary army during the Hundred Days, at the head of the sailors of Plouharnel and Carnac. One day, having recklessly advanced to recognize the positions of the Bonapartist troops, he was prosecuted, the back to the kidneys by the horsemen and was cornered in Loc, around Treulan. The river, fairly tightened there, has steep banks. Followed too closely, he could not think of winning the bridges of the mills, either of Tal-Houet, or of Hurthod. He violently enveloped his horse from his legs and crossed the obstacle. The riders who pursued him did not dare to follow him and lost sight of him.
But, while he crossed the river, his white cockade hat had fallen there; He was reported as Trophy to General Guillaume-Charles Rousseau who, the next day, made him rendered by a parliamentarian. Mr. Montrelay, notary in Lorient, told how, as a child, he met: ” One day, I was with my mother in the post chair, on the road from Hennebont to Auray, I was five years old, it was in the month of , during the hundred days. The campaigns were full of the troops of the Rousseau and Bigarré generals, but also of the Grisolles and Cadoudal soil chouans, who had taken up arms at the start of Napoleon at the Tuileries. We had just exceeded Landevant when a cry of halt suddenly arrested our car. A rider approached it, inspected him carefully by inquiring about the goal of our trip. On my mother’s response that we were going to Ste Anne, he motioned for the coachman to continue his way and then, removing his horse, he crossed the ditch and the embankment that bordered the road, and disappeared in the coppice. The first person who appeared to us as our car stopped in front of the hotel of the “Golden Lion” in Ste Anne, it was our rider who, lowering the step, offered my mother to descend, by apologizing for having been able to scare him . He was General Cadoudal.
The , took place in Rennes, the recording of the letters patent given by the king in Paris the , to Mr. Joseph Cadoudal, colonel of the Legion of Morbihan, by which letters, His Majesty confirms, maintains and keeps said Joseph Cadoudal, son, in the possession and enjoyment of the nobility granted to his father, by order of the order of . As a result, Joseph Cadoudal took the following oath: “I swear to be faithful to the king, to keep and observe the laws of the kingdom” .
Joseph de Cadoudal married in 1822, in Clermont-Ferrand, Virginie du Lac (1795-1828). From this union, two children will be born: Georges de Cadoudal (1823-1885), man of letters and general councilor of Morbihan, and Virginie Jeanne Marie de Cadoudal (1825-1872).
Recent Comments