The Knight of Cherval
There are certain people throughout history who’s life has not been the subject of extensive and renowned university studies, but their life and adventures certainly merit being told. This, in my opinion, is the case with Louis-Marie de Lageard, knight of Cherval, born on the 10th of January 1756 at Pont-à-Mousson. He was the son of Raphaël, count of Lageard, lord of Cherval and other domains, first lord of Lageard, knight of Saint-Louis, and of Marthe-Louise Ragot ; he was baptized in the church of Cherval on the 23rd of April 1690.
After a long military career, Raphaël was commander at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine ; between 1737 and 1758, he had nine, maybe ten, children of whom the boys, apart from the eldest and one other who became a priest, all served in the army.
Louis-Marie entered the Royal College of La Flèche in 1763 then, in 1770, entered the military academy of Les Cadets de La Flèche and graduated four years later as a sub-lieutenant, and affected to the Dragoons of Port au Prince in Santo Domingo. He received the Saint Lazarus medal for his zeal and conduct there.
Homesick (not having seen his mother for eleven years) he fell sick and asked for a year’s leave to return to France to convalesce; he was nineteen at the time. The Royal Naval Archives show that his request, supported by the duchess of Mailly, his protector, reached the desk of the minister Antoine de Sartine. Cherval was finally granted an initial leave in 1775, and returned to France most probably at Orléans, where his brother Benjamin-François, former vicar general of Reims, was then priest at La Cour-Dieu, in the diocese of Orléans. Here, the doctor Mounier diagnosed an intermittent fever (see annex), possibly malaria, or, possibly what would be labelled today deep depression, or both. Consequently, he was granted another year of recovery. In higher circles , he was considered insane as were two of his brothers. Maybe as the result of a new posting, he resigned on the 20th of February 1778.
In the same year France declared war on England and naval hostilities, including those of the Indian Ocean, continued until July of 1783. It seems that just over a year after his departure, the knight regained his service, for on the 27th of December 1779 he is lieutenant of a frigate. Six months later, on the 5th of July 1780, the frigate La Capricieuse is pursued by two English frigates, the Prudent and the Unicorn, in the waters of Cape Finisterre off the coast of La Coruña in Galicia; the commander Le Breton de Ransanne, who, in 1772, was still a captain in the fusiliers, and his second, the knight of Chapelle Fontane having been killed, it was the lieutenant Cherval who, although injured, took command. However, the vessel having been destroyed, he was obliged to surrender. The ship was in such a state that the English burned and sunk it rather than capture a wreck. He was taken prisonner and jailed in Mill’s Prison in Plymouth, where he did not stay long and was probably part of a prisonner exchange, as was the custom.
On the 1st February 1781 Cherval was promoted captain of a fire-ship, transferred from Dunkirk to Brest, and placed aboard the Indien, a 64 gun ship launched in 1768. On the 20th June 1783, whilst on board the Hardi, another 64 gun-ship of the line launched in 1751, he fought in the Battle of Gondelour off Pondichery with the squadron of Admiral Pierre André de Suffren, known as ‘the Bailiff of Suffren’, and his 74 gun-ship Hannibal, (launched at Brest in 1779). It is interesting to note that the squadron was joined by the famouse frigate, Hermione (2). Once again, Cherval is seriously wounded. In 1785, he is lieutenant on board the Minerve, a frigate under the command of the Knight of Ligondès ; on the 21 June the vessel is anchored off Alger with orders to negotiate the release of 313 French prisoners, captured and held as slaves by the Bey of Alger. In 1786, Louis-Marie is promoted lieutenant and undertakes five campaigns and two battles. He embarks at Lorient on the frigate Dryade, under the command of Count Guy Pierre de Kersaint de Coëtnenpren, who will sail to the South China Sea, via the Mauritius Islands and Pondichery, to accompany Pierre-Joseph-Georges Pigneaux de Béhaine, bishop of Adran, appointed by Pope Clement XIV as Apostolic Vicar of Cochinchina and Cambodia, and Canh, the son of Prince Nguyen-Phuoc-Anh. Prince Cahn had been sent by his father as proof of his father’s credentials in the hope the bishop might defend his interests before Louis XVI. On the return voyage, Louis-Marie falls sick aboard the Dryade and is disembarked in November 1790 on Bourbon Island (now named La Réunion) in the Mascarene Archipelago. He spends the Revolution on the Ile de France (now Mauritius), where he settles at Pamplemousses on the north west of the island and marries Anne-Marie-Elisabeth Collard on the 28th August 1792 (4). They have three sons and a daughter : Louis, Ludovic-Raphaël, Elisabeth-Louise and the last, Marie-Raphaël Adalbert in 1815. The General Decaen, governor of Mascareignes and member of the Colonial Assembly, names him second in command. In 1809 he is named commander of the Grand Port district where he lives.
Following the defeat of the British navy, he is ordered to reclaim the island of La Passe in 1810. The same year, during the English attack of Mauritius, he is one of the first to take up arms and does not surrender until the French defeat in 1814. The island was returned four years later to the French….and then retaken. It would seem, as was the case with many members of the nobility during the Revolution, that the Knight no longer used his aristocratic particle and became known as simply Lageard, as written upon his tombstone. Moreover, Knight of Cherval was not an indication of nobility, but one of provenance ; I might, just as well, call myself Vigne of Vertillac ! Louis-Marie de Lageard, knight of Cherval died on the 20th October 1834, near to Deux Bras on Mauritius at the age of 78, a highly respectable age for his time.
Louis-Emmanuel de Lageard de Cherval, a grandson by Ludovic-Raphaël, was born on the 13th September 1836 on Mauritius. He was lieutenant of the line and dubbed knight of the Legion of Honour by decree on the 11th August 1869, whilst officer on board the aviso Curieux. He married a lady from Cavalhès(5). He no longer appears in the rolls of 1874, probably having returned to civilian life, which does not seem to have been a success as he is condemned to two years imprisonment for embezzlement and forgery. He no longer appears in the maritime registry, by decree, as of the 8th June 1878. In 1872 he was living in Cherbourg.
I would like to thank my wife, the Mauritius Historical Society, the Regional Archives of Meurthe et Moselle, and to Madame Catherine and Monsieur Jean-Paul Léger for their kind and precious help.
André Vigne.
(1) Captain of a Fire-Ship was basically a rank between lieutenant of a frigate and a vessel. The fire-ship was a boat filled, at the bow, with explosives and inflammable material, and launched towards the enemy ship to set it on fire. It was more often than not an old, small vessel, a brick or a sloop, decommissioned from, either, the military or merchant navy. The crew, with a captain, was small, from 4 to 10, and sailed the boat towards the enemy and having lit the fuse escaped in a rowing boat.
(2) In 1782 the crew of the frigate Hermione was composed of the following : the commander, 10 staff officers, 44 maintenance crew, 35 soldiers and sub-officers, 29 supernumeraries (civilian crew), 152 crew members and 31 cabin boys, in all a total of 302 crew members. ( The Arsenal of Rochefort).
(3) It is interesting to note part of this episode is related in the last novel of Jean-François Parot, The Prince of Cochinchina, Jean-Claude Lattès, 2017.
(4) Biographies of Famous People from Mauritius by Auguste Toussaint.
(5) Jean-Marie Ouvrard (Blasons de la Charente)
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