Sylvain Charles Valée

Sylvain-Charles, count Valée , (born with Brienne-the-Castle the December 17th 1773 - August 16th 1846 with Paris) were Marshal of France.

Orphan as of his first years, it was named raises of the king to the Military academy of Brienne, at the 8 years age, thanks to the mediation of the family Loménie de Bienne, where its stay will be prolonged until 1792. Fact the knowledge of the young person Napoleon Bonaparte, four years its elder, but there were no continuation and no influence on its career. It had almost completed its studies when the removal of this School made him leave the place of its birth. It entered to the École of artillery of Châlons as raises second lieutenant; it found there like followers, Haxo, Marmont, Duroc, a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Paul-Louis Courier, etc

1793 was the year not expired that the young Valley, appointed artillery lieutenant, was already pointed out its chiefs. In the campaigns of 1793 and 1794, it leaves to the seat and defense the Quesnoy, of Landrecies, Charleroi, Valencian, Condé and Maestricht. At the beginning of 1793, it accepted the rank of captain and was sent to the Armée with the Rhine which Moreau ordered.

Valley spent several years to the Armée with the Rhine, it ordered there artillery of the general Decaen. Named in 1797, captain, ordering the 2nd company of the 3rd artillery regiment with horse. Unknown personally of the Bonaparte general become First Consul, it arrived only in 1802 at the rank of major. Charged in 1802, of the formation of the camps of artillery of reserve. Named major in 1804, affected with the general artillery park, the weather was later during the countryside of Austerlitz, as general inspector of the train of artillery, Sous-chef of staff of the Songis general, commander-in-chief the artillery of the army, on November 29th, 1806. Colonel, on January 12th, 1807, it was distinguished with the battles from Eylau and Friedland. Soon after, the Emperor sent it in Spain where it began under the orders from the Lannes marshal who besieged Saragossa. After the rendering of this city, it had the command of artillery of the 3^e body, become the Armée with Aragon. Brigadier general in 1809, it directed that of the general Suchet to the seats of Lérida, of Tortose, Mequinenza, Sagonte and Tarragone. After the catch of Tarragone, which had resisted five attacks, the Emperor named it Major general. He followed the Suchet marshal in front of Valence, which he obliged, by the fire of its artillery, to open its doors, and put in a state of defense all the places which were in the vast command of the Duc of Albufera.

One was in 1813; the star of Napoleon i had faded with Moscow, with Leipzig; the French had to evacuate the peninsula, and, in spite of the efforts of the Anglo-Spanish armies and the raised populations, he managed to preserve and bring back, in on this side the Pyrenees, the immense material of the French troops to Spain. Napoleon, for him to testify his recognition to it, created it count of the Empire, by a decree gone back to Soissons, the March 12th 1814. Appointed extraordinary police chief to treat handing-over of the places of Spain, on April 26th, 1814. After his return of the isle of Elba, the Emperor charged it with the armament of Paris that the general Haxo was to put in a state of defense. But for the second time, Napoleon had succumbed under the effort of the people and the armies of united Europe. Called in 1818 by the general Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, Minister for the war, to belong to a commission of defense of the kingdom, it made there adopt a general system of armament for the fortified towns and the immense littoral of the West and the South.

In 1822, the government created for him the title and the functions of inspector of the central service of artillery. In 1827, it put at the day a vast system which embraced all the branches of the service, and gave to the France a new material of countryside, seat and place.

Of 1822 with 1830, Valée was devoted without slackening to the execution of the vast plan which it had conceived. For the defense of the places and coasts

The government, to reward the services for the general Valley, restores for him the use and the dignity of first general inspector, and the king Charles X named it hereditary Pair kingdom, by an ordinance of the January 27th 1830.

When the forwarding of Algiers was solved, a commission, composed of the most experienced officers our Armies and sea, was charged to examine the difficulties of forwarding and to prepare the plan of countryside.

With the Revolution of 1830, the use of first general inspector of artillery was removed, Valée was withdrawn in the Loiret and devoted itself to it to agriculture; but one could not delay to take it from his retirement. It was to advise of State in 1834, member of the Charged commission dice relative questions to the manufacture of the powder and the trade of the Salpêtre, then finally recalled to Peerage.

In 1837, at the time of the preparations for the second forwarding of Constantine, the cabinet obtained from the king that the artillery and the genius were directed by the Valée general. But at the time to give the attack to Constantine, a ball of besieged came to strike beside the duke of Nemours the general-in-chief Damrémont; Valley replaced it, and, the 15, Jugurtha saw floating the French flag. The province of Constantine, in less than two years was subjected, organized, managed in such a way that a regular tax was perceived there without least resistance, and that a traveller could traverse it without escort. Considering inevitable and next the resumption of the hostilities with Abd-el-Kader, and feeling the need for strengthening the French places in the provinces of Oran and Algiers, Valée proposed with the government to occupy the towns of Koléah and Blida.

The Emir, with this news, called upon the Traité of Tafna; but the marshal passed in addition to, and, in May 1838, occupied without obstacle Blidah and Koléah, carried on the Chiffa the French border of the West, and formed in the East of the camps to the Fondouck and on the edges of the Ouad-Kaddura. He employed the autumn and the winter 1838 to organize the Province of Bône. At the beginning of 1839, the cabinet of April 15th being withdrawn, the Valée marshal, who felt little known new ministers, sent his resignation; but the king and the duke of Dalmatie decided it to take it again. At the entry of the autumn of this year, Valée put at execution the project that it had conceived to occupy definitively the plate of, and to obtain the tender of the tribes which the agents of Abd-el-Kader worked to raise.

It is the October 27th which the French Army crosses the so dreaded passage of the Portes of Iron in country Kabyle. It is precisely this " excursion" on a territory placed under the administration of the emir Abd el-Kader, which was to put fire at the powders. A choice which was, rightly, considered by the emir as a violation of the treaty of Tafna. Pressed by the tribes to repair the affront, Abd-el-Kader, did not have any more other possibilities but of informing the French military authorities of the resumption of the hostilities.

The old marshal wanted to make with the Emir a patient and obstinate war, to destroy his principal establishments, to place the French troops and authorities in military and commercial centers, on a line parallel of Constantine with Tlemcen, to gather in each one of these centers an enough strong garrison to draw a column from it from 3 to 4.000 men, intended to fight or punish the tribes according to the need. The first division was to be ordered by the duke of Orleans; at the end of February, the marshal made occupy Cherchell (ancient Césarée). Abd-el-Kader had chosen the impregnable position of the Col of Mouzaïa which it still made strengthen. But the ministry for the 1^er March replaced that of the May 12th; the new cabinet prescribed with the general governor to send, in the Province of Oran, part of the troops which it held joined together in that of Algiers. This countryside was glorious; the royal prince and the duke of Aumale competed there of intelligence and bravery. After the departure of these young princes, the May 27th, the marshal continued the offensive, and when it returned to Algiers the July 5th, it had pushed back the Emir beyond the Atlas, destroyed its best troops, definitively occupied Cherchell, Médéah, Milianah, and punished, in their own hearths, the turbulent tribes which surround the Mitidja. It then carried out three new tests of colonization which made a success of, in Blidah, Cherchell and Coléah.

But the treated of London of July 15th had changed into Europe the position of France.

The January 18th 1841, Valée left for always this Algeria. It chaired the commission on the armament of Paris.

He died in Paris the August 16th 1846, 73 years old. Its remainders were deposited with the Invalides, and the king ordered that its statue would be placed at Versailles.

Distinctions

It belongs to the 660 personalities to have its name engraved under the Triumphal arch of the Star. It appears on the 36e column (the Arc indicates VALLEY ).

Random links: