Claude Lecomte (September 8, 1817 – March 18, 1871) was a French general killed by the

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

of the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...

Biography

Lecomte graduated from the military academy of Saint Cyr in 1837, was promoted Colonel in August 1865 and in 1869 became second in command of the

Prytanée National Militaire The Prytanée national militaire is a French military school managed by the French military, offering regular secondary education as well as special preparatory classes, equivalent in level to the first years of university, for students who wi ...

La Flèche La Flèche () is a town and commune in the French department of Sarthe, in the Pays de la Loire region in the Loire Valley. It is the sub-prefecture of the South-Sarthe, the chief district and the chief city of a canton, and the second most popu ...

. Lecomte was promoted Brigadier General in 1870 and was part of the northern army commanded by General

Louis Faidherbe Louis Léon César Faidherbe (; 3 June 1818 – 29 September 1889) was a French general and colonial administrator. He created the Senegalese Tirailleurs when he was governor of Senegal. Early life Faidherbe was born into a lower-middle-cla ...

during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Lecomte took part in the battles of

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

St. Quentin Saint Quentin ( la, Quintinus; died 287 AD) also known as Quentin of Amiens, was an early Christian saint. Hagiography Martyrdom The legend of his life has him as a Roman citizen who was martyred in Gaul. He is said to have been the son of ...

, and

Pont-Noyelles Pont-Noyelles (; pcd, Pont-Noéyelle) is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The commune is situated at the junction of the D929, D30 and D115 roads, some northeast of Amiens, in the valley of th ...

. Back in Paris after the capitulation, when he replaced

Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet ...

Viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicia ...

Fleuriot de Langle, commander of the sixth sector, he was placed temporarily at the head of a brigade of the new army of Paris and was appointed headmaster of La Flèche. As Brigadier General he took part in the Siege of Paris. After the capitulation of the capital, he was appointed commander of the 2nd sector.

Execution

He was about to leave for the provinces when the Uprising of March 18, 1871 broke out. The government of

Adolphe Thiers Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( , ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the French Third Republic. Thiers was a key figure in the July Rev ...

charged Lecomte with retrieving cannons from

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

where the

had brought them when the Prussians had advanced on the Champs Elysees. Lecomte waited in vain for his artillery teams to remove the cannon components. They were surrounded by a crowd opposing the removal of the guns, at which point Lecomte tried to withdraw, and then ordered his soldiers to load their weapons and fix bayonets. He thrice ordered them to fire, but the soldiers refused. Some of the officers were disarmed and taken to the city hall of Montmartre, under the protection of the mayor of the 18th arrondissement, and later prime minister,

Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...

. General Lecomte and the officers of his staff were seized by the guardsmen and his mutinous soldiers and taken to the local headquarters of the National Guard at the ballroom of the

Château Rouge Château Rouge (Red Castle) is a château in the '' ancienne commune'' of Bas-Oha, Wanze, Liège Province, Wallonia, Belgium. The original castle was built in the 11th century, and served as the residence for a religious community. Gutted by a ...

. The officers were pelted with rocks, struck, threatened, and insulted by the crowd. In the middle of the afternoon Lecomte and the other officers were taken to 6 Rue des Rosiers by members of a group calling themselves The Committee of Vigilance of the 18th ''arrondissement'', who demanded that they be tried and executed. In the late afternoon, Lecomte was beaten and then shot in the back. Minutes later, another general, Jacques Leon Clément-Thomas, who was in civilian clothes, was recognized by the crowd, thrown on top of Lecomte's corpse, and slain in turn. Their bodies were left exposed at the site of the slaying for two days. A Doctor Guyon, who examined the bodies afterwards, found forty balls in the body of Clément-Thomas and nine balls in the back of Lecomte., The legend that Generals Lecomte and Thomas were shot "in a regulation manner" by a firing squad was a fabrication: it is based on a photograph staged by the photographer

Eugène Appert Eugène Appert who was born at Angers in 1814, went to Paris in 1837, and became a disciple of Ingres. He painted numerous pictures of merit, among which are a portrait of ''Pope Alexander III as a Beggar'', which is now in the Luxembourg; ''Nero ...

, which was taken in June, three months later. There was even an activist theater production (La Commune, historical drama, 1908), which portrays a pseudo-trial of the two generals before their execution. According to the Commune history written in 1876 by Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, when General Lecomte was arrested by his men, the Vigilance Committee of Montmartre issued an order to the commander of the National Guard responsible for guarding the General at the Château Rouge to ensure his protection. The order came just after Lecomte was moved from that location. A truly huge monument to General Lecomte and Thomas was erected near the centre of Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Legacy

On 18 November 1871 a court-martial (le 6e Conseil de Guerre) handed down the death penalty to Simon Charles Mayer (1820 Nancy - 1887

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), major of the Paris Commune, for being responsible for the murder of the two generals Claude Lecomte, and Jacques Leonard Clement Thomas, in spite of weak evidence. In 1872 this sentence was commuted to life-long forced labour, and thereafter he was exiled to

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References

Collectif, Les barricades de la Commune, Editions Les amis de l'histoire, 1968, and Editions Omnibus, 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lecomte, Claude 1817 births 1871 deaths People from Thionville French generals Executed French people Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery