Editing Jacques Leroy de Saint-Arnaud (section)

==Biography==
Born in [[Paris, France|Paris]], he entered the army in 1817, but after ten years of garrison service he still held only the lowest commissioned grade. He then resigned, led a life of adventure in several lands and returned to the army at the age of thirty as a sub-lieutenant. He took part in the suppression of the {{ill|Vendée émeute|fr|Guerre de Vendée et Chouannerie de 1832}} (1832), and served for a time on the staff of [[Thomas Robert Bugeaud de la Piconnerie|General (Marshal) Bugeaud]]. However, his debts and the scandals of his private life compelled him to go to [[Algeria]] as a captain in the [[French Foreign Legion]]. There he distinguished himself on numerous occasions, and after twelve years had risen to the rank of {{lang|fr|maréchal de camp}} (major general).<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Saint Arnaud, Jacques Leroy de|volume=23|page=1016}}</ref>

Following the example of Marshal [[Aimable Pélissier]], Saint Arnaud suffocated 500 Arab tribesmen (8 August 1845), in a cave between Tenes and Mostaganem, in the Sbeah area. Three days later he wrote "I hermetically sealed all exits and made a vast cemetery. The earth will cover the corpses of these fanatics for ever. No one went down to the caverns; no one but me knows that there are 500 brigands under here who will not cut the throats of the French any more. A confidential report related everything to the Marshal simply, without terrible poetry and without images. Brother, no one is good by taste and by nature like me. From the 8th to the 12th, I was sick, but my conscience does not blame me for anything. I did my duty" [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfumades_d%27Alg%C3%A9rie#%C2%AB_Emmurades_%C2%BB_des_Sbehas_(Ouled_Sbih)_de_A%C3%AFn_Merane_(du_8_au_12_ao%C3%BBt_1845)]. These massacres were regarded with absolute horror in the French press, as an article in The Times relates.<ref>[https://login.thetimes.com/?gotoUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.com%2Farchive%2Farticle%2F1845-07-14%2F7%2F9.html "French Atrocities in Algeria"], ''The Times'', 14 July 1845</ref>

[[File: Maréchal Leroy de Saint-Arnaud.jpg|thumb|right|[[Marshal of France|Maréchal]] Leroy de Saint-Arnaud, by [[Charles-Philippe Larivière]], {{circa|1854}}]]
He also burnt 200 villages in 1846, including rich arable fields."I left in my wake a vast conflagration. All the villages, some 200 in number, were burned down, all the gardens destroyed, all the olive trees cut down."<ref name="reference">{{cite book |last1=Bennoune |first1=Mahfoud |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4nXl7h8i5scC&q=arnaud |title=The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=29 July 1988 |pages=40–41 |isbn=978-0521301503 |access-date=2020-06-14 }}</ref>

In 1848 Saint Arnaud commanded a brigade during the [[The Revolutions of 1848 in France|revolution]] in Paris. On his return to Africa, possibly because [[Louis Napoleon]] considered him a suitable  military head of a potential ''coup d'état'', an expedition took place into Little [[Kabylie]] in northern Algeria, in which Saint Arnaud showed his prowess as a commander-in-chief and provided his superiors with the pretext for bringing him home as a general of division (July 1851).

[[File:La bataille de l'Alma, le 20 septembre 1854.jpg|thumb|''[[The Battle of the Alma (painting)|The Battle of the Alma]]'' by [[Eugène Lami]], 1855. Saint-Arnaud is on the right with his staff.]]
He succeeded Marshal [[Bernard Pierre Magnan|Magnan]] as minister of war and superintended the military operations of the ''[[French coup of 1851|coup d'état]]'' of 2 December 1851, which placed Louis Napoleon on the throne as Emperor [[Napoleon III]]. A year later he became a [[Marshal of France]] and a senator, remaining at the head of the war office until 1854, when he set out to command the French forces in the [[Crimean War]], alongside his British colleague [[Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan|Lord Raglan]]. Ill with stomach cancer, he died on board ship just over a week after commanding troops at the [[Battle of Alma|Battle of the Alma]] on 20 September 1854. His body was returned to France, and lies buried in [[Les Invalides]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

[[File:Statue of Marshal Leroy de Saint-Arnaud.jpg|thumb|Statue of Saint-Arnaud in the Australian town of [[St Arnaud, Victoria|St Arnaud]]]]
After his death Saint Arnaud was regarded as a military hero, by both the French state and army. However, in [[Victor Hugo]]'s long poem "Saint Arnaud",<ref name="reference 3">{{cite news |last=Hugo |first=Victor |author-link=Victor Hugo |url=http://www.unjourunpoeme.fr/poeme/saint-arnaud |title=Saint Arnaud |language=fr |work=Les Châtiments |date=1854-10-17 }}</ref> he is described as a criminal ‘jackal’ who had orchestrated the bloody massacres that followed Louis-Napoleon’s coup d’état. [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]] later described the poem of Saint Arnaud as an example of Hugo's 'poetic genius'. Swinburne said 'Then... came the great and terrible poem on the life and death of the miscreant marshal who gave the watchword of massacre in the streets of Paris'.<ref name="reference 4">{{cite news |last=Godfrey |first=Sima |url=https://fhis2015.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2016/05/CrimeeGodfreyArticle.pdf|title=La Guerre de Crimée n'aura pas lieu |work=French Cultural Studies |publisher=Sage Journals |date=2016-02-02 }}</ref>