Clarke

Henri-Jacques-Guillaume, Duke of Feltre (Landrecies, October 17, 1765 - Neuviller-la-Roche, October 28, 1818).

A cadet at the Ecole Militaire in Paris in 1781, Clarke left his regiment of hussars in 1790 with the rank of captain for a post of attache to the London Embassy. Returning to the army, he served in the Army of the Rhine and distinguished himself in the capture of Speyer, in the defense of the passage of the Nahe, and covered the retreat to Worms. He was appointed brigadier general in May 1793, but suspended as a noble and suspect the following October. Released and left jobless, Clarke was reinstated at Carnot's request at the end of 1795 as general of division. Sent to Italy to secretly negotiate with Austria and monitor Bonaparte, Clarke befriends him. The Directory sanctions him by recalling him and leaving him unemployed. After Brumaire's coup d'etat, the First Consul made him Director of the Depot of War then Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Etruria in July 1801. Councilor of State in 1804, Secretary to the Emperor's Cabinet in 1805- 1806, Clarke follows Napoleon to the Grande Armée, becomes governor of Upper and Lower Austria, Erfurt, Berlin and Prussia. The Emperor would have remarked in Saint Helena that Clarke had been, "in the same year and in two different wars, governor of Vienna and Berlin, that is to say of the monarchies of Austria and Prussia". On August 9, 1806, Clarke became Minister of
War in place of Berthier and remained so until the fall of the Empire on April 3, 1814. He was showered with honours:Count of Hunebourg (1808), Duke of Feltre (1809). Joined the Bourbons, he became a peer of France and Minister of War replacing Soult from March 11 to 20, 1815. Clarke followed the king into exile during the Hundred Days and returned with him, taking over the Ministry of War, the September 24, 1815. He was appointed Marshal of France on July 3, 1816. It has been said ironically of Clarke that "he was the man of the sword who owed most to the work of his pen", for he spent a lot more time in his cabinet managing military affairs than waging war on the battlefield. His name appears on the Arc de Triomphe.