[2] Born in Paris, he entered the army in 1817, but after ten years of garrison service he still held only the lowest commissioned grade.

There he distinguished himself on numerous occasions, and after twelve years had risen to the rank of maréchal de camp (major general).

[3] 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.

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).

However, in Victor Hugo's long poem "Saint Arnaud",[6] he is described as a criminal ‘jackal’ who had orchestrated the bloody massacres that followed Louis-Napoleon’s coup d’état.

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'.