Gaspard de Clermont-Tonnerre

Gaspard de Clermont-Tonnerre (16 August 1688 at Dijon – 16 March 1781 at the Hôtel Matignon, Paris), was a French noble, descendant of a family which traced its origins to the 12th century.

His chief title was that of Marquis of Cruzy and Vauvillers, later 1st Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre, a new creation which elevated him to the Peerage of France.

[1] He had a successful military career in the armies of Louis XV, notably at defeat of Cumberland's Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian forces at Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 alongside Marshal de Saxe.

Clermont-Tonnerre led the decisive cavalry charge which defeated the tenacious but ill-led allied forces.

At the coronation of Louis XVI in 1775, by then aged 87 and the senior living Marshal of France, Clermont-Tonnerre, served as the sword-bearer.