Joseph Barbanègre

He was governor of the Fortress of Huningue during the siege of the 1815 and held out until the end of hostilities, surrendering the place with full military honours on 26 August 1815.

In 1812 he joined the Grande Armée to Moscow; in Minsk, Borisov and Smolensk he had to organize supplies for the army.

On the 28 June shortly after word of Napoleon's abdication became known, and the French Provisional Government had requested a ceasefire, Barbanègre ordered the bombardment of Basel, something that contemporaries on the Seventh Coalition side considered to be a war crime.

[4] He died in Paris, aged 58, and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in the area reserved for marshals and generals of the Empire.

In his home village of Pontacq there is a street bearing his name and a statue erected in his honor on the town hall square.