Louis, comte de Narbonne-Lara

Louis Marie Jacques Amalric, comte de Narbonne-Lara (August 1755 – 17 November 1813) was a French nobleman, soldier and diplomat.

Napoleon called him into service in 1809, and he held several prominent positions, including Governor of Raab, divisional general commander in Trieste, and minister plenipotentiary in Bavaria.

He was a Grandee of Spain 1st Class, Lieutenant General of the Army, Commander in Name of the King of the Dioceses of Castres, Albi and Lavaur, 1st Gentleman of the House of H.R.H.

According to documents of the Military Archive, the comte Jean François de Narbonne-Lara had been wounded eight years earlier in the War of the Austrian Succession (1747), becoming from that moment on unable of having any offspring.

The comte de Narbonne-Lara always maintained his fidelity towards the King; a true idealist, he hoped for a Constitutional Monarchy.

Despite his efforts, he did not carry his point, for in March 1792 the King, moved by intrigues and by the intransigence of those who surrounded him, thought right to dismiss him from that Ministry.

During the Consulate, his friends Talleyrand and Fouché managed to remove his name from the list of the wanted, and returned to France in 1801, where he was retired with the patent of Divisional General.

Brilliant, cultivated and perfectly aware of the uses of the Ancien Régime, persona grata with the main Courts of Europe, skilled diplomat and military, he was the ideal person to be at Napoleon's side.

As such, he was reintegrated and re-entered the Army with his former post of lieutenant general and appointed Governor of Raab, with the command of the whole part of Hungary occupied by the imperial troops.

In 1810 he was subsequently appointed Minister Plenipotentiary in Bavaria at Munich, next to King Maximilian I, whom he knew very well before the Revolution, and in 1811 aide-de-camp to Napoleon.

In returning to Paris, de Narbonne-Lara advised Napoleon not to invade Russia, but his advice was not followed; and so he reassumed his place in the Imperial Army on the Russian border.

When he arrived there, he was sent by Napoleon to the city of Wilna, where the Tsar was; the comte de Narbonne-Lara was the bearer of an ultimatum, to which Alexander I categorically refused.

Among them, he was outstanding for his military uprightness and exemplary behaviour; in the whirl of the retreat, he appeared dauntless and serene, his presence imposed confidence and respect to the demoralized troops.