He embarked on a military career, reaching the rank of lieutenant, but resigned from the army in 1783 and married, thereafter living a retired country life near Beaupréau in Anjou.

The peasantry and much of the middle class in the Vendée remained loyal to the Catholic Church and, in 1792, the Marquess de la Rouërie had organized a general rising, although this was frustrated by the count's arrest.

However, when the Convention decreed the levee en masse of 300,000 men, the Vendée mounted a war against what they considered the atheist Republic.

His troop joined those of François de Charette, Charles Bonchamps, Jacques Cathelineau and Jean-Nicolas Stofflet.

[1] He is famous for his actions after the Battle of Chemillé, on 11 April 1793: after the insurgents' victory, many of them planned to avenge their dead and slaughter the Republican prisoners (approx.

When Cathelineau knelt at the town square to thank God for their victories, he was killed by a Republican sniper on 14 July 1793; d'Elbée replaced him as generalissimo.

He was succeeded by the Duke of Lauzun, General Biron, who was no more successful, and who was dismissed less than a week later; the committee then sent Jean Antoine Rossignol, formerly a goldsmith's apprentice, Antoine Joseph Santerre, a brewer, and Charles-Philippe Ronsin, a playwright; all were beaten in successive battles, although Rossignol managed to hang on to his command.

[3] Eventually, Jean Baptiste Kléber took command of the Republic army in the Vendée and inflicted a series of defeats.

[4] He was married to Marguerite Charlotte Holly Hauterive on 17 November 1788 in the Church of the Gaubretière, and therefore lived retired in a country very close to Beaupréau in Anjou.