Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne

His desire for a military career being strongly marked, he was enabled by the not uncommon device of producing a certificate of nobility signed by his friends, first to be nominally enlisted in the Maison du Roi, and soon afterwards to receive a commission in the line, under the name of Corret de Kerbaufret.

Many years of routine service with his regiment were broken only by his participation as a volunteer in the Duke de Crillon's Franco-Spanish expedition to Menorca in 1781.

He declined well-earned promotion to colonel, and, being broken in health and compelled, owing to the loss of his teeth, to live on milk, he left the army in 1795.

[1][2] La Tour d'Auvergne's almost legendary courage had captivated the imagination of the French soldier, and his memory was not allowed to die.

It was customary for the French troops and their allies of the Rhine Confederation under Napoleon to march at attention when passing his burial place on the battlefield.

The urn was collected by the War Minister, showing that Napoleon preferred to celebrate the men who died to affirm his dynasty and build his Empire, rather than an individual whose association with the French Revolution was unmistakable.