Biography

Born in Chartres, France, Marceau ran away to enlist in the infantry regiment of Savoy-Carignan in 1785 and took part in the attack on the Bastille in Paris in 1789. He joined the Chartres volunteers, who elected him lieutenant colonel. In 1796, when Jean-Baptiste Jourdan and the main army retreated, Marceau’s corps was the all-important rear guard. In action at Altenkirchen on the Lahn River, Marceau was shot by a Tirolese sharpshooter.