19th-century French military personnel

Ernest_de_Jonquières

Ernest Jean Philippe Fauque de Jonquières (born Carpentras, France 3 July 1820; died Mousans-Sartoux, France 12 August 1901) was a French mathematician and naval officer who made several contributions in geometry.
Jonquières attended the naval school at Brest, and later joined the French Navy. in 1841 he became a lieutenant, and from 1849 to 1850 he served on the staff of the Admiral in Paris. During this time, Jonquières became a close associate of Michel Chasles, whose works he had studied. During his subsequent time at sea, he continued his mathematical studies, and won a part of the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1862.
In 1865, Jonquières became a captain and was sent to Saigon to organize a French agricultural and industrial exhibition. He played an important role in the development of current Vietnam as a French colony. Later, he was head of the local naval depot and its maps and plans. In 1874, Jonquières was made Vice-Admiral. He retired in 1885.

François_Rochebrune

François Rochebrune (Polish: Franciszek Rochebrune) (born 1 June or 1 January 1830, died 19 November 1870 (some sources state 1871)) was a French soldier who served in the French Zouaves during the Crimean War. He then lived in Poland for two years as a tutor. He returned to the French Zouaves for five years, serving as a sergeant in China. He then returned to live in Poland once again in 1862. When the Polish rebellion against Russian rule began in January 1863, he formed and led a Polish rebel unit called the Zouaves of Death. Within months, he had been promoted to general. After the collapse of the uprising, he returned to France, where his exploits in Poland earned him the rank of captain in the French army. He was promoted to colonel for the Franco-Prussian War, and was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Montretout at the age of forty.

Ernest_Doudart_de_Lagrée

Ernest Marc Louis de Gonzague Doudart de Lagrée (French pronunciation: [ɛʁnɛst dudaʁ də laɡʁe]; March 31, 1823 – March 12, 1868) was the leader of the French Mekong Expedition of 1866-1868.He was born in Saint-Vincent-de-Mercuze near Grenoble, France, and graduated from the École Polytechnique. He joined the navy and served in the Crimean War, then took up a post in Indochina in the hope that the climate would help his chronically ulcerated throat. It did not, and throughout the Mekong expedition he was often in severe pain.
The expedition left Saigon on June 5, 1866. In addition to his ulcers, Doudart de Lagrée suffered from fever, amoebic dysentery and infected wounds caused by leeches, as the expeditioners had to walk barefoot once they had worn out their supply of shoes. By the time the expedition reached Dongchuan, in Yunnan, China, he was too sick to be moved, and his second-in-command Francis Garnier took command. Garnier led the expedition to Dali, leaving Doudart de Lagrée in the care of the doctor. He died from an abscess on his liver. The doctor removed his heart to return it to France, while Doudart de Lagrée was buried in Dongchuan.
Ernest Doudart de Lagrée was also an entomologist. Insect collections made by him in Africa are conserved in Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris.

Henri_Rivière_(naval_officer)

Henri Laurent Rivière (1827–1883) was a French naval officer and a writer who is chiefly remembered today for advancing the French conquest of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) in the 1880s. Rivière's seizure of the citadel of Hanoi in April 1882 inaugurated a period of undeclared hostilities between France and Dai Nam (as Vietnam was known then) that culminated one year later in the Tonkin campaign (1883–1886).

Alphonse_Joseph_Georges

Alphonse Joseph Georges (15 August 1875 – 24 April 1951) was a French army officer. He was commander in chief of the North East Front in 1939 and 1940. Opposing the plan by supreme commander Maurice Gamelin to move the best Allied forces into the Low Countries, he was overruled. Georges tried to allow as much initiative to his subordinates as possible to improve operational flexibility.