BEAUCHAMP, ALPHONSE DE French historian and writer, was born at Monaco in 1767, and died at Paris on June 3, 183 2. In 1784 he entered a Sardinian regiment of ma rines, but on the outbreak of war with the French Republic he refused to fight in what he considered an unjust cause, and was imprisoned for several months. He then obtained a post in one of the government offices in Paris. On the fall of Robespierre, Beau champ was transferred to the bureau of the minister of police and charged with the superintendence of the press. This situation opened up to him materials of which he made use in his first and most popular historical work, Histoire de la Vendee et des Chouans (18o6). The third edition was confiscated; Beauchamp was de prived of his post, and in 1809 was compelled to leave Paris for a time.
Beauchamp's biographical and historical works dealing with contemporary events are valuable, owing to the sources at his disposal, but must be used with great caution. The following are worth mention:—Vie Politique, militaire et privee du general Moreau (1814) ; Catastrophe de Murat, ou Recit de la derniere revolution de Naples (1815) ; Histoire de la guerre d'Espagne et du Portugal, i8o7-1813 (1819) ; Histoire de la revolution de Piemont (1821, 1823) ; Collection de memoires relati f s aux revolu tions d'Espagne (1824) ; Memoires secrets et inedits pour servir a l'histoire contemporaine (1825). The Memoires de Fouche have also been ascribed to him, but it seems certain that he only re vised and completed a work really composed by Fouche himself. See an article by Louis Madelin in La Revolution francaise (1 goo) .