HENRI, comte de La Rochejacquelein, born at Dubertien, near Chatillon, sur Sevres, on Aug. 20,1772, did not emigrate with his father. He served in the constitutional guard of the king, and remained in Paris till the execution of Louis XVI. He then took refuge with the marquis de Lescure on his own estates in Poitou. When the anti-clerical policy of the revolution provoked the rising of the peasants of La Vendee, he became one of their leaders. After the defeat of the Vendeans by the republicans at Cholet, he became their nominal commander-in-chief. But he had in fact to obey his army, and could only display his personal valour in action. He could not avert the mistaken policy which led to the rout at Le Mans, and was finally shot, March 4, Louis, marquis de La Rochejacquelein, the younger brother of Henri, accompanied his father in the emigration, served in the army of Conde, and entered the service of England in America. He returned to France during the Consulate, and in 18o1 married the marquise de Lescure, widow of his brother's friend, who was mortally wounded at Cholet. Her Memoires (Bordeaux,
1815) give a remarkable picture of the war and the fortunes of the royalists. In 1815 the marquis endeavoured to bring about another Vendean rising for the king, and was shot in a skirmish at the Pont des Marthes on June 4, 1815.
His grandson, JULIEN MARIE GASTON, born at Chartres on March 27, 1833, was an active legitimist deputy in the Assembly chosen at the close of the German War of 1870-1871. He was a strong opponent of Thiers, and continued to contest constitu encies as a legitimist with varying fortunes till his death in 1897.
de La Rochejacquelein et la guerre de la Vendee d'apres des documents inedits (Niort, 189o) ; A. F. Nettement, Vie de Mme. la Marquise de La Rochejacquelein (Paris, 1876). The Memoires of the marquise were translated into English by Sir Walter Scott, and issued as a volume of "Constable's Miscellany" (Edinburgh, 1827).