MOREAU, JEAN VICTOR MARIE ) , French general, was born at Morlaix in Brittany on Feb. 14, 1763. As a law student at Rennes he formed his fellow-students into an armed band, which took part in daily affrays between the young noblesse and populace of the town. He served under Dumouriez with the volunteers of Ille-et-Vilaine, and in 1793 his merits se cured his promotion as general of brigade. Carnot promoted him to be general of division early in 1794, and gave him command of the right wing of the army under Pichegru, in Flanders. The battle of Tourcoing established his military fame, and in 1795 he was given the command of the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle, with which he advanced into Germany. He won several victories and penetrated to the Isar (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), but at last had to retreat before the archduke Charles. The skill he displayed in conducting the retreat greatly enhanced his own reputation; he brought back with him more than 5,000 prisoners. In 1797 after difficulties caused by want of funds and material he again crossed the Rhine, but was checked by the conclusion of the preliminaries of Leoben between Bonaparte and the Austrians. At this time he discovered the correspondence between his old comrade and commander Pichegru and the emigre prince de Conde. Too late to clear himself, he sent the correspondence to Paris and issued a proclamation to the army denouncing Pichegru as a traitor. He was dismissed, and was only re-employed in 1799 when the advance of Suvarov made it necessary. He commanded the Army of Italy for a short time before being appointed to the Army of the Rhine, and remained with Joubert, his successor till the defeat of Novi. Joubert fell in the battle, and Moreau then conducted the retreat of the army to Genoa, where he handed over the command to Championnet. When Bonaparte returned from Egypt he found Moreau at Paris, greatly dissatisfied with the Directory, and obtained his assistance in the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire. The First Consul again gave him command of the Army of the Rhine, with which he forced back the Austrians from the Rhine to the Isar. On his return to Paris he married Mlle.
Hullot, a creole of Josephine's circle, an ambitious woman who gained a complete ascendancy over him, and after winning the victory of Hohenlinden (Dec. 3, 180o) he settled down to enjoy the fortune he had acquired during his campaigns. His wife col lected around her all who were discontented with the aggrandise ment of Napoleon. This "club Moreau" annoyed Napoleon, and encouraged the Royalists, but Moreau, though not unwilling to become a military dictator to restore the republic, would be no party to an intrigue for the restoration of Louis XVIII. This was well known to Napoleon, who seized the conspirators. Bonaparte procured Moreau's condemnation with great difficulty, and then treated him with a pretence of leniency, commuting a sentence of imprisonment to one of banishment. Moreau lived in obscurity for some years at Morrisville, New Jersey, until the destruction of the grande armee in Russia. Then, probably at the instigation of his wife, he committed the last and least excusable of his political errors. Negotiations were set on foot with Bernadotte, who, being now crown prince of Sweden and at the head of an army opposing Napoleon, introduced Moreau to the tsar Alexander. In the hope of re-establishing popular government in France, Moreau advised the allied sovereigns on the conduct of the war. He was mortally wounded while talking to the tsar at the battle of Dresden on Aug. 27, 1813, and died on Sept. 2. He was buried at St. Peters burg.
Moreau's fame as a general stands very high; his combinations were skilful and elaborate, his temper always unruffled. He was a sincere republican, though his father was guillotined in the Terror. See C. Jochmus, General Moreau—Abriss einer Geschichte seines Lebens and seiner Feldziige (1814), a standard work; A. de Beau champ, Vie politique, militaire, et privee du General Moreau (tr. by Philippart, 1814) ; Picard, Bonaparte et Moreau (1905) ; and Daudet, L'exil et la mort du general Moreau (19o9).