¹ See Rydjord, John, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain (Durham, 1935), pp. 291–305.Google Scholar

² Narbonne, Bernard, Joseph Bonaparte, le Roi Philosophe (Paris, 1949), p. 118.Google Scholar

³ Zavala, Silvio, América en el Espíritu francés del Siglo XVIII (México, 1949), p. 162.Google Scholar

⁴ See Artola, Miguel, “Los Afrancesados y América,” Revista de Indias, IX (1949), 541,Google Scholar and Robertson, William S., France and Latin American Independence (Baltimore, 1939), pp. 88–92.Google Scholar

⁵ This point has been overlooked by most modern historians although it was clearly expressed by González, José Eleuterio, Obras Completas (4 tomos; Monterey, 1885), 2, 377.Google Scholar

⁶ Luis Mora, José María, México y sus Revoluciones (2 tomos; México, 1952), 1, 318.Google Scholar

⁷ A substantial article has been devoted to d’Alvimart’s early life; see Benítez, Fernando, “El Caballero d’Alvimart,” Revista de Revistas, 26 (Dec., 1936), 11–14.Google Scholar The article is based on documents dealing with d’Alvimart’s trial in Mexico in 1808, that were found in the library of Lie. Salvador Noriega. They include a translation of a personal narrative belonging to the papers seized from d’Alvimart when he was arrested. The Revista de Revistas was a weekly issue of the Mexican Newspaper, El Excelsior.

⁸ These papers were added to a file concerning d'Alvimart's brother, Octave Pierre Louis in the Archives du Ministere de la Guerre (indicated by the initials AMG in the present paper) Xr. 43, 2727. The documents included in this file are not classified, and we shall refer to them by their date and, when possible, by the name of their addressee.

⁹ On the cover of these papers a note indicates that they belonged to Madame Paul de la Bastide. Another note stated “las notas en color roja corresponden a los analises que hice de estas páginas en uno de mis libros” with the signature of Conde de Sainz, March, 16, 1900. But we did not see any note in red pencil in d’Alvimart’s text. This may indicate that the most interesting part of d’Alvimart’s memoirs has disappeared. Neither could we identify this Count of Sainz in the catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

¹⁰ While in Mexico d’Alvimart claimed that he was the descendant of a Spanish nobleman who settled in Naples in the sixteenth century and then emigrated to France. We could not find any confirmation of this claim. A d’Alvimar family belonged to the nobility of Normandy as early as the seventeenth century. One of its members, a rather famous musician, gave harp lessons to the Empress Josephine, but Octavien Souchet d’Alvimart does not seem to have been related to him; see Benitez, op. cit., p. 12 and de Morenas, Jouglas, Grand Armorial de France (6 volumes; Paris, 1934), I, 163.Google Scholar

¹¹ AMG, Ecole Militaire de Paris, Ya 251.

¹² Probably Gaëtan Lambert Dupont, born in Northern France in 1716, who became director of the military school of La Flèche and died in Paris in 1782. See d’Ange, Chest, Dictionnaire des Familles Françaises (20 volumes; Evreux, 1917).Google Scholar It is probably because of her father’s position that d’Alvimart’s mother had maintained good connections with the Ministry of War during the empire as well as during the Restoration.

¹³ See Chuquet, Albert, La Jeunesse de Napoléon (Paris, 1912), pp. 234–237.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Benítez, op. cit., p. 15. In his Memoirs, d’Alvimart seems to have painted a very flattering portrait of himself. It is remarkable, however, that as early as 1808, he claimed he had remained faithful to King Louis XVI. This tends to show that he really emigrated at the beginning of the French Revolution as he was to claim later.

¹⁵ AMG, Report of the third division of the army, Office of the General Headquarters, 10 Brumaire [November 2, 1802].

¹⁶ AMG, Letter of d’Alvimart to the Minister, May 27, 1826. Only one officer by the name of Louis Adrien Rouen figured on the list of royalist émigrés under the name of d’Alvimar. He seems to have belonged to a different family.

¹⁷ Archives Nationales, W. 414–949. “Souchet d’Alvimart, ex-noble, ex-gouverneur des pages de Capet et ex-capitaine de dragons.” He was executed on Messidor 25, Year II (July 9, 1794).

¹⁸ In his letter to Marshal Gérard, Minister of War, May 27, 1826, AMG, d’Alvimart gave some explanations on his trip to Turkey. “I was about to take part in the disastrous expedition of Quiberon, and I foresaw the failure of this attempt in a conversation I had with the Marquis de Sombreuil. It was the Count of Engestien, the Ambassador of Sweden in London, whom I had often met at the house of my father in Versailles, who introduced me to Mahmoud Effendi, the Ambassador of the Sultan in London. Soon after this meeting, he offered me a position in the Turkish army.” The same version is given in the article by Benítez who calls the Swedish ambassador, Lord Ankresten.

¹⁹ Benítez, op. cit., p. 14.

²⁰ AMG, Letter dated March 14, 1829, to the Minister of War. D’Alvimart’s claims do not sound very plausible. He says that Bonaparte offered him the position of General Denon as head of the artistic mission that was sent to the Upper Nile Valley at that time. According to Michaud’s Dictionary of Biography (article on General Denon) the latter never occupied such a position. Also see Miot, Jacques Francois, Mémoires pour servir a l’Histoire des Expéditions en Egypte et en Syrie (Paris, 1814)Google Scholar and Denon, Dominique Vivant, Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte pendant les Campagnes du Général Bonaparte (3 volumes; Paris, 1803). Neither of them mention d’Alvimart’s name.Google Scholar

²¹ D’Alvimart seems to have mistaken General Menou for General Denon, both names being quoted in his letters.

²² AMG, Report of Messidor 12, Year VII (June 28, 1799), which gives a list of all the services rendered by d’Alvimart to the French army.

²³ In a letter to the Marquis de Latour Maubourg, Minister of War, March 1822, AMG, d’Alvimart indicates how he received his appointment. “Bonaparte asked me to come and visit him, with the préfet Bénezech. He told me in front of the latter how much he wanted me to accompany General Ledere.” This Bénezech who played an important part in the French Consulate was a cousin of d’Alvimart. This relationship may account for his appointment in Leclerc’s army.

²⁴ It is difficult to evaluate the exact sum that d’Alvimart obtained in Bogotá. In his letter to the Marquis de Latour Maubourg, AMG, he speaks of a million pesos, and three years later in a letter to the Duke de Clermont-Tonnerre of four million pesos.

In his Mémoires this sum has been reduced to 800,000 pesos. According to the Mexican documents quoted by Benítez, op. cit., p. 15, these sums were paid in quinine, balsan de tolú (sic) and other products. (Letter signed by Zulesy, June 21, 1802). Another letter shows that d’Alvimart was commissioned a few months later to buy 2,600 horses and mules in Caracas.

²⁵ In August 1802, two French officers, Pierson and Latour d’Auvergne, presented themselves in Veracruz to ask for 250,000 pesos which the French army needed. The Viceroy Azanza did not know how to get rid of them. The Crown, when notified of their request, answered that “the King was much surprised that despite the desperate condition of the Treasury, officials in America could not convince the French envoys of the impossibility of succoring them,” and expressed some suspicions as to the real designs of these republican officers. While in Mexico, Latour d’Auvergne died of the yellow fever which was decimating the French army (Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Reales Cédulas, Vol. 188, f. 125 and Vol. 191, f. 203). The severe answer of the Crown may have been due to the fact that the Viceroy of New Granada had shown himself generous toward the demands of d’Alvimart.

²⁶ AMG, Letter of Rochambeau, Prairial 14, Year XI (May 26, 1803). Several letters of d’Alvimart allude to some difficulties he had with the General in Chief on returning from Spanish America. He even admitted that he had been sent to jail because he was suspected of having embezzled important sums of money. Hence Rochambeau's letter, and his excuses for the injustice he had committed toward d’Alvimart.

²⁷ There remain some traces of d’Alvimart’s voyage to Spanish America. In his diary, J. M. Caballero mentions “a French baron who came to Bogotá at the end of the year 1802 and brought a lyre with him, an instrument on which he played very well. He thereby attracted the attention of the people of the city who had never seen this instrument before.” See Posada, Eduardo, Apostillas (Bogotá, 1926), p. 232,Google Scholar who tries to identify this Frenchman as an emissary of Napoleon sent by Captain Desmolards, the organizer of the emissary campaign in 1808, six years later. Although we do not know if d’Alvimart was musically minded, the title of baron and the date given lead us to think that this mysterious Frenchman was d’Alvimart.

²⁸ AMG, D’Alvimart’s Etat de Service reproduced in a letter dated November 10, 1830.

²⁹ Napoleon was in Mons, Belgium, on August 31, 1804 (Fructidor 13, year XII). See Schuermans, Albert, Itinéraire Général de Napoléon 1 (Paris, 1911), p. 187.Google Scholar

³⁰ D’Alvimart claimed later that his name had been proposed for the Legion of Honor on June 14, 1804, a statement which sounds contradictory with Marmont’s attitude toward him. AMG, Letter to Latour Maubourg, Minister of War, June 25, 1821. In his further correspondence he never again mentioned the fact.

³¹ AMG, appointment mentioned in an official report dated July, 1829.

³² AMG, letter to Marquis de Clermont Tonnerre, June 18, 1825.

³³ AMG. In this short letter, the original of which is kept in the file mentioned at the beginning of the present article, d’Alvimart states that when the order was sent to him to go to Strasbourg, he happened to be at no less than 4,000 leagues from France, although he did not say where. This statement made in a letter addressed to the Ministry of War leads us to think that d’Alvimart really made a short trip to Spanish America at that time.

³⁴ See AMG, Mrs. d’Alvimart’s letter dated July 3, 1821, rue Chapon. That was the only occasion in which she intervened in favor of her elder son Gaëtan, whom she tried to present as an able officer afflicted with a bad temper. She wrote many letters to support the demands of her second son, Octavien. This seems to have helped him in furthering his military career, since he finally became a general during the Restoration. Her reticence regarding Gaëtan indicates that he did not get along too well with his family.

³⁵ AMG, Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, January 22, 1807.

³⁶ AMG. A report of May 4, 1825 states that d’Alvimart had been notified of the fact on July 4, 1806, i.e. one month after his return from South American and two months before his departure for the Prussian campaign.

³⁷ Ibid. D’Alvimart is reported to have seen the French Ambassador in Madrid as early as May, 1807.

³⁸ There were actually two llamas in the gardens of La Malmaison, the residence of the Empress Josephine. See Magasin Encyclopédique, June 1805, III, 445, which states that “there is a multitude of rare animals at the Malmaison. The male and the female llamas which were brought here two years ago have produced a very strong small one. …” Quoted in de Lescure, Mathurin, Le Chateau de la Malmaison (Paris, 1867), p. 285.Google Scholar This indicates that these two animals had been brought over around 1803, between d’Alvimart’s trips to South America. It is true, however, that he did not claim to have brought them back himself, since he said in his letter to the Minister that “il les fit venir.”

³⁹ Octavien Pierre d’Alvimart, born in Paris in 1773, took part in the expedition of Santo Domingo, and remained several years in Guadeloupe until the time when that island was taken by the English fleet. He was then taken as a prisoner to England, but soon obtained permission to return to France. He does not appear to have served the King of Spain. He belonged to the French army until 1830. In his correspondence with the Minister of War, AMG, XR. 43, he often complained that his brother Gaëtan tried to make use of his name to be reinstated in the French army.

⁴⁰ AMG, Letters of March 18, 1825 and March 14, 1829.

⁴¹ Albert Schuermans, op. cit., p. 260.

⁴² Bernard Narbonne, op. cit., p. 118.

⁴³ AMG, Letter to the Minister of War, Latour Maubourg, March 14, 1829.

⁴⁴ Cox, Isaac, The West Florida Controversy, 1789–1813 (Baltimore, 1918), p. 313.Google Scholar We shall follow this work for all that deals with d’Alvimart’s travel to Louisiana and Texas.

⁴⁵ On August 4, 1808, four days after d’Alvimart’s arrival at the border of New Spain, a harmless tailor from New Orleans, Nicolas Duval, was arrested in Mexico City under the suspicion of being General Mofeau. Several persons who had known the French General in Cadix when he embarked for the United States in 1803 came to identify him. Duval was finally released. Génin, Auguste, Les Français au Mexique des Origines à nos Jours (Paris, 1931), p. 284,Google Scholar and Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Historia, Vol. 409, fs. 8–33. This case gives evidence of the spy fever then prevalent in Mexico and explains why d’Alvimart’s arrest was given so much importance.

⁴⁶ Baton Rouge remained a Spanish possession until Sept. 23, 1810, when the North American settlers rebelled and proclaimed their independence. Hernández, Juan E. y Dávalos, , Colecció de Documentos para la Guerra de la Independencia de México de 1808 a 1821 (6 tomos; Mexico, 1878), 2, 378.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The French government never appointed any French Viceroy in New Spain. Joseph Bonaparte asked a Spaniard by the name of José de Cuestas to accept the position but the latter declined the offer. See Rydjord, op. cit., p. 263, and William S. Robertson, op. cit., p. 40. A Claude Anne de Saint Simon had served the King of Spain since 1793 but he remained faithful to Ferdinand and defended Madrid against the French in December, 1808; see Constant, Mémoires (Paris, 1918), p. 84. His nephew, Henri Jean took part in the French expedition in Egypt (see Denon, op. cit., II, 157), where d’Alvimart may have known him. H was an officer in the French army sent to Spain; see Général Bigarré, , Mémoires (Paris, 1902), p. 260,Google Scholar and also ESPASA, article Saint Simon, vol. LII, 1489.

⁴⁸ A document mentions him as Italian, Salcedo’s letter to Cordero, May 12, 1808 quoted by Hatcher, Nattie A., The Opening of Texas to Foreign Settlements, 1801–1821 (University of Texas Bulletin, no. 2714, 1927), p. 130.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ On all this see Bustamante, Carlos María, Suplemento a la Historia de Tres Siglos (Mexico, 1836), 3, 259–260.Google Scholar The information given in this work has been repeated in Alamán, Lucas, Historia de México, (México, 1942), p. 276.Google Scholar Although Alamán remarks that the Bustamante account must be reliable, since it was based on documents found in the Archives of the Viceroy, he points out that among the papers seized from d’Alvimart, there was nothing to prove that he had come as one of Napoleon’s emissaries. de Zamacois, Niceto, Historia de México (8 tomos; Barcelona, 1878), 6, 97 Google Scholar repeats what is to be read in Alamán.

⁵⁰ Isaac Cox, op. cit., p. 314.

⁵¹ See Schachner, Nathan, Aaron Burr, a Biography (New York, 1937), p. 350.Google Scholar

⁵² Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Operaciones de Guerra, 1810 and 1812, quoted by Hatcher, op. cit., p. 130.

⁵³ Hernández y Dávalos, op. cit., II, 63.

⁵⁴ See de la Torre Villar, Ernesto, “Hidalgo y las Proclamas de José Bonaparte,” Boletín del Archivo de la Nación, 18 (1947), 277–283.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Hernández y Dávalos, op. cit., II, 63.

⁵⁶ The French doctor so mysteriously mentioned in the denunciation was probably Julien Poitevin de Pons, who was arrested in Monterey in October, 1809, on his way from New Orleans to Mexico City, and who later served as a surgeon in the Spanish army during the wars of Independence. Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Historia, Vol. 431, fs. 185–282 quoted in Houdaille, Jacques, “Frenchmen and Francophiles in New Spain from 1780 to 1810,” The Americas, 13, No. 1 (July, 1956), 26.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Archivo de la Nación Mexicana, Historia, Vol. 506, XI and 511, II and IV. On Allende’s family, see Liceaga, José María, Adiciones y Rectificaciones a la Historia de México que escribió don Lucas Alamán (México, 1944), p. 253.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ José E. González, op. cit., II, 379–382.

⁵⁹ This Pereyra was killed in Bexar by the rebels in April 1813; see discussion on his death and identity in José González, op. cit., II, 550 and 572.

⁶⁰ González, Pedro, Apuntes históricos de la Ciudad de Dolores Hidalgo (Celaya, 1891), p. 188.Google Scholar Aldama is called apoderado of Lanzagorta’s estate.

⁶¹ See Relación de la Causa que se sigue contra Don Miguel Hidalgo (México, 1951), III, 15. These documents had already been published in Hernández y Dávalos, op. cit., I, 78–84.

⁶² Ledón, Luis Castillo, Hidalgo. La Vida del Héroe (México, 1949), 1, 125.Google Scholar

⁶³ Silva, Jorge, Viajeros franceses en Mexico (México, 1946), p. 36.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Inquisición, Vol. 1351, fs. 9–11 and Historia, Vol. 518, XXVIII.

⁶⁵ There is however a short passage written in English in d’Alvimart’s Mémoires which might refer to Hidalgo since it contains a praise of Mexican priests. We quote it here because it is one of the rare cases in which d’Alvimart praises somebody: “They are clergymen of good understanding, of a candid disposition and exemplary morals, not metaphysical nor polemic but amiable, serious and practical preachers.” AMG.

⁶⁶ This date appears once at the top of one page in the Mémoires, and d’Alvimart indicates several times that some pages were to be discarded if this manuscript was to be sent to King Ferdinand of Spain.

⁶⁷ Archivo General de la Nación Mexicana, Reales Cédulas, Vol. 203, f. 213, and Correspondencia de los Virreyes, Lizana, Vol. 244, no. 11, October 4, 1809.

⁶⁸ See Alamán, op. cit., p. 283.

⁶⁹ AMG, Letter to the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre, Minister of War, May 27, 1826.

⁷⁰ AMG, Letter to the same, June 16, 1825.

⁷¹ AMG, Statement and letter of Ignacio Balanzat, Madrid, May 29, 1821.

⁷² Here is a list of his various residences as shown in his letters to the Minister: 1820, Chateau de Goyencourt, near Roye in Northern France; 1824, rue de la Ville l’Evèque; 1829, rue du Bac; 1830, rue Notre Dame des Champs; 1832, rue de l’Ouest.

⁷³ In 1825 he asked to be appointed as professor of the Duke of Bordeaux, Charles the Tenth’s grandson. AMG, Letter to the Marquis de Clermont Tonnerre.

⁷⁴ AMG, Letter to his mother written from Labalize (Belize) in the Bay of Honduras, Feb. 12, 1822. This letter is not stamped and we do not know if the document still extant at AMG is a copy of the original. However, this misfortune certainly happened to d’Alvimart since he refers to it in his letter to the Mexican Congress in 1823, see infra. The date of Admiral Aury’s death is not certain. Some authors state that he died at sea on February 12, 1822, and others in San Andres on August 29, 1821. D’Alvimart’s letter corroborates the latter date; see Ortiz, Sergio Elias, Francesses en la Independencia de la Gran Colombia (Bogotá, 1949), p. 143.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Many pamphlets were published in Mexico to criticize Iturbide’s politics. Carlos Bustamante was the author of one of them, la Abispa de Chilpancingo. This may account for his marked hostility against d’Alvimart. See Robertson, William S., Iturbide, Emperor of Mexico (Durham, 1952), p. 154.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ D’Alvimart, Gaëtan Souchet, Reflexiones sobre la Libertad de Prensa (México, 1822).Google Scholar This short pamphlet, six pages long, seems to have been sent to several independent governments of the other Spanish countries. The Library of Congress owns a copy which was addressed in d’Alvimart’s hand to the government of Guatemala.

⁷⁷ Carlos Bustamante, op. cit., III, 260.

⁷⁸ AMG, D’Alvimart’s Mémoires, the pages are not numbered.

⁷⁹ See A Calendar of the Juan E. Hernández y Dávalos Manuscript Collection, prepared by Castañeda, Carlos E.. The University of Texas Library (México, 1954), p. 23.Google Scholar This detail appears in a letter of Miguel Calaveri to a friend on various events that took place in the Republic and various arrests. Jalapa, October 10, 1823.

⁸⁰ See the whole case in Boletín del Archivo General de la Nación, VIII (1936), 151–163.

⁸¹ AMG, Letter to King Louis Philippe, October 1832.

⁸² The Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux, V (1869), 73 gives an interesting account of d’Alvimart as seen by his countrymen: “The exhibition of General d’Alvimart’s paintings was held in Colbert Museum in April 1833. Only one of these paintings had been accepted at the exhibition of the Louvre. All these pictures were shown at the public auction that followed the General’s death in 1854. The severity of the public seemed then justified. These paintings were scattered and I think that most of them have been destroyed. General d’Alvimart was the last representative of his family and he died in isolation and misanthropy. He wrote a few volumes about politics and literature which prove that he was a talented man. He could draw and had brought back many sketches from his travels. As for his paintings, the best that can be done is to avoid mentioning them because of their poor quality.” See also Dictionnaire de Biographie française, under the direction of M. Prevost and Roman d‘Amat (6 volumes; Paris, 1939), I, article d’Alvimart by E. Franceschini.

⁸³ Excerpts taken from d’Alvimart’s Mémoires; the pages are not numbered and as it seems not even classified according to their date of composition. AMG.

⁸⁴ Rydjord, op. cit., p. 304 and Robertson, , France and Latin American Independence (Baltimore, 1939), p. 92.Google Scholar