Francois Snerin Des Gravlers Marceau, a French soldier, born in Chartres, March 1, 1769, died at Altenkirchen, Rhenish Prussia, Sept. 23, 1796. His father, a lawyer, intended him for the legal profession; but lie enlisted in 1 7 and was sergeant in 1789, when he was prominent in the taking of the Bastile. In 1792 he was assigned to the army of the Ardem where as commander of volunteers he restored obedience to the commanding general Lafayette. Piapidly promoted for bravery, he was made general of division in 1793, and distinguished himself with Kleber in the war of the Vendee, especially at the battle of Save-nay. His magnanimity in saving the life of Angelique de Mel-liers, a female royalist combatant, was misrepresented as an act of treason. Out he was acquitted. In 1794 he mainly decided the victory at Fleurus (June 26), which placed Belgium at the mercy of France. The committee of public safety called him "the lion of the army," and immediately placed him in charge of the right wing of the army of the Sambre and Oise Jourdan being commander-in-chief, and Kleber at the head of a division. In October he achieved a brilliant success in capturing Coblentz, the great focus of the emigrant nobles.

In 1795 he took part in the siege of Ehrenbreitstein. While commanding the rear guard on the right bank of the Rhine, he was driven to despair by the premature destruction of a pontoon on the Sieg, and would have committed suicide if it had not been for the intervention of one of his aides-de-camp. Kleber arrived in time to rescue him from his perilous position. In 1796 be was placed at the head of the first division to cover the retreat of Pichegru from Mentz, and to protect the oper ations of Jourdan. whom he enabled to effect a junction with Kleber. At the end of July he took Konigstein, after having baffled an attempt of the enemy to make a sortie from Mentz, which, place he invested, and gained several other important successes. While occupying the plain of Altenkirchen, awaiting the arrival of Jourdan, he undertook a reconnois-sance, Sept. 20. He was severely wounded by a ball, and was carried within the enemy's lines, where he died three days after. His obsequies were celebrated with great pomp, the Austrians firing minute guns in his honor.

A pyramid erected near the spot where he fell was subsequently removed to the neighborhood of Coblentz. In his native town monuments were erected in his honor; and in September, 1851, a bronze statue of him was placed in the principal square. - See Kleber et Marceau, by Charles Desprez (Paris, 1857).