Gabriel-Marie-Théodore-Joseph, comte d'Hédouville, now known also as…
May 1798 CE
Gabriel-Marie-Théodore-Joseph, comte d'Hédouville, now known also as Thomas Hédouville, has been sent as governor of Saint Domingue during Sonthonax's second commission.
Arriving on May 8 at Le Cap, he summons both Toussaint and Rigaud to appear before him there.
After studying at the royal collège at La Flèche, he had become a lieutenant in 1788, rising to adjutant-general and lieutenant-colonel in 1792.
He had fought at the battle of Valmy on September 20 of that year and had been made général de brigade and chief of staff to the armée de Moselle the following March.
He had then distinguished himself at Kaiserslautern, but was subsequently suspended and imprisoned as a noble and thus as a suspect.
Freed on 9 Thermidor year II (27 July 1794), he had been brought back into the army at the rank of général de brigade and sent to the armée des côtes de Cherbourg (then at Brest).
He had become général de division in November 1795 and chief of staff of the armée des côtes de Cherbourg in January 1796, under Lazare Hoche, under whose orders he had carried out a policy of pacification and appeasement in the west, which had revolted against the Republican regime.