Louis-René Madelaine Le Vassor, comte de La Touche-Tréville
French Vice-admiral
1745 CE
to 1804 CE
Louis-René Madelaine Le Vassor, comte de La Touche-Tréville (June 3, 1745 – August 19, 1804) is a French Vice-admiral.
He fights in the American War of Independence and becomes a prominent figure of the French Revolutionary Wars and of the Napoleonic wars.
Born into a noble family of naval officers, Latouche enlists at the age of thirteen. He rises to become a competent frigate captain, battling several British ships during the American War of Independence.
His two-frigate squadron once maneuvers a seventy-four-gun ship of the line to the point of sinking, and he is entrusted with important personalities of the time as passengers, notably Louis XVI and the Marquis de Lafayette.
During the Revolution, Latouche, a Freemason and aide to Phillipe Égalité, takes progressive positions as a deputy in the Estates General and later in the National Constituent Assembly.
His nobility nevertheless makes him a target during the Reign of Terror, and he is imprisoned and only freed from prison by the Thermidorian Reaction.
Returned to the Navy after a long period of unemployment, Latouche takes command of the Flottille de Boulogne, where he repels the Raids on Boulogne organized by Nelson.
He then serves in the Saint-Domingue expedition, which irrevocably compromises his health.
After his return, he takes command of the fleet in Toulon, reorganizing it into a potent tool again, but he succumbs to a relapse of illness before he has a chance to use it.
Under his successor Villeneuve, the fleet he had refurbished is crushed at the Battle of Trafalgar.
