Antoine Drouot (11 January 1774-24 March 1847) was the commandant of the Imperial Guard of the First French Empire during the Hundred Days in 1815.
Biography[]
Antoine Drouot was born in Nancy, France in 1774, the son of a baker. He served in the French Revolutionary Army as an artilleryman during the French Revolutionary Wars, serving as a captain at the Battle of Hohenlinden in 1800. Drouot later had an illustrious career in the Napoleonic Wars, fighting at the Battle of Wagram and the Battle of Borodino, among others. In 1813, he was made a General de Division and an aide-de-camp to Emperor Napoleon I as a reward for his services. During Napoleon's exile in Elba from 1814 to 1815, Drouot served as Governor of Elba, and he accompanied Napoleon back to France in 1815. On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, he took command of the Imperial Guard after Marshal Edouard Mortier fell ill with lower back pain, and he commanded the Imperial Guard in Paris after Napoleon's second abdication. After the surrender of Paris and the restoration of King Louis XVIII of France, Drouot was acquitted of treason and was granted a state pension, working to help Imperial Guard veterans until his death in 1847.