Francois-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers (12 February 1753-1 August 1798) was a Vice Admiral of the French Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. Brueys was the commander of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, and he was killed in the disastrous battle.
Biography[]
Francois-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers was born in Uzes, southern France to an aristocratic family, and he took part in naval expeditions to Tunisia and Haiti during the 1760s and 1770s. Brueys also fought in all of the battles of Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse's squadron during the American Revolutionary War, although he was not present at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782. Brueys rose to the rank of captain in the years following the war, and he became commander of the ship-of-the-line Le Tricolore at the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, having avoided the same fate as many of his aristocratic friends and family members during the Reign of Terror. Brueys fought in Laurent Jean Francois Truguet's Mediterranean Sea campaigns before becoming an Admiral in 1795, commanding French naval forces in the Adriatic Sea from 1796 to 1798. Napoleon Bonaparte, commander of the Armee d'Italie, decided to make Brueys the naval commander of his expedition to Egypt, as Brueys had helped Napoleon in Italy by blockading the Holy Roman Empire and keeping the French supply lines open. Brueys made the mistake of having his fleet anchor in Aboukir Bay until the French army had secured Egypt, and his inexperienced sailors and poor-quality ships awaited the arrival of Horatio Nelson's British fleet. In the evening of 1 August 1798, the British attacked the French fleet, and his ship Orient was heavily damaged by HMS Bellerophon. Brueys was wounded twice before being cut in half by a cannonball, and his ship exploded an hour later after the ship fires spread to the gunpowder magazine. While was criticized in France for his defeat, Napoleon said that Brueys expiated his mistakes with his glorious end.