François Émile de LANSAC (1803-1890) - Lot 451

François Émile de LANSAC (1803-1890) Trait de courage du commandant Darru Oil on canvas, signed lower left H. 92 cm - L. 118 cm HVS Restorations, large Regency-style wood and gilded stucco frame (small missing parts) annotated on verso "1850" in black chalk (corresponding to the entry number in the 1842 Salon register). On the reverse, two old and incomplete labels: "Ce tableau appartient à Madame veuve Darru, rue du Temple [...]". Exhibition: Paris, Salon de 1842, N°1124 (under the title "Trait de courage du commandant Daru") "On June 16, 1815, at the battle of Ligny, a Prussian battery had established itself on the St-Amand plateau. / Commandant Daru (sic), of the 23rd line, having only conscripts with him who refused to charge, rushed forward with a second lieutenant of the 15th light and a brigadier of the 12th mounted chasseurs, disrupted the battery, which fled, seized a piece and gave the order to take it to the Emperor, who made him lieutenant-colonel on the battlefield." / (Fastes de la gloire militaire sous l'Empire). in "Catalogue du Salon" of 1842. Nicolas Darru (1775-1853), born in Louhans of a bailiff father, enlisted in 1791 as a soldier in the Sâone-et-Loire battalion, then took part in campaigns in the armies of the Centre, the North, the Rhine and Italy. On 17 Ventôse, Year 7, he was wounded by a gunshot to the right eye. Under the Empire, he took part in campaigns in Dalmatia, Germany and Spain. On September 13, 1806, he was shot in the left foot at Vitaglina. He was assigned to the 23rd line regiment as battalion commander from 1813. Awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1809, he was promoted to officer in 1814, and awarded the Ordre de Saint-Louis the same year. On March 23, 1819, he married Marie Benoite Aimée Peillon (1797-1873). Nicolas Darru died on December 17, 1853 at his home in rue du Temple, Châlon-sur-Saône. Nicolas Darru's feat of arms at the battle of Ligny, on the eve of Waterloo, is illustrated by Dick de Lonlay (1845-1893) (in "Notre armée", Paris, Garnier, 1890, pp. 958-959), who reported the officer's words as he approached the gun battery: "Allons, mes amis, il est temps, volons où la gloire nous appelle!" (Come on, my friends, it's time, let's fly where glory calls!).