Louis Marie Maximilien de Caffarelli du Falga

General, member of the Institut

Louis Marie Maximilien de Caffarelli du Falga, more commonly known as Maximilien Caffarelli, was the eldest of ten siblings. Five of his six brothers had distinguished careers during the French Revolution and Empire, while the sixth was executed by firing squad at Quiberon for his part in the attempted Royalist landing there in 1795.

Maximilien was born at Château du Falga (then part of the Languedoc intendancy, now part of the Haute-Garonne département) on February 13, 1756, to Marguerite-Louise-Félicité d'Anceau and Pierre-François-Maximilien Caffarel - who became de Caffarelli in 1739, thanks to a diploma issued by the Roman authorities attesting to the kinship of the Languedoc Caffarel family with the Roman Caffarelli family. Although the registers of the Reformed churches of Montpellier and Revel, the family's birthplaces, seemed to deny it, this supposed filiation strengthens the Caffarel family's claim to nobility.

Young Maximilien attended the Benedictine college in Sorèze, some twenty kilometers from the Falga seigneury. He showed a brilliant aptitude for learning, particularly mathematics - the famous mathematician Étienne Bezout visited the school and was struck by his abilities. This gifted pupil did not confine himself narrowly to one discipline, but was also interested in literature, philosophy and morality. In 1774, Maximilien went to Paris to perfect his mathematical skills. His teachers included Gaspard Monge. The two men struck up a friendship that would only end with Caffarelli's death.

Out of personal taste and in keeping with a certain family tradition, Caffarelli wanted to join the army of engineers. He took the exam, passed and joined the Mézières training school. In 1777, after two years' training, he became a midshipman in the royal corps of engineers, with the rank of infantry second lieutenant.

The following years were spent in various garrisons (Calais, Dunkirk, Grandville, Cherbourg, where he worked on the port in 1782 and again from 1786 to 1790).

In 1786, on the death of his mother, Caffarelli settled for a share of the inheritance equal to that of each of his siblings, although by law, as the eldest child of a noble family, he was entitled to half. During his leave of absence, he temporarily took charge of the family estate, giving lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic to the children and peasants of the village of Falga, as well as to his own servants. At the end of this period, he returned to service.

In the early months of 1789, he was entrusted with several elective functions in the provincial assemblies. He sat with the Third Estate rather than the nobility. He was responsible for one of the first known proposals for a declaration of rights, which was however rejected. He also failed to be appointed deputy to the Estates-General.

In 1792, Caffarelli returned to service as assistant staff officer in the Army of the Rhine. But after the day of August 10 that same year, the prelude to the fall of royalty, he refused to take the new oath required of soldiers without examining it. Caffarelli's refusal led to his dismissal and subsequent expulsion, as dismissed officers were forbidden to stay near the frontier even if they had re-enlisted as private soldiers, as he had done.

Caffarelli first returned to Paris, where he held a number of voluntary positions while waiting for the Convention to examine an accusation brought against him. His judges, the Military and Surveillance Committees, not only acquitted him, but also requested his reinstatement in the army. When this request went unheeded, Caffarelli returned to Le Falga, where he was reunited with his brothers, who had been brought back into the fold for similar reasons.

On October 26, 1793 (Brumaire 5, Year II), under the terms of the law on suspects, he was arrested with his four sisters and one of his brothers (two others were soon to suffer the same fate). He was incarcerated in Toulouse, in the Carmelite convent, which had been converted into a prison. Caffarelli's detention lasted fourteen months. He spent his time studying economics and languages, and writing treatises and memoirs on a variety of subjects, which he sent to prominent figures such as Emmanuel Siéyès and André Jeanbon Saint-André. The latter sometimes used them in reports or in their own speeches at the Convention. Like so many others, his release came only after the 9th of Thermidor and the fall of Maximilien Robespierre. Even then, he had to wait more than two months for his release.

The new Committee of Public Safety called him to Paris to work for a time with the Military Committee. Caffarelli then left with representative Pierre Mathurin Gillet for the Sambre-et-Meuse army, with the rank of battalion commander. Here he met Jean-Baptiste Kléber, with whom he was one of the first to cross the Rhine on the night of September 5-6, 1795. The two men forged an enduring friendship during the campaign. However, operations did not turn out to the advantage of the French troops, who crossed the Rhine again in December. On the 6th, while protecting the crossing of the Nahe (a tributary on the river's left bank) by a retreating unit of the Sambre-et-Meuse army, Caffarelli was wounded by a cannonball that shattered his left leg. The next day, amputation proved unavoidable. His promotion to brigadier general came a few days later. Nine months of convalescence followed.

During this enforced rest, the National Institute, which had just been created by the new Constitution of Year III, took him on as an associate member, in the class of Moral and Political Sciences. After a stay at Le Falga, Caffarelli returned to Paris in September 1797. There, he renewed his relations with Kléber and entered the orbit of General Napoleon Bonaparte. The latter, tasked with studying the possibility of a landing in England, entrusted Caffarelli with the management of work undertaken in the Pas-de-Calais ports, the prelude to what would later become the Boulogne camp.

But this invasion project was soon abandoned, and the Army of England was transformed into the Army of the East. Egypt and the route to India became the new objective.

Bonaparte gave Caffarelli command of the expeditionary corps' engineers. It was a mark of confidence and esteem. It was all the more striking given that most of Bonaparte's entourage was made up of former officers from the Army of Italy. In this position, Caffarelli played a major role in preparing the expedition. In particular, he was in charge of the logistics for the scientists and artists. He later became their intermediary with the General-in-Chief.

During the Mediterranean crossing, Caffarelli sailed aboard the Orient alongside Bonaparte and the Commission of Scientists, taking part in the discussions that brought them together and finding there the opportunity to express his own ideas. He took part in the capture of Malta, then, as soon as he landed in Egypt, in the march on Alexandria. During the latter, he didn't hesitate to walk across the desert, despite his wooden leg, so as not to be separated from the vanguard by the wait for a horse. During the conquest of Lower Egypt, he showed such recklessness in battle that a legend ran in the army that the general-in-chief had to punish him to temper it.

In Cairo, he played a leading role in the foundation of the various establishments Bonaparte wanted: French and Arabic printing works, a chemistry laboratory, a physics laboratory and an observatory. He was also involved in building mills, improving bread ovens and water supplies, surveying ancient monuments and setting up schools for surviving mousses from the fleet, which he also opened to a number of local pupils. Bonaparte also appointed him to the Finance Council, a body with wide-ranging powers.

During the Cairo revolt, the insurgents, who considered Caffarelli to be one of the expedition's main leaders, having seen him in charge of all the works in their city, saw him as one of their priority targets. His house, from which he happened to be absent, was among the first to be taken and looted.

When the Institut d'Égypte was created, Caffarelli was naturally included. Along with Monge, Claude-Louis Berthollet, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Desgenettes, Andréossy and Fourier, his colleagues from the Institut National de France, he even formed the core of the body, which was joined by army officers and administrators. The first meeting of this body, designed to help the world rediscover ancient Egyptian civilization, took place on August 24, 1798, under the presidency of Monge and the vice-presidency of Bonaparte.

In Nivôse, Caffarelli accompanied Bonaparte, Monge, Berthollet and Louis Costaz to Suez and, on December 28, 1798, nearly drowned on his way back across the Red Sea.

The Syrian Expedition saw him command the engineering division. He took part in the capture of El-Arich, Gaza, Jaffa  and Haifa . At Saint-Jean d'Acre , he led the siege work without concern for his personal safety, despite warnings from Bonaparte and his friends. On April 9, 1799, a bullet shattered his right elbow one night when he had advanced too close to enemy lines. Dominique Jean Larrey amputated it. While recovery seemed to be on track, the wound suddenly worsened, and Caffarelli died on April 27.

The next day, the order of the day paid him a heartfelt tribute: General Caffarelli takes to the grave universal regrets. The army loses one of its bravest leaders; Egypt one of its legislators; France one of its best citizens; the sciences a man who played a famous role in them.

General Caffarelli lies in a small cemetery north of the old town of Acre