Lazare Hoche, Middle 19th Century Bronze Bust

Rare bust of Lazare Hoche, young general of the French Revolution.
Bronze with brown patina, very good condition.
Mid 19th or before.

French general (Versailles 1768-Wetzlar, Prussia, 1797). Voluntarily enlisted in the French Guards in 1784, captain in 1792, he sent to the Committee of Public Safety a daring report on the military situation which quickly earned him the rank of general (1793). Commander-in-chief of the army of the Moselle, victorious over the Austrians and the Prussians (Geisberg, December 26, 1793), he freed the besieged Landau. Denounced as a suspect by Pichegru, he was imprisoned until 9 Thermidor. He succeeded in reducing the royalist insurrection in the West and in pacifying the Vendée (1796). Minister of War (1797), commander-in-chief of the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, he defeated the Austrians at Neuwied. He died of illness at a very young age.