MACDONALD, Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre (1765-1840), duke of Taranto, and marshal of France, was born at Sancerre on November 17, 1765. His father came of an old Jacobite family, which had followed James II. to France, and was a near relative of the celebrated Flora Macdonald (1722-1790), the heroine whose courage and fidelity were at one critical period the sole means by which Prince Charles Edward was enabled to elude his enemies after the defeat of Culloden in 1746. In 1784 Macdonald joined the legion raised by the second Marshal Maillebois to support the revolutionary party in Holland against the Prussians, and after it was disbanded he received a commission in the regiment of Dillon. On the breaking out of the Revolution, the regiment of Dillon remained eminently loyal, nearly all its officers emigrating with the princes, with the exception of Macdonald, who was in love with a Mademoiselle Jacob, whose father was enthusiastic for the doctrines of the Revolution. His love was successful, and directly after his marriage he was appointed aide-de-camp to General Dumouriez. He also distinguished himself at Jemmapes, and was promoted colonel in 1794. He refused to desert to the Austrians with Dumouriez, and as a reward was made general of brigade, and appointed to command the leading brigade in Pichegru’s invasion of Holland. His knowledge of the country proved most useful, and he was instrumental in the capture of the Dutch fleet by the French hussars. In 1797 he was made general of division, and transferred first to the army of the Rhine and then to that of Italy. When he reached Italy, the peace of Campo Formio had been signed, and General Bonaparte had returned to France; but, under the direction of Berthier, Macdonald first occupied Rome, of which he was made ...governor, and then in conjunction with Championnet he defeated General Mack, and revolutionized the kingdom of Naples under the title of the Parthenopaean Republic. When Suwaroff invaded northern Italy, and was winning back the conquests of Bonaparte, General Macdonald collected all the troops in the peninsula and moved northwards. With but 30,000 men he attacked, at the Trebbia, Suwaroff with 50,000, and after three days’ fighting, during which he held the Russians at bay, and gave time for Moreau to come up, he retired in good order to Genoa. After this gallant behaviour he was made governor of Versailles, and acquiesced in, if he did not co-operate in, the events of the 18th Brumaire. In 1800 he received the command of the army in Switzerland which was to maintain the communications between the armies of Germany and of Ital^. He carried out his orders to the letter, and at last, in the winter of 1800-1, he was ordered to march over the Splügen Pass. This achievement is fully described by Mathieu Dumas, who was chief of his staff, and is at least as noteworthy as Bonaparte’s famous passage of the Saint Bernard before Marengo, though followed by no such successful battle. On his return to Paris he married the widow of General Joubert, and was appointed French plenipotentiary in Denmark. Returning in 1805 he associated himself with Moreau, and incurred the dislike of Napoleon, who did not include him in his first creation of marshals. Till 1809 he remained without employment, but in that year Napoleon, hard pressed at Aspern, gave Macdonald the command of a division in the army of the viceroy of Italy which was to march from Italy to his help. He led the army from Italy till its junction with Napoleon, and at Wagram commanded the attack on the Austrian centre which won the victory. Napoleon made him marshal of France on the field of battle, and presently created him duke of Taranto. In 1810 he served in Spain, and in 1812 he commanded the left wing of the grand army for the invasion of Russia. After sharing in the battles of Lützen and Bautzen, he was ordered to invade Silesia, where Blücher defeated him with great loss at the Katzbach. After the terrible battle of Leipsic he was ordered with Prince Poniatowski to cover the evacuation of Leipsic, and after the blowing up of the bridge, he managed to swim the Elster, while Poniatowski was drowned. During the defensive campaign of 1814 Macdonald again distinguished himself, and was one of the marshals sent by Napoleon to take his abdication in favour of his son to Paris. When all were deserting their old master, Macdonald remained faithful to him. Macdonald was directed by Napoleon to give in his adherence to the new régime, and was presented by him with the sabre of Murad Bey for his fidelity. He was made a peer of France at the Restoration, and, having once passed his word to the new order of things, remained faithful during the Hundred Days. In 1816 he became chancellor of the Legion of Honour, a post he held till 1831, and took a great part in the discussions in the House of Peers. In 1823 he married Mademoiselle de Bourgony, and at last had a son, Alexander, who succeeded on his death in 1840 as duke of Taranto. From 1830 his life was spent in retirement at his country place Courcelles.
Macdonald had none of that military genius which distinguished Davoust, Masséna, and especially Ney, nor of that military science conspicuous in Marmont and St Cyr, but nevertheless his campaign in Switzerland gives him a rank far superior to such mere generals of division as Oudinot and Dupont. This capacity for independent command made Napoleon, in spite of his defeats at the Trebbia and the Katzbach, trust him with large corps d’armée till the end of his career. As a man, his character cannot be spoken of too highly; no stain of cruelty or faithlessness rests on him. He retained always the frank honour of a soldier of fortune; but he never forgot that he was a gentleman, or disgraced the new nobility of Napoleon by ridiculous pretensions.
Maδdonald was especially fortunate in the accounts of his military exploits, Mathieu Dumas and Ségur having been on his staff in Switzerland. See Dumas, Événements Militaires ; and Ségur’s rare tract, Lettre sur la campagne du Général Macdonald dans les Grisons en 1800 et 1801 (1802). Also consult Pelet’s excellent Campagne de 1809, and Ségur’s Éloge (1842).
MACDONALD, Lawrence (1798-1878), sculptor, was born at Gask, Perthshire, Scotland, in 1798, and in early life served as a mason’s apprentice. Having shown an aptitude for stone carving, he went while still a youth to Edinburgh as an art student at the Trustees’ Academy, finding at the same time a good deal of occasional employment in carving coats of arms and other ornamental figures on the gateways or walls of country houses. By the help of friends he was enabled to visit Rome, whence, after a stay of two or three years, he returned to Edinburgh in 1826. During the next few years he executed a considerable number of commissions for busts, and also devoted a good deal of time to the designing of ideal subjects, in which branch of his art, however, the public interest was comparatively slight. From 1832 until his death on March 4, 1878, his home was in Rome; during the long period of forty-six years his chisel never rested, and the number of works that issued from his studio, chiefly in the department of portrait sculpture, was very great. Among his ideal works may be mentioned Ulysses and his Dog Argos, Andromeda chained to the Rock, Eurydice, Hyacinth, a Siren, and a Bacchante. His busts, while excellent as likenesses, are remarkable for purity and dignity of style: and the ideal works are at once full of grace and carefully correct in form, design, and treatment.
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