(1759-1843) French general of cavalry of the Revolution and Second Empire. Headline: ‘Morgan seeks to rehabilitate his sullied reputation to Napoleon on the back of the 13 Vendemiaire Year IV uprising’. Fine association and content manuscript L.S. ‘Morgan your most devoted No. 6’ 3pp. legal folio, Geneva, ‘le 22 Flr [Floréal], [n.y. but likely late 1795-early 1796], on letterhead of the Army of the North to Napoleon Bonaparte whom he addresses as ‘First Council’. Morgan informs Napoleon about false accusations against him as reported in a note from the Minister of War, and begs his superior for reconsideration ‘…concerning my claims. This note reads: ‘This officer was not a general when he was proscribed in Fructidor; he was dismissed, it appears, by committees for accounting irregularities.’ In your supreme position of Victory…it will be easy for me to victoriously refute two assertions as materially false by those who seem to have prejudiced you against me. I have been brigadier general since Year III [September, 1795]…I would again ask you to observe that my promotion to this rank dates from the same time as that in which you were confirmed in yours by the decree of the Committee of Public Safety, approved by the National Convention in Germinal Year III. General, that the distinguished manner in which I have served in the Revolution, and the honorable role and action, which I have employed in very stormy circumstances, should protect me from the first accusation. As for my dismissal by the Committee for reasons of accounting, this is a veritable mystery; to be an accountant one must have handled public funds, and you know perfectly well, General, that an officer under the immediate orders of the representatives of the people assigned to the armies could not have such a responsibility. This calumny is more ridiculous than it is atrocious. I will briefly now indicate its source. Towards the end of Year III, I was commanding in Brabant and had been tasked with organizing a camp of 8,000-10,000 men destined to depart to L’Ems…A speculator, protected by an influential member of the Committee of Public Safety, approached me to [attempt to] interest me in an operation infinitely ruinous to the Government [and] which aimed at nothing less than increasing the famine, then devastating the Republic and completely starving the army. I rejected those proposals with horror, and immediately informed the Representatives Lefebvre and Ramel, who approved of my conduct and overwhelmed me with praise…But the same man [speculator], who then and ever since has weighed like an iron scepter upon his country, did not forgive me for a probity which was bound to humiliate him…I spent my time from 13 Vendemiaire Year IV [October 5, 1795] perceiving that a letter between this powerful man and an honorable general could only be unequal, and that I must inevitably succumb, I submitted my resignation to the commander-in-chief and to the Representatives of the People on the very day that, in Paris, the Committee pronounced not my dismissal, but simply – without stating the reason – that I would cease to be employed in the Army of the North…I entreat you, General…to be so kind as to turn the matter over to Citizen Real, Councilor of State, who knows it well. His testimony will not leave the slightest doubt in your mind, and you will no doubt regret having given credence to a base calumny directed at a soldier…It is unworthy of a man like you, General, to allow yourself to be influenced by the passions and hatred of certain individuals too contemptible to not be cast far from you. These men, General, harm you more than all the conspiracies that England could devise; they isolate you, they drive away from your excellent citizens whose probity, talents, character and above all their unshakable devotion, would form for the Government – and your person – an impregnable rampart against which intrigues and factions would come to break in vain…’.In 1792 Morgan was serving as aide-de-camp to General Charles Francois Dumouriez, commander of the Army of the North, and then promoted to provisional commander of the Second Corps Hussars of Liberty on February 28, 1973. He would be wounded in the Battle of Neerwinden the following month and, in June 1793, promoted to brigade commander of the 10th Hussar Regiment. Again wounded in the Battle of Menin in September, 1793, Morgan was dismissed from his post following a denunciation by Squadron Leader Vidal [?], an apparent trusted associate of Dumouriez and for reasons not known. Morgan was nonetheless reinstated some three months later, on December 18, 1793, and thence confirmed as brigadier general of the Army of the North on June 13, 1795. He was again dismissed from the army following his support of the Royalist uprising of 13 Vendemiaire in Paris on October 5, 1795 – an uprising quashed by Napoleon and which led to his promotion to General of the Interior Army. It seems likely the Morgan’s second dismissal had more to do with his Royalist leanings than with any previous scandal or derelictions of accounting for, in September 1797, he would be deported to the Ile d’Orelon following the Coup of 18 Fructidor purge of conservatives of the Directory and which paved the way for the military ascendence of Napoleon. Despite his political beliefs and apparent series of scandals, Morgan had no need to worry for his career: he was released from captivity in 1801 and resumed army service in 1802, eventually being named Knight of the Legion of Honor. In very good condition and worthy of further research.