Jean Léchelle
| Jean Léchelle | |
|---|---|
| Born |
2 April 1760 Puyréaux, France |
| Died |
11 November 1793 (aged 33) Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France |
| Allegiance |
 France
|
| Service/branch | Infantry |
| Years of service |
1791–1793 |
| Rank | General of division |
| Commands held | Army of the West |
| Battles/wars |
|
Jean Léchelle or Jean L'Échelle (2 April 1760 – 11 November 1793) briefly commanded a French army during the French Revolutionary Wars. Having served in the French Royal Army as a youth, the outbreak of the French Revolution found him employed as a fencing master. He was elected to lead a volunteer National Guard battalion which fought at Valmy and Jemappes in 1792. He earned promotion to general officer after distinguishing himself at the Siege of Valenciennes and saving a representative from an angry mob. He won such favor with the politicians and the war office that he was rapidly catapulted into command of an army in the War in the Vendée. After the capable battalion leader demonstrated his total unfitness for the post of army commander, he was just as quickly arrested and thrown into prison where he died, a probable suicide.
Léchelle was born on 2 April 1760 at Puyréaux. As a young man he enlisted in the French Royal Army as a private and later became a fencing master at Saintes. When the French Revolution broke out he enrolled in the National Guard of Charente-Inférieure. In 1791 he became lieutenant colonel of the 1st Charente Battalion of volunteers. On 20 September 1792 the battalion fought at the Battle of Valmy as part of the Left Wing under Jean-Pierre François de Chazot. On 6 November that year the 1st Charente was at the Battle of Jemappes where it was included in François Richer Drouet's 1st Brigade of the First Line of the Left Wing under Jean Henri Becays Ferrand.
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