Benoît Leborgne (24 March 175121 June 1830), better known as Count Benoît de Boigne or General Count de Boigne, was a mercenary from the Duchy of Savoy (when he was born part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) who made his fortune and name in India with the Marathas. He was also named president of the general council of the French département of Mont-Blanc by Napoleon I.
The son of shopkeepers, Leborgne was a career military man. He was trained in European regiments and then became a success in India in the service of Mahadaji Sindhia of Gwalior in central India, who ruled over the Maratha Empire. Sindhia entrusted him with the creation and organization of an army. He became its general, and trained and commanded a force of nearly 100,000 men organized on the European model, which allowed the Maratha Empire to dominate north India, though it ultimately proved unable to match the military of the East India Company in the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars. Along with his career in the army, Benoît de Boigne also worked in commerce and administration. Among other titles, he became a Jaghirdar which gave him enormous land holdings in India.
After a turbulent life, Benoît de Boigne returned to Europe, first to England, where he married a French emigrant after having repudiated his first, Persian wife; then to France during the Consulate, and finally back to Savoy. He devoted the end of his life to charity in Chambéry, where he was born. The king of Sardinia gave him the title of Count.
Early life He was born at Chambéry in Savoy on 24 March 1751, the son of a fur merchant. His paternal grandfather, born at Burneuil in Picardy, moved to Chambéry, in the Dukedom of Savoy, at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1709 the grandfather married Claudine Latoud, born in 1682. They had thirteen children, of whom only four reached the age of twenty, and opened up a fur shop on rue Tupin in Chambéry.
This shop made an impression on the young Benoît Leborgne. In his Mémoires, he wrote that he was fascinated by the exotic sign outside the shop. It was brightly colored and featured wild animals including lions, elephants, panthers and tigers, with the motto underneath: "You can go ahead and try something else, you will all come to Leborgne, the fur dealer." The child's imagination was stimulated, and he kept asking his parents and grandparents about the animals. He wanted to know more about the far-off countries where they lived.
His father, Jean-Baptiste Leborgne, born in 1718, frequently traveled on business to wild-fur markets and brought back bearskins, fox, beaver, and marten furs, and many other animal pelts. Sometimes he traveled as far as Scotland, and he dreamed of going to the Indies. His wife was against this, but he passed his dream on to his son.
His mother, Hélène Gabet, born in 1744, was born into a family of notaries who worked closely with the Savoy Senate. Although her family was not happy about her marriage to a fur merchant, they accepted it. Benoît was the third of the couple's seven children – three boys and three girls. One of his brothers, Antoine-François, became a monk at the monastery of Grande Chartreuse, but influenced by ideas of the French Revolution, he left and later married. His son Joseph became a notable lawyer in Turin. Benoît, who had been destined for the law, was not the only adventurer in his family. His brother Claude went to Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic. Claude was imprisoned in Paris during the Reign of Terror, and later became a deputy for the island of Santo Domingo (now called Hispaniola) in the Council of Five Hundred under the French Directory. During the first empire (of Napoleon) he was named to office in Paris and took the title of Baron. This title was given to him, like the title of Count given to his brother Benoît Leborgne, by the king of Sardinia, in 1816. At the age of 17, Benoît Leborgne fought a duel with a Piedmont officer and wounded him. This cost him his chance to join the Brigade de Savoie. He therefore enlisted in the French Army.
Early military career
Leborgne began his military career in the north of France in 1768, as an ordinary soldier in Louis XV's Irish Regiment, directed by Lord Clare and quartered in Flanders. This regiment was made up mostly of Irish emigrants who had left Ireland for other Catholic nations in Europe; at this time Irish Catholics were disenfranchised in Kingdom of Ireland under the penal laws. During this period, many Irishmen left Ireland for the Catholic countries of Europe or for North America. Here Benoît Leborgne learned English and the rudiments of army life. He listened to the military tales of his superior officers, especially those of Major Daniel Charles O'Connell about India. Many years later, he met O'Connell again in England and was introduced through him to his future wife Adèle.
While in the Irish Regiment, Leborgne took part in several campaigns which took him across Europe, as well as to islands in the Indian Ocean, including Bourbon Island (now called Réunion). In 1773, at age 22, Benoît Leborgne resigned from the army. Lord Clare and Colonel Meade had died, bringing changes to the Regiment. Europe was at peace and his chances of promotion had become slim.
The Russian-Turkish war As he was leaving the Irish Regiment, young Leborgne learned from the newspapers that Prince Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov of Russia was raising, in the name of Empress Catherine II of Russia, a Greek regiment to attack the Ottoman Empire. At the time, Russia was attempting to extend its territory to acquire a port on the Black Sea, and was using the anti-Turkish sentiments of people under Ottoman domination to aid its project. Leborgne saw a chance of advancement and adventure. He went back to Chambéry for a short time and got a letter of recommendation to Prince Orlov through the cousin of a client of his mother's, who was a close acquaintance of the prince. First Leborgne went to Turin, which was then the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, where he met the cousin. Afterwards, he went to the Veneto, then crossed to the Aegean Sea. He arrived in Paros, where Prince Orlov was forming his Greek-Russian regiment. The prince accepted him and he joined the ranks.
Leborgne quickly saw that his enlistment was a mistake. The prince confided to him his doubts on the future military campaign and its chances of victory. These pessimistic forecasts were quickly confirmed. On the island of Tenedos, the Turks were victorious, and the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) ended for Leborgne with his capture by the Turks, although some members of his regiment succeeded in escaping. He was taken to Constantinople and became a slave, where he had to do menial work for many weeks. However, his owner soon noticed that he could speak English and put him to work serving the British official Lord Algernon Percy. Percy, surprised to see an enslaved European, was able to procure Leborgne's freedom after a week of negotiations, with the aid of the British embassy.
Preparations for India
Lord Percy took Leborgne as a guide through the Greek islands back to Paros, where Leborgne officially resigned from his regiment. He was free again, but had only his last pay received from before his resignation. He travelled to Smyrna (now İzmir), which at the time was a prosperous, booming city. There, Leborgne met merchants from many countries, including India, which was believed to hold much wealth, like the diamonds of Golconda and the sapphires of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Some of these merchants told him their theories about the existence of trade routes passing north of India, in upper Kashmir or along the glaciers of Karakoram. He also learned that many rajahs regularly sought out European officers to organize and command their armies.
These stories persuaded Leborgne to try his chances. Through his friend Lord Percy, he was able to get letters of recommendation to Lord Hastings and Lord Macartney in India. He also asked for letters of recommendation from Prince Orlov in Saint Petersburg, where the prince obtained an audience for him with the Empress Catherine II. Leborgne explained to her he wanted to discover new trade routes to India passing through Afghanistan or Kashmir. The empress, wishing to extend her power to Afghanistan, agreed to help him. At the end of 1777, Leborgne began a journey with many detours. After having tried to travel by land, he gave up and decided to reach India by ship. However, during the voyage to Egypt, a storm washed away all his possessions, including the letters of recommendation. Not wishing to abandon his journey, Leborgne went to the British consulate in Egypt and met Sir Baldwin. After a number of discussions, he was advised to take service in British East India Company, and he was given a letter of recommendation to this effect.
Military glory and fortune in India In the late 18th century, the influence of the Maratha Empire was gradually declining. The British were triumphing over their Portuguese, French, and Dutch rivals in India, where all the countries had hastened to install trading posts. The British East India Company was the most powerful military and economic force and came to dominate India. The East India Company established a powerful administration placed under the direct responsibility of the British Crown. Many Europeans benefited from the political confusion on the Indian subcontinent, offering their services as mercenaries to Indian princes and becoming rich merchants themselves. The Europeans had the advantage of military experience in the European wars, knowledge of arms production, especially cannons, and of new military strategies.
Arrival in India In 1778, Leborgne arrived at the Indian port of Madras (now Chennai). He was poor and to make a living, taught fencing. While teaching, he met a nephew of the British governor of the city, Sir Thomas Rumbold. He was offered a position as an officer in the 6th battalion of sepoys, a troop of local inhabitants raised by the Company. He accepted, and gradually learned the local customs and began training the sepoys. He lived in Madras for four years, but became restless. He was ambitious, and decided to go to Delhi in the north of India, where the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II held court. The Marathas and Rajputs were employing Europeans and giving them the command of their armies. The new governor, Lord MacCartney, gave Leborgne letters of recommendation to the governor of the province of Bengal, in Calcutta, and Leborgne sailed there.
He met governor Warren Hastings, who approved his projects of exploration. Again he was given letters of recommendation, this time to Asaf-Ud-Dowlah, the Nawab of Oudh, in Lucknow. The rajah was a vassal of the East India Company. In January 1783, Leborgne started his trip. He traveled through many extremely poor villages, learning about the culture and religion of India and noted the different Muslim and Hindu neighborhoods in various places.
Arrival in Lucknow
In Lucknow, Leborgne was received by the nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah and was invited to live with Colonel Pollier, in the service of the Company. As Middleton, an Englishman present when Leborgne met the nawab, explained to him afterward, this invitation was in fact an order; if he refused he would have been thrown in prison. Colonel Antoine Polier, a Swiss, received him warmly. Leborgne discovered that Lucknow had many European residents. He met two who spoke French. The first, Claude Martin, was from Lyons and had made his fortune in India; the second, Drugeon, was from Savoy like himself.