Early Life
Lannes was born in the small town of Lectoure, in the Gers department in the south of France. He was the son of a Gascon farmer, Jeannet Lannes (1733 – 1812, son of Jean Lannes (d. 1746) and wife Jeanne Pomiès (d. 1770) and paternal grandson of Pierre Lane and wife Bernarde Escossio, both died in 1721), and wife Cécile Fouraignan (1741 – 1799), and was apprenticed to a dyer. He had little education, but his great strength and proficiency in all manly sports caused him in 1792 to be elected sergeant-major of the battalion of volunteers of Gers, which he had joined on the breaking out of war between Spain and the French republic. He served through the campaigns in the Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and rose by distinguished conduct to the rank of chef de brigade. However, in 1795, on the reform of the army introduced by the Thermidorians, he was dismissed from his rank.
He married twice, in Perpignan, 19 March 1795 to Paulette Méric, whom he divorced because of infidelity in 1800, after she had given birth to an illegitimate son while he was campaigning in Egypt:
- Jean-Claude Lannes de Montebello (Montauban, 12 February 1799 – 1817), who died unmarried and without issue,
and secondly at Dornes on 16 September 1800 to Louise Antoinette, Comtesse de Guéhéneuc (Paris, 26 February 1782 – Paris, 3 July 1856), by whom he had five children:
- Louis Napoléon (30 July 1801 – 19 July 1874)
- Alfred-Jean (11 July 1802 – 20 June 1861)
- Jean-Ernest (20 July 1803 – 24 November 1882)
- Gustave-Olivier (4 December 1804 – 25 August 1875)
- Josephine-Louise (4 March 1806 – 8 November 1889)
one who succeeded in his titles and three others who used the courtesy title of Baron. One of his direct descendants, Philippe Lannes de Montebello, was until 2008 the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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