The French MacDonald – a Controversial Marshal
MKH Crumplin FRCS FRHistS
Portrait of the Scottish-French military officer Étienne Macdonald (1765-1840). Commissioned by emperor Napoleon I for the Salle des Maréchaux, in the Tuileries, after Macdonald’s promotion to Marshal of the Empire (Alexandre Benoist Jean Dufay Casanova (1770-1844), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Five years ago, whilst in South Uist, during a vacation to the Outer Hebrides, I was eager to find the dwelling place of a small farming homestead of a certain Neil MacEachen Mac Donald of the Clanranalds. A man originally destined for the church who had been educated at the Scots College in Douai, where he became fluent in Gaelic, Greek, Latin, French and English. He returned his family farm at a small clachan at Howbeg, near a small river estuary. We found the ruins of his homestead, assisted by the local pastor. MacEachen was a committed Jacobite who was later to be the father of one of Bonaparte’s marshals – Étienne Jaques-Joseph-Alexandre Macdonald. (MKH Crumplin)
To access the article, click on the link: