Your mention of the Guard Cavalry's General, Anton, makes the answer much easier.
GD Lefebvre Desnoettes, Comte (1773-1822). The Fall of 1808, Spain. With his glorious regiment - the Guard Chasseurs a Cheval - he joined the pursuit of the English army. They caught up MG Moor's rearguard at Benavente on 29th December. Napoleon anxious to force a decision when he saw the English retiring in the distance took a risk and ordered Desnoettes to cross the Esla river with a few squadrons, to try and pin the enemy. Fording the Esla, Desnoettes came across pickets of the 18th Light Dragoons who fell back before him. He followed at the gallop and in the pursuit his men soon became breathless and disordered. The trap was sprung when the 10th Hussars lying in wait behind Benavente swooped down on him. His troops swept back the two miles to the river, while Desnoettes in difficulty with a wounded horse that refused to ford it was taken prisoner. He was then shipped to England. In the Spring of 1812 his wife joined him at Cheltenham, and encouraged to break his parole, with her help disguised as a Russian count he escaped to France. The Fall of 1813, Germany. Desnoettes took command of the 1st Guard Cavalry Division, which numbered some 4,000 lancers. In September Napoleon detached him to clear the rear areas behind the Elbe between Dresden and Wittenberg where Allied partisans under Thielemann, Mensdorf and Platov were causing chaos and threatened communications. He was initially successful and defeated Thielemann at Merseburg on 24th September, harrying his force as it fell back towards Altenburg where linked up with 5,000 Austrians under Klenau. When he attacked them at Altenburg on 28th, Platov took him in the rear. Desnoettes suffered a sharp reverse, losing over 1,000 men. It was a set-back that hastened Napoleon's decision to withdraw from Dresden to Leipzig, as his rear areas became untenable. By the way, on 22nd October Desnoettes had indignity of another defeat at the hands of Platov when caught at Weimar and put to flight. In the Summer of 1814, he swore allegiance to the Bourbons and in turn received the title Chevalier de Saint Louis and assumed command of his old regiment renamed the Royal Chasseurs a Cheval, but in 1815, he is an active plotter against the Bourbons already breaking his "noble" word again. Desnoettes was the typical die hard Bonapartist. Napoleon thought highly of him and even included him as a beneficiary in his last will and testament.
_________________ General-Feldmarshal Prince Vladimir N. Repnin Imperial Russian Corps Commander Prince Braine-Le Comte & The Adjutant-General of His Imperial Majesty Chevalier Guards Regiment
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