Jacques de Liniers, le 1er comte de Buenos Aires, également connu sous son nom espagnol, Santiago de Liniers y Bremond
Family and youth
Jacques de Liniers was born in Niort (current department of Deux-Sèvres ) on July 25, 1753. He comes from a noble family of Poitou, having the vocation of arms since the Middle Ages. His father was a naval officer and his uncle, Alexis de Liniers , died at the battle of Lauffeld , struck by a British cannonball which took his leg. The youngest of a family of nine children and little attracted by the ecclesiastical state, the young Jacques is destined for the career of arms.
1765, he is presented to the order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Besides, he does nothing more than follow a family tradition. But given his young age, he would never make his pilgrims and do not take his vows as a brother-knight of the Order.
He then obtained, at the age of fifteen, a second lieutenant's certificate in the Royal Piedmont Cavalry regiment, stationed in Carcassonne. He vegetated for six years in garrison, with no hope of advancement. France, having emerged defeated from the Seven Years' War, was then at peace with the whole world and Minister Turgot , appointed by the young King Louis XVI , reduced the budget of the armies, leaving little prospects for the future to the young officers of small nobility like Liniers.
Liniers thus addressed his resignation to the colonel of his regiment in 1774. At the age of 21, he set out in search of a new cause, and of a new master to whom he could offer his sword. He finally opts for Spain.
British invasions
Buenos Aires constituted in 1806 a prey of choice for the United Kingdom, mistress of the seas: the city is rich in fabulous treasures brought back from Peru, badly governed by a viceroy cut off from Madrid and badly defended by a small garrison whose quality is as failing as its loyalty.
On June 23, 1806, a British expeditionary force of 1,700 men landed on the left bank of the Río de la Plata and invaded Buenos Aires, abandoned by the viceroy. Liniers remains incognito in the city. At the Dominican convent, he vowed to offer the flags of the occupants to the altar of the Virgin. He secretly wins Montevideo , galvanizes the population and raises a troop of 1,200 volunteers. The small liberation army embarked on a few schooners, to which was joined a French privateer corvette. Disembarked onAugust 4Liniers and his men rush towards Buenos Aires, through the marshes. The city is taken back, after a furious street fight which ends with the assault on the cathedral, fortified by the British. British General William Carr Beresford surrendered and Liniers, true to his wish, had the British standards (namely those of the Highlanders and the Green regiment of Saint Helena) transferred with great pomp to the Dominican convent. Treated as a hero, Don Santiago de Liniers y Bremont, as he was called in Buenos Aires, was entrusted with the military command of the viceroyalty.
But the British did not give up their project of conquest. Less than six months later, a second squadron arrived in the Rio de la Plata. It carries 5,000 soldiers, the vanguard of an expeditionary force of 10,000 men. While the British seized Montevideo, Liniers organized a small disparate army of 8,500 men, somehow bringing together Castilians, Creoles, Mulattoes and blacks . EndJune 1807, the British land in force on the Argentine coast of the Rio de la Plata. They launch into Buenos Aires, deserted and strangely silent. Pacing the deserted streets, the twelve British columns enter the city. They lead to the Plaza Mayor ( Place de Mai ), in the center of the capital, when suddenly a gunshot rings out and, from all the adjacent streets, the assailants appear. The British are overthrown and face stubborn resistance from the inhabitants, who have made each house, each convent, a veritable fortress. The British could hardly take refuge in the city forts. theJuly 7, the British general John Whitelocke accepts the conditions of the French general and re-embark his troops. Santiago de Liniers was once again cheered by a delirious crowd, hailed by the nickname El Reconquistador and carried in triumph to the Dominican convent, where he laid down the new British flags taken in battle.
On the announcement of these two resounding victories, the court of Madrid showered Liniers with favors: King Charles IV appointed him governor, captain general and viceroy of all the provinces of Rio de la Plata.
Viceroy of the River Plate
Endowed with discretionary powers (Madrid is far away, and the Spanish monarchy adrift), Liniers maneuvers cautiously in an Argentinian society in full change. A fine diplomat, he smoothly reconciles the interests of the descendants of the conquistadors, the landed elite established for a very long time, and the settlers who landed more recently, who claim their share of power. To this is added, with the decay of the Spanish royal power, the first bubbling of the spirit of independence, which begins to reach Spanish America.
With the invasion of Spain by the French armies and the installation of King Joseph I st in Madrid, Jacques de Liniers is in an awkward position. French by blood and heart, he felt pushed towards France, but he took the oath to Charles IV and his descendants, and could not betray a monarchy to which he owed an exceptional career. He therefore rejected the advances of Napoleon , transmitted by the envoy Sassenay , and remained loyal to the Bourbons .
Despite this, the people of Buenos Aires reproach him for his French origins and openly accuses him of wanting to hand over his viceroyalty to the French. The separatists join the legitimists in demanding the dismissal of Liniers and the creation of a junta, similar to that which animates the Spanish resistance in Cadiz . A compromise is reached: Liniers resigns and, in exchange, the junta of Cadiz grants him the title of count of Buenos Aires, as well as a pension of 100,000 reals . He is replaced by Don Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros , a Spaniard from the metropolis ignorant of the Argentine political situation.
End of life
Liniers then retired to Córdoba, an old university town, where he enjoyed a gentle and calm life for a few months [ref. necessary] . It is then that we think of him to take the head of the independence movement which has just been born: after having been el Reconquistador , he would become el Libertador . But once again, he demonstrated his unfailing loyalty to Spain and the Bourbons: he rejected the proposal made to him and refused to join the movement.
In June 1810, a letter informs him that the viceroy Cisneros, totally overwhelmed by the events of the May revolution and abandoned by all or almost, calls him for his help. To his father-in-law, who begged him to stay away from events, he replied: "Would you like a general, a soldier who, for thirty-six years, gave repeated proofs of his love? and of his fidelity to his sovereign, abandoned him at the last period of his life? ".
He then gathered around Córdoba all the troops loyal to the crown, from Peru to Uruguay. But while waiting for an enemy to slip away and in the middle of the rainy season, Liniers' soldiers deserted in bands, so much so that when the enemy army presented itself in front of Cordoba, Liniers had only 400 men left to defend. the city. From the first shock, the loyalist troops disband, and Santiago de Liniers is forced to flee. He is pursued, and finally surrounded in a hut in the middle of the woods.
Posthumous recognition
Arms of the 1st Earl of Buenos Aires later changed to Earl of Loyalty.
A few years later, King Ferdinand VII, returned to his throne after Napoleon's defeat, honored the memory of Santiago de Liniers, by awarding him posthumously the title of Count of Buenos Aires(Count of Loyalty).
In 1861, Queen Isabel II solemnly brought back from America the body of Liniers, who is buried in the Pantheon on the island of León, in Cadiz.
A district of Buenos Aires bears the name of Liniers, as well as a railway station and the Mercado Liniers, the cattle market in the Argentine capital, the largest in the world.
In 1910, in Niort, a bust of Jacques de Liniers was erected at a corner of rue Alsace-Lorraine, to honor his memory. It is still there today.
An association, Mémoires Jacques de Liniers created in 2005, intends to study and publicize his life and his military and political action. Celebration of the bicentenary of his death on the 28th andAug 29, 2010, in Niort .
Avenue Jacques de Liniers (sometimes called "Jacques de Linières"), in the Buttes-Chaumont park , in Paris .
the January 23, 2017, a bust of Jacques de Liniers is inaugurated at France-Amériques in the presence of the ambassadors of Argentina ,Bolivia, Spain, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay. Work of the artist Constance de la Martinière, this bronze will be permanently exhibited in the entrance lounge of the Hotel Le Marois, headquarters of the Cercle France Amériques, far from the other heroes of the Americas: Miguel Hidalgo , José de San Martín , George Washington and Simón Bolívar.
His first-born son: Don Luis de Liniers y de Membielle, Lieutenant of the Royal Spanish Navy, was the Second Count of Buenos Aires and the last with such a denomination, since as a result of the execution, he repudiated the title of "Count of Buenos Aires Aires "and on August 16, 1812, he asked the Cortes of Cádiz (Reigning in the name of the captured King), to change the name of the title to Count of Lealtad (to the Spanish Kings). Subsequently, King Don Fernando VII re-enthroned, through the issuance of the Royal Decree of March 21, 1816, confirmed the change of name of the County.
He was succeeded by the Third Earl of the Loyalty Don Santiago de Liniers and Martínez de Junquera, upon his death he was succeeded by his uncle Don José Atanasio de Liniers y Sarratea, son of the second marriage of the I Count, was Count of Liniers in France; He was Secretary of Legislation and Charge d'Affaires of His Majesty with the King of Sardinia; He was born in Montevideo on May 2, 1798, and married Doña Olimpia Jarnó de Pont-Jarnó (daughter of the Barons of Pont-Jarnó), and died in his castle in Plessis on April 22, 1882. He had only one son A man who was Don Santiago Alejandro de Liniers y de Pont-Jarnó, he was Count of Liniers in France. He succeeded his father in the County of Lealtad, but when he obtained the noble rehabilitation by Royal Charter dated October 31, 1862, he was appointed as the Fifth Count of Buenos Aires. He married Mademoiselle Cristina de Verges, with whom he had Don Juan José de Liniers y Verges. Like his father he inherited the French title of Count de Liniers and was also the Sixth Count of Buenos Aires.
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