Career
He was made Marshal of France in 1693. At 25, he joined the French Royal Navy and started an active career, fighting the 1673 campaign of the Franco-Dutch War on the Sans-Pareil, at the Battle of Agosta where he was in command of the Syrene, and later in command of the Sceptre. He served under Abraham Duquesne during the campaigns of 1676, and became a commander in 1690 during the War of the Grand Alliance.
He put his flag on the Soleil-Royal, where it would stay until the battle of Louisiana Hougue in 1692.
At the Battle of Beachy Head (Victoire de Béveziers), 1690, he defeated an Anglo-Dutch fleet, sinking or capturing 15 enemy ships. On 29 May 1692, at Barfleur, with only 45 ships, he inflicted heavy losses on an English and Dutch fleet 97 ships strong, but was forced to retreat.
He himself suffered heavy losses after the battle when fire ships attacked the French ships of the line immobilised for repairs in Cherbourg. On 27 June 1693, he defeated a convoy of 59 English ships commanded by George Rooke at Cape Saint Vincent near Lagos Bay in Portugal, during the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent.
Tourville retired after the Peace of Ryswick and died in Paris on 23 May 1701, regarded as a national hero.
A number of French naval vessels from the 18th through 20th centuries were named in Tourville"s honour. A 1816 marble statue of Admiral Tourville, by French sculptor Joseph Charles Marin, formerly in Versailles park, features proeminently in the Village of Tourville sur Sienne (Normandy, Manche Département) hometown of Tourville ancestors, though Anne Hilarion de Tourville himself was born in Paris and not in the ancestral castle of Tourville sur Sienne.