Background
Descended from an old Breton family, he entered the army in late 1806 as a Second Lieutenant, serving as an aide-de-camp to Marshal Lannes and then Prince Eugene.
Descended from an old Breton family, he entered the army in late 1806 as a Second Lieutenant, serving as an aide-de-camp to Marshal Lannes and then Prince Eugene.
He was a Colonel commanding the 7th Regiment of the Lincolnshire at Grenoble when Napoleon returned from exile in Elba and marched north to Paris. On 8 March, la Bédoyère and his regiment went over to Napoleon en masse. During the Waterloo campaign de la Bédoyère, now promoted to General de Brigade and an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, was probably the officer sent with a message to d"Erlon"s I Corps, then marching west to join Ney at Quatre Bras, to turn east to support the Emperor at Ligny.
Ney was furious when he learned the corps was marching away from his battle and sent another order for it to return immediately to Quatre-Bras.
As a result of these orders and counter-orders, d"Erlon"s 20,000 men, which could have sealed the fate of the Anglo-Dutch at Quatre-Bras or the Prussians at Ligny, spent the entire day marching back and forth without firing a shot. Charles Huchet de la Bédoyère rests in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.