Louis-Félix Guynement de Kéralio

Louis-Felix Guinement, chevalier de Kéralio (14 September 1731, Rennes - 10 December 1793, Groslay) was a French soldier, writer and academic. He married Françoise Abeille and their daughter was the feminist writer Louise-Félicité de Kéralio.

Life

Military career

He joined his brothers Auguste, Agathon and Alexis in the régiment d'infanterie d’Anjou as a lieutenant on 8 March 1746, aged 14. During the War of the Austrian Succession, he participated in 1746 in the siege of Tortone, the battle of Piacenza and the battle of Tidone on 10 August. His extraordinary valour at Tidone twice threw the Austrians, who wanted to bar the river crossing to the French, into disorder. In 1747 he fought in the attack on the fortifications at Montauban and Villefranche, then in the capture of Montauban, Nice, Villefranche and Vintimille.

Louis Félix Guynement was demobbed in 1749. Nevertheless, he decided to serve at his own expense in the regiment for 18 months, being recalled to it officially in 1751, before being made aide-major. In 1754 and 1755 he was put in sole charge of the regiments manouevres and exercises, and in 1755 he was made captain. At the start of the Seven Years' War onwards he was retired from the ranks after being wounded when the regiment was encamped in observation at Calais in 1756 and retired to his birthplace of Valence.

Academic career

On 25 February 1758 he was made deputy-director of studies and professor of tactics at the royal military school in Paris. On 31 July 1759 Louis Félix was made aide-major there and then promoted to major. He taught many future generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, such as Armand Samuel de Marescot, Louis-Alexandre Berthier and Jean-Baptiste Bernard Viénot de Vaublanc. In 1771 he was made a knight of the order of Saint Louis, and then was elected commander of the 3rd bataillon of the National Guard – the bataillon des Filles-Saint-Thomas - on its creation in 1789.

He was elected a corresponding member of Swedens's Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm early in 1774. On 28 April 1780, he was also elected an academician of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Paris.

Around 1780, the chevalier de Keralio and the editor Panckoucke signed a contract to edit 4 volumes on "Art militaire" in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, published from 1784 to 1787, for which he wrote a preliminary discourse and several articles. From 1784 he wrote for the Journal des Savants.

Works

*« Règlement pour l'infanterie prussienne », translation, 1757.
*« Recherches sur les principes généraux de la tactique », 1767.
*« Collection de différents morceaux sur l’histoire naturelle et civile du Nord et sur l’histoire naturelle en général », translation, 1763.
*« Voyages en Sibérie, contenant la description des mœurs et des usages des peuples, les noms des rivières, la situation des montagnes » , translation 1767.
*« Les penchants de la nature », 1768, discourse qui obtient l'accessit à l'académie du prix de l'académie royale des belles-lettres de Prusse.
*« L’histoire naturelle des glacières de Suisse », translation, 1770.
*« Observations élémentaires pour la tactique moderne », 1771.
*« Recherches sur les premiers fondements généraux de la tactique », 1771.
*« Mémoires de l’académie des Sciences de Stockholm concernant l’histoire naturelle, la physique, la médecine, l’anatomie, la chimie, l’économie, les arts, … », translation, 1772.
*« Recueil de lettres de S.M le Roi de Prusse pour servir à l'histoire de la dernière guerre », 1772.
*« Relation de la bataille de Rosbach », 1772.
*« Histoire de la guerre entre la Russie et la Turquie, et particulièrement de la campagne de 1769 », translation, 1773.
*« Histoire de la guerre des russes et des impériaux contre les turcs de 1736 à 1739 », translation, 1777.
*« Mémoire sur l’origine du peuple suédois », discourse, 1782.
*« Mémoire sur les lois et usages militaires des Grecs et des Romains », discourse, 1784.
*« De la connaissance que les anciens ont eu des pays du Nord de l’Europe », 1793.
*« Discours sur l’amour de la patrie », translation, 1789.
*« De la constitution militaire », 1789.
*« De la liberté d’énoncer, d’écrire et d’imprimer la pensée », 1790.
*« De la liberté de la presse », 1790.
*« L'edda ou la mythologie septentrionale », translation.
*« Extrait de l'histoire naturelle du renne », translation.