Jean Maximilien Lamarque

Jean Maximilien Lamarque was a French general and politician whose death in 1832 helped trigger the June Rebellion in Paris. A veteran of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, he became associated with liberal and republican opposition under the July Monarchy.

Lamarque served through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, including campaigns in Italy, Spain and the Kingdom of Naples, and returned to Napoleon’s service during the Hundred Days. Under the restored monarchy he entered parliamentary politics and became a prominent critic of conservative rule. His death during the Paris cholera epidemic in 1832 turned his funeral procession into the immediate setting for the June Rebellion.

Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables uses General Lamarque’s death as the immediate public event that allows republican students and workers to turn a funeral procession into the June Rebellion of 1832. Lamarque himself is therefore less a continuing character than the political symbol whose reputation as an opponent of the restored monarchy draws a crowd large enough for Enjolras and his allies to raise their barricade.