1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Feuquières, Isaac Manassès de Pas, Marquis de

FEUQUIÈRES, ISAAC MANASSÈS DE PAS, Marquis de (1590–1640), French soldier, came of a distinguished family of which many members held high command in the civil wars of the 16th century. He entered the Royal army at the age of thirty, and soon achieved distinction. In 1626 he served in the Valtelline, and in 1628–1629 at the celebrated siege of La Rochelle, where he was taken prisoner. In 1629 he was made Maréchal de Camp, and served in the fighting on the southern frontiers of France. After occupying various military positions in Lorraine, he was sent as an ambassador into Germany, where he rendered important services in negotiations with Wallenstein. In 1636 he commanded the French corps operating with the duke of Weimar’s forces (afterwards Turenne’s “Army of Weimar”). With these troops he served in the campaigns of 1637 (in which he became lieutenant-general), 1638 and 1639. At the siege of Thionville (Diedenhofen) he received a mortal wound. His lettres inédites appeared (ed. Gallois) in Paris in 1845.

His son Antoine Manassès de Pas, Marquis de Feuquières (1648–1711), was born at Paris in 1648, and entered the army at the age of eighteen. His conduct at the siege of Lille in 1667, where he was wounded, won him promotion to the rank of captain. In the campaigns of 1672 and 1673 he served on the staff of Marshal Luxemburg, and at the siege of Oudenarde in the following year the king gave him command of the Royal Marine regiment, which he held until he obtained a regiment of his own in 1676. In 1688 he served as a brigadier at the siege of Philipsburg, and afterwards led a ravaging expedition into south Germany, where he acquired much booty. Promoted Maréchal de Camp, he served under Catinat against the Waldenses, and in the course of the war won the nickname of the “Wizard.” In 1692 he made a brilliant defence of Speierbach against greatly superior forces, and was rewarded with the rank of lieutenant-general. He bore a distinguished part in Luxemburg’s great victory of Neerwinden or Landen in 1693. Marshal Villeroi impressed him less favourably than his old commander Luxemburg, and the resumption of war in 1701 found him in disfavour in consequence. The rest of his life, embittered by the refusal of the marshal’s baton, he spent in compiling his celebrated memoirs, which, coloured as they were by the personal animosities of the writer, were yet considered by Frederick the Great and the soldiers of the 18th century as the standard work on the art of war as a whole. He died in 1711. The Mémoires sur la guerre appeared in the same year and new editions were frequently published (Paris 1711, 1725, 1735, &c., London 1736, Amsterdam subsequently). An English version appeared in London 1737, under the title Memoirs of the Marquis de Feuquières, and a German translation (Feuquières geheime Nachrichten) at Leipzig 1732, 1738, and Berlin 1786. They deal in detail with every branch of the art of war and of military service.