Larrey was born in 1766 ; became a pupil of his uncle, who practised surgery at Toulouse, and, after seven years’ professional education, was appointed surgeon in the navy. He returned to Paris at the outbreak of the Revolution, and, in 1793, was sent as regimental surgeon to the army of the Rhine. If we would have a specimen of the extraordinary energy and indignant resistance with which France then stayed the attack of the first coalition, we may look to Larrey, the most zealous individual of the important class to which he belonged. He in- vented the ambulances volantes, and was the first military surgeon who dressed the wounded under the very fire of the batteries. “ It is to Larrey,” says one of his panegyrists, “ that we owe our place of honour on the field of battle.’ Such zeal could not fail to win applause ; and. Larrey obtained special mention in. the report of General de Beauharnais after a battle fought before Mayence in July, 1793.
At the siege of Toulon, in 1794, he gained the friendship of that Lieutenant of Artillery who was destined to shake the world! He accompanied the French army to Egypt, and served in all the sub- sequent campaigns of Napoleon throughout Europe. It is needless to detail the honours successively conferred upon Larrey until his social position be- came equal to his merits; but | may mention that after the battle of Wagram, he was made Baron of the Empire, and that in 1812, he was made Chirurgien en Chef de la Grande Armée. He liked to be called by the title of nobility which he had
