Étienne-Charles de Damas-Crux

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Étienne-Charles de Damas-Crux (1754–1846) was a French nobleman, soldier and later politician from the ancient House of Damas. He was born at the Château de Crux in Nivernais, the youngest son of Louis Alexandre de Damas, Count of Crux, and Marie-Louise de Menou. He began a long military career, serving in the Limousin, Aquitaine and Vexin regiments, and fought in the East Indies during the American War of Independence, where he was captured but later released.

During the French Revolution he remained loyal to the crown and went into exile. In 1793 he raised the émigré Légion de Damas and fought in the Netherlands; after the failed Quiberon expedition the unit was largely destroyed. He formed a squadron of hussars from its remnants and served with the Army of Condé. He followed Condé to Poland and then Russia, acting as attaché to the Duke of Angoulême.

After returning to France in 1814 with the Coalition armies, he was made a Lieutenant General and received the Order of Saint Louis. He supported the royalist cause during the Hundred Days, was arrested while on royal commission in Toulouse, and later helped recruit Basque royalists for the cause. After Napoleon’s defeat he governed the 11th and 20th military divisions and commanded the Army of the Pyrenees. He was made a peer of France in 1815 and, in 1816, was created a duke. He also received the Order of the Holy Spirit in the 1820s. He held several military commands during the Restoration and retired from the army in 1832, and from politics after the July Revolution.

Étienne-Charles de Damas-Crux died in Paris in 1846, aged 92, without children. The senior branch of the Damas family ended with him, and an intended successor could not sit in the peerage because he would not take an oath to Louis-Philippe.