Andr%C3%A9 Joseph Boussart

Andr Joseph Boussart or Andr Joseph Boussard was a French soldier and general. He enlisted in the army of Habsburg Austria as a youth. A Belgian by birth, he joined the Brabant Revolution against Austria and fled to France when the rebellion collapsed. He soon found himself fighting for France during the French Revolutionary Wars. Promoted to general officer during the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, he returned to France where he held several noncombat posts.

A native of the Austrian Netherlands, Boussart was born onNovember 1758 in Binche in what is now Belgium. As a young man, he joined the Austrian army and by 1789 he was a junior leutnant in the cavalry. In that year, he quit the Austrian army and transferred his loyalty to the United States of Belgium at the time of the Brabant Revolution. He served in the insurgent army as a captain and later escaped to France when the Austrians put down the Belgian revolt. In his new country he enlisted in the Hainault Dragoon Regiment and was promoted to lieutenant onJuly 1792. He became captain onOctober. He was involved in an action against an Austrian column onMarch 1793.

Source: Wikipedia