Military merit he must surely have possessed, or his rise would not have been so rapid where so many brave men were contending for distinction. He obtained his first commission in 1793, and after two years more of active service became general of brigade. If among the bold he made himself remarkable for a courage as dauntless as it was often ferocious, among robbers he was no less distinguished. Unluckily for himself he had not, like some others, the talent of stealing without noise.

Having pillaged and destroyed a rich monastery on the frontiers of Luxembourg in open defiance of the existing prohibitions, he was arrested, and would have been condemned to death -- had not one of the deputies from the Convention screened him. He was, however, compelled to leave the army and return to Paris.

One of the most fortunate things that could have happened to this officer was the acquaintance which in 1795 he formed with Buonaparte. He assisted that general in defending the National Convention against the Sections, and at a later period the service was not forgotten. But such at that time was the bad odour of his name that he was compelled to remain inactive, until he was permitted to join Massena in the army of Switzerland. By that able commander, who knew his merit, he was made general of division, and he certainly justified the promotion by a series of most brilliant services.

On the formation of the imperial government General Laison received the cross of the Legion of Honour, and the post of governor of St. Cloud.* [* Another account says, that both these rewards were for his gallantry at Austerlitz.] He behaved so well in the next campaign, that in l806 he was placed in the government of two provinces, Munster and Osnabruck. In this dignity he continued two years, and enriched himself beyond example.

But his greatest infamy is associated with the invasion of Portugal under Junot in 1808. In the language of Mr. Southey:-- "Laison was one of those men after Buonaparte's own heart, who, being equally devoid of honour and humanity, carried on war in the worst spirit of the worst ages, plundering and massacring. without shame and without remorse." "He was notorious for rapacity in the most rapacious army. that ever disgraced its profession and its country." He spared not "age, infirmity, sex, or childhood." His march from Almeida to Abrantes was accompanied by pillage, flames, and death. At Evora, be surpassed himself: justly does the historian remark, that "the horrors which ensued will be remembered in Portugal while any record of past times shall be preserved there." While the infantry were carrying on the work of death within, horsemen were stationed without to cut down all who attempted to escape. "The convents and churches afforded no asylum: not those who had borne arms alone, but children and old men were massacred, and women were violated and slaughtered. The lowest computation makes the number of these victims amount to nine hundred. The clergy and religioners were especial objects of vengeance: they were literally hunted from their hiding places like wild beasts: eight-and-thirty were butchered; among them was the bishop of Moranham. The archbishop's intercession with Laison obtained only a promise that a stop should be put to these enormities: no attempt was made to restrain them that day nor during the whole night, nor till eleven o'clock on the following morning; and then, by an order of the general, what he called the lawful pillage was declared to be at an end: but he contented himself with issuing the order; no means for enforcing it were taken, and the soldiers continued their abominations till every place had been ransacked, and their worst passions had been glutted."

"Laison promised the archbishop that his property should not be touched. After this promise Laison himself, with some of his officers, entered the archbishop's library, which was one of the finest in Portugal: they took down all the books in the hope of discovering valuables behind them; they broke off the gold and silver clasps from the magnificent bindings of the rarest part of the collection, and in their disappointment at finding so little plunder, tore in pieces a whole pile of manuscripts. They took every gold and silver coin from his cabinet of medals, and every jewel and bit of the precious metals with which the relics were adorned, or which decorated any thing in his oratory. Laison was even seen at noon-day to take the archbishop's episcopal ring from the table, and pocket it."

We have no wish to follow Laison through his revolting career. As he had never a separate command, and was rarely employed on his own responsibility, his movements belonged rather to the superiors in command than to himself. By the Portuguese he will long be remembered by his name of Maneta (he had lost an arm). He presided at most of the military executions ordered by Junot. He was with Soult at the time of Napoleon's first abdication; and, like that general, he gave in his adhesion to Louis, who placed him over the Fifth Military Division.

Laison was deeply engaged in the plot for Buonaparte's resumption of the supreme power in 1815. During the hundred days he served his old master zealously, and after the battle of Waterloo he collected his property and fled to Liege, in the vicinity of which he had long before purchased a valuable estate. Here he ended is worthless life in 1816.