The parents of Lannes were poor, and intended him for some mechanical pursuit; but he listened only to his own martial temper, and at an early age enlisted into the army. For some time he was employed on the Pyrenean frontier, where he exhibited courage sufficient to procure him the rank of chief of Brigade. He was, however, considered as destitute of the qualities necessary in him who is to command others, and for this reason, in 1795, he was deposed by an agent of the Convention. His appellation of Ajax, indeed, seems to have been not unappropriate: if he had all the daring, he had also something of the stupidity, of that Homeric hero.

Mortifying as was this disgrace, it could not damp the ardour of Lannes. He assisted Buonaparte in the affair of the Sections, and accompanied him as a volunteer to Italy. At one of the first actions in which he was engaged, that of Millesimo, he distinguished himself so well that he was made colonel on the field. The bridge of Lodi exhibited a dazzling specimen of his intrepidity. He had taken one ensign, and was about to seize a second, from the Austrians, when his horse fell under him, and twelve cuirassiers raised their sabres to cut him down. Lannes instantly sprung on the horse of an Austrian officer, killed the rider, placed himself firmly in the saddle, and fought his way through the cuirassiers, killing two or three, and severely wounding more. Such a man could not but rise: he was made general of brigade, and soon afterwards of division.

In the Egyptian expedition -- at Acre -- and above all, at Aboukir -- General Lannes was foremost in danger, and in honour. He returned to France with the commander-in-chief, whom he assisted to overturn the directorial government. He accompanied the First Consul over St. Bernard, and added to his already numerous laurels at the battle of Montebello, which afterwards gave him his title, and at Marengo.

The next service which Lannes performed to his master was one, however, which ought to have been intrusted to any other hands. He was sent ambassador into Portugal, where his fierce demeanour and domineering conduct obtained the promise of every thing he asked from the childish government which the country had the misfortune to obey. On his return he became marshal of France, and ere long Duke of Montebello, and was present at every action of importance, from the combat of Wertingen to the peace of Tilsit. Such was his adventurous spirit, his indomitable fury, that the army, with one consent, bestowed on him the same distinction already awarded to Murat and Ney -- the brave among the brave. He was, indeed, the emperor's right hand, ready for any enterprise, and as careless of others' lives as his own. This marshal, notwithstanding his romantic bravery, was not very successful in the Spanish campaign. He took Saragoza, but not until after a long and murderous siege; and when the city at last fell, we are sorry to say, his valour was stained by perfidy as well as cruelty. He promised that the governor, Palafox, should retire unmolested, yet he made him a prisoner, and treated him shamefully. He promised that the garrison should march out with the honours of war, -- he made all prisoners. He promised that the inhabitants should be uninjured, -- he shot many, imprisoned more, levied the most oppressive contributions, and permitted his ruffian soldiers to plunder with impunity. Sometimes, indeed, Lannes could exhibit uncommon generosity; but he had no fixed principles, and being led by the impulses of a mind in which ferocity was strangely combined with grandeur, committed, or what is the same thing, allowed to be committed, many actions of a cruel, vindictive character.

After the fall of this place, the heroic defence of which will be immortal, he retired to an estate that he had purchased in the vicinity of Paris. But the war with Austria recalled him to the field. And now, for the first time, his parting with his family is said to have been mournful. His usual brilliant success attended him until the battle of Essling, when a cannon-ball carried away the whole of his right leg and the foot and ancle of the left: The emotion which the emperor testified on the occasion was honourable to both. He constantly attended his sick bed, consoling him, and bidding him hope. But hope was vain -- the surgeons declared that nothing could save him. He had always been stern; he was now furious: "Not save a marshal of France and a duke of Montebello!" he exclaimed to the terrified practitioners: "then the emperor shall hang you, -- and may you be d--d afterwards." On the 31st of March, the ninth day after his accident, he seized the hand of Napoleon, and said: "Another hour, and your majesty will have lost one of your most zealous and faithful friends!" And so it proved.

"I found Lannes a dwarf, but I made him a giant," said Buonaparte at St. Helena. It is true, that from a simple volunteer he was raised by his patron to the highest rank in the army, and in the peerage, but his elevation was the consequence of his own merit. Among all the soldiers of the Revolution there was not a more dauntless spirit. Like Ney, his rival in bravery, he was vulgar, and even coarse in his manners; but he was more fierce than he, and, unlike him, he was often merciless; and notwithstanding his lofty station, his moral energy, and his chivalric valour, posterity will assuredly rank Lannes among the ruffians of his age.