Benoit de Boigne

Benoit de Boigne built the only Indian army of the period that could beat European-trained troops in the field, made a fortune doing it, and went home to Savoy to spend it on public works. He was born Benoit Leborgne, the son of a Chambery furrier, served in the Irish Brigade of the French army and then the Russian, was captured by the Ottomans and enslaved for a period, and reached India in 1778 looking for work. After a spell in Company service he took employment with Mahadaji Shinde in 1784. What he built over the following decade was two, then three brigades of infantry drilled in European fashion with their own artillery and their own revenue assignments to pay them - about twenty-seven thousand men at their height, the largest such force in India outside the Company. They won Shinde the battles of Patan and Merta against the Rajputs in 1790 and made him master of northern India. De Boigne governed the assigned districts himself and grew very rich. He left in 1796 with health failing, settled eventually in Chambery, and spent the rest of his life endowing hospitals, schools, a theatre and poor relief there. He had married an Indian wife, Nur Begum; the marriage did not survive his return to Europe. Napoleon made him a count and he was later ennobled by the King of Sardinia as well. The brigades he raised were destroyed by Lake and Wellesley in 1803 under his successor Perron. Chambery still has the fountain and the avenue he paid for, and a street carries his name.

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