Pierre Cuillier-Perron

Pierre Cuillier-Perron sailed to India as a common seaman and commanded the largest European-trained army in the country before being dismissed by the prince who employed him. He was born at Luceau near Le Mans, the son of a cloth-dresser, deserted from a French naval vessel at Chandernagore in 1780, and worked his way through the service of a succession of Indian rulers - the Rana of Gohad, then the Jat state of Bharatpur - before joining the Savoyard Benoit de Boigne's brigades in the service of Mahadji Shinde. He rose by competence in a force where promotion was open to any European who could drill a battalion. When de Boigne retired in 1796, Perron succeeded to command of the whole establishment, some forty thousand infantry trained and officered on European lines, and to the revenue districts between the Ganges and the Jumna that paid for them; he governed Delhi and the person of the Mughal emperor on Daulatrao Shinde's behalf and made himself very rich. He was disliked by his own British and French officers, and Daulatrao came to suspect him of building an independent principality. He was dismissed in 1803 as the Second Anglo-Maratha War began, and his army was destroyed at Delhi and Aligarh by Gerard Lake within weeks of his going. He took a British passport, retired to France with a large fortune, bought an estate near Tours and lived there for thirty years. He was made a baron under the Restoration. His fortune was estimated at several million francs and was largely brought home in diamonds. He left memoirs and a body of correspondence that historians of the European mercenary brigades in India rely on, since almost nobody else at that level wrote anything down. The chateau he bought at Fresnes is still standing.

• Lived: 1753 CE – 1834 CE
• Nationality: French
• Roles: military