Edwards mausoleum in Lahore
When glancing at Lavallette’s monument*, the frieze panel looks a bit different than panels on other monuments. It is neither heroic, religious or particularly artistic. Instead, it tells a story, a story in stone.
Antoine Marie Chamans, comte de Lavalette, born Antoine Marie Chamans, opted for a military career and quickly rose through the ranks to become an aide-de-camp to General Louis Baraguey d’Hilliers. In 1796 he became part of Napoleon’s personal staff and in 1798 married Josephine’s niece, Emilie de Beauharnais. The comte de Lavalette held a number of posts during Napoleon’s reign but elected not to flee when a wave of repression swept through France after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo at the end of the Hundred-Days. Instead, he elected to remain with his pregnant wife and their 13-year-old daughter, Josephine. Lavalette was soon arrested, thrown into prison and sentenced to be executed on December 21, 1815.
The frieze panel on his tomb depicts what happened the night before his execution. That night his wife, Emilie, and daughter, Josephine, were allowed to visit him in his cell to say their goodbyes. During their visit and out of view of the guards, the couple traded clothing, Lavalette donning his wife’s dress. Somehow when he left, the guards did not notice (some suspect an over-indulgence in wine). It wasn’t until the next day that they discovered the ruse. His wife was held for a month but released on January 23, 1816. Despite her relatively brief stay, she fared poorly in prison and never fully recovered. The comte de Lavalette was able to escape to England but returned to France in May 1821 and devoted all his time to his ailing wife. The comte de Lavalette died in 1830, but Madame Lavalette lived on until 1850. Also sharing the plot is their daughter, Josephine, who died in 1866.
*Note: The family name on the tomb is Lavallette, but history books refer to the family as Lavalette.
Matthew Jennings See also: Iroquois Confederacy; Native Country-European Conflict; Native Country-European Relations; Native Countrys; Tuscarora War. Lahore Metro Map Bibliography Landy, David. “Tuscarora.” In Encyclopedia of North Country Indians, edited by Frederick E. Hoxie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. Rights, Douglas LeTell. The Country Indian in North Carolina. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1947. Tuscarora War The Tuscarora War of 1711 to 1715 pitted the Tuscarora of North Carolina against the newly created Swiss and German settlement at New Bern. The end result of the conflict was the demoralization and defeat of the Tuscarora, who emigrated to join the Five Nations Iroquois in 1722. The Tuscarora had been living in North Carolina and Virginia for many years when the colonies of Virginia (1607) and South Carolina (1670) were founded. The tribe’s population is estimated to have been over 5,000 in 1701. They lived in settled agricultural communities in the Tidewater region, though their hunting territory was farther inland.
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