(CA. 1755-1854)
Soldier in the French army between 1806 and 1812. Virginie Ghesquiere served in the French army during the First French Empire (1804-1814) of Napoleon Bonaparte and is one of the first French women to become a member of the French Legion of Honor.
Ghesquiere had a brother who was a soldier in Napoleon’s army. When he fell in battle in 1806, Ghesquiere, disguised as a man, took his place as a soldier in his old regiment, the 27th Line regiment. She participated in various campaigns and fought in the Peninsular War under the command of General Jean-Andoche Junot, taking part in the invasion of Portugal in 1807.
Ghesquiere was distinguished many times for bravery and devotion in her military career. She was eventually promoted to the rank of sergeant. Six years after having joined the army, when she was wounded in battle in 1812, her gender was discovered. She was immediately dismissed. Nevertheless, for her contribution in the Napoleonic Wars, Ghesquiere was awarded upon dismissal what is now recognized as the French Legion of Honor—and by Napoleon himself. This highest French national order had been created by Bonaparte while he was First Consul of France (1799-1804) and was approved by the General Assembly on May 19, 1802. It is believed that Napoleon did not intend for women to receive the award. The exclusion of women was not addressed in the statutes of the order, however, and there is no officially recorded mention anywhere that women should have been excluded. In fact, Napoleon had already decorated women for heroic behavior in the Italian Campaign of 1796-1797. Later he continued to award women with Legion of Honor insignia but without any official written record. Only recently has there been public effort to acknowledge these women as legitimate chevaliers of the French Legion of Honor.
At the time of Ghesquiere’s dismissal from the army, an article about the discovery of her gender was published in the October 31, 1812, issue of Journal de I’Empire. This article is said to have led to the composition and subsequent dissemination of a popular song about her exploits. This song seems to be the source of her nickname, jolie sergent ("pretty sergeant"). Ghesquiere’s year of birth is unknown, but she is believed to have been almost 100 years old when she passed away in 1854.
