JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, COUNT (1762-1833), marshal of France, was born at Limoges on the 29th of April 1762, and in his boyhood was apprenticed to a silk merchant of Lyons. In 1776 he enlisted in a French regiment to serve in the American War of Independence, and after being invalided in 1784 he married and set up in business at Limoges. At the outbreak of the revolutionary wars he volunteered, and as a subaltern took part in the first campaigns in the north of France. His rise was even more rapid than that of Hoche and Marceau. By 1793 he had become a general of division, and was selected by Carnot to succeed Houchard as commander-in-chief of the Army of the North; and on the 15th-16th of October 1793 he won the brilliant and important victory of Wattignies (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS). Soon afterwards he became a "suspect," the moderation of his political opinions and his misgivings as to the future conduct of the war being equally distasteful to the truculent and enthusiastic Committee of Public Safety. Warned in time by his friend Carnot and by Barère, he avoided arrest and resumed his business as a silk-mercer in Limoges. He was soon reinstated, and early in 1794 was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. After repeated attempts to force the passage of the Sambre had failed and several severe general actions had been fought without result, Jourdan and his army were discouraged, but Carnot and the civil commissioners urged the general, even with threats, to a last effort, and this time he was successful not only in crossing the Sambre but in winning a brilliant victory at Fleurus (June 26, 1794), the consequence of which was the extension of the French sphere of influence to the Rhine, on which river he waged an indecisive campaign in 1795.