Born in 1758, the son of a Welsh country gentleman, Picton started his career as an
ensign with the 12th foot at the age of thirteen. On reaching the rank of Captain seven
years later, he was placed on half pay for the next twelve years and spent his time in
Pembrokeshire studying his profession. In 1794, still without
employment, he sailed
to the West Indies where he was taken on to the staff of the General in command. He
stayed there until 1803, proving his ability as a soldier and reaching the rank of
Lieutenant-Colonel, but his robust and vigorous rule as Governor of Trinidad brought
him to trial on charges of cruelty in 1806. He was found guilty but later cleared at a
further trial (I wonder how much that cost him?).
In 1808 he was promoted Major-General and two years later was appointed to the 3rd division in Portugal. He commanded this division throughout the Peninsular War except for a short break when wounded.
His first major action was Busaco, 1810, closely followed by Fuentas d'Onoro in
1811. 
In January 1812 he led the 3rd Division to the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo and
two months later at the fierce and bloody siege of Badajoz. Picton personally led the
storming of the castle; though wounded and lying disabled in a ditch he continued to
urge his men forward with his well-known booming voice, which was described as
louder than a dozen trumpets.
After this wound he was invalided back home and created a Knight of the Bath in February 1813, but soon returned to Spain in time for the great victory at Vittoria. When the peerages were awarded after Toulouse, Picton, who was only a divisional commander, only got the previously awarded G.C.B. despite seven votes of thanks from Parliament.
Nevertheless Wellington summoned him for the Waterloo campaign; he reluctantly came, though he had a premonition of death. Before leaving for Belgium he was said to have lain down in a freshly dug grave at his home in Pembrokeshire, exclaiming that it was just his size, and he also made his will whilst in London. His Division lost heavily at Quatre-Bras and he himself had several ribs broken although he concealed the fact from everybody but his servant whom he had strap the ribs for the following day's battle.
On the 18th Picton was leading his men forward to repulse Donzelot's division at about 2.00 p.m. During this action Picton was shot dead through his top hat. He had the privilege of three burials - one at Waterloo, then at St. George's London and finally at St. Paul's Cathedral in 1859.
Wellington once called Picton "rough, foul-mouthed a devil as ever lived;" he was certainly strict with his men, but loved by his staff who became known as "the bare and ragged staff" due to their copying Picton's indifference for wearing uniform of any description!
A man of handsome physique, a martial air, and brave, not malicious, but whose manners when he let himself go a bit reminded one of his origins as a simple grenadier in the Royal Guard. He was a real master of manoeuvre. Otherwise "only intelligent on the field of battle", as his brother-in-law Davout agreed.
Dedem van der Gelder, on Friant
One of the true stalwarts of the Grande Armée, Friant made decisive contributions in many of the great battles of the era. He is represented, of course, in all the Battleground games as well as Campaign Eckmuhl, and was prominent in the campaigns of Egypt, Austerlitz, Jena-Auerstädt, Eylau, Wagram, Germany 1813, and France 1814.
Friant shares with Maréchal Louis-Nicolas Davout a family connection with Napoleon: Friant's wife Louise-Françoise-Charlotte and Davout's wife Louise-Aimée-Julie were sisters of Général Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, husband of Pauline Bonaparte.
Louis Friant was born 18 September 1758 in the village of Morlancourt, 8 km south of Albert near the river Somme. The village would later suffer the misfortune of lying along the Western Front trench-lines of World War I. The son of a wax-maker, Louis enlisted in the Gardes Françaises in February 1781, at age 22. He rose to the rank of Caporal before leaving the service in 1787.
With the outbreak of the Revolution, Louis volunteered for the Garde Nationale of Paris in September 1789. He was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the 9e Batallion de Paris in September 1792, leading that battalion on the German frontier under the Army of the Moselle until wounded in the left leg on 16 December 1793.
Returning to action as Colonel of the 181e Demi-Brigade in March 1794, Friant took part in the great victory of Fleurus (a stone's throw from the future battlefield of Ligny/St-Amand) on 26 June 1794. He was briefly acting-commander of a brigade (July 1794) and a division (August 1794). He served at the sieges of Maastricht (October 1794) and Luxemburg (April 1795). He was promoted to Général de Brigade on 13 June 1795.
After a period as Military Governor of Luxemburg, Friant served with the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse in 1796 along the Rhine. In January 1797 he joined Bernadotte's Division of the Army of Italy. He served at the Battle of the Tagliamento, 16 March 1797, and assumed command of the 5th Brigade, 3rd Division (30e and 55e Ligne) from June 1797.
Friant commanded the 2nd Brigade (61e and 88e Ligne) of Desaix's Division in Egypt, taking part in the Battle of the Pyramids 21 July 1798, and in Desaix's brilliant campaign in Upper Egypt. He was provisionally promoted to Général de Division on 4 Septemebr 1799, and succeeded Desaix as commander in Upper Egypt after Desaix departed to play his decisive but fatal part in the Marengo campaign. Friant took a lead rôle in the suppression of the great revolt in Cairo in March-April 1800. Confirmed in the rank of Général de Division and named Governor of Alexandria in September 1800, he fought the British at Aboukir, 8 March 1801, and defended Alexandria through August 1801.
Repatriated with the remnants of the Army of the Orient, Friant served as an Inspector-General of Infantry in 1801-03 before joining the Corps of his brother-in-law Davout at the Camp of Bruges. There, he molded the 2ème Division, III Corps into "what arguably became the finest line division on the face of the earth" (Bowden, Napoleon and Austerlitz).
In the Ulm-Austerlitz campaign of 1805, Friant's Division earned a reputation for rapid and effective marching. This quality was put to excellent use when the Division was summoned from Vienna to reinforce the Grande Armée at Austerlitz, marching 70 miles in 46 hours and arriving just in time to counterattack the Allies at Tellnitz and Sokolnitz on the morning of 2 December 1805. In the ferocious fighting along the Goldbach stream, Friant had three horses killed under him.
Friant was awarded the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor on 27 December, 1805. In the 1806 campaign, at the Battle of Auerstädt/Hassenhausen (14 October 1806) in which Davout's III Corps of 26,000 men faced and defeated the Prussian main body of 63,000, Friant's Division advanced on the right, turning the Prussian left flank. The infantry of Friant and Gudin, standing in square, withstood and shattered a massive cavalry attack led by Blücher himself.
In the Polish campaign, Friant's Division fought successfully at the forcing of the Ukra River on 24 December 1806. At the Battle of Eylau, Friant's Division arrived to reinforce the French right on the morning of 8 February 1807, helping to turn a near-defeat into a stalemate. Friant suffered a gunshot wound to his right side at Eylau.
Friant was named Comte de l'Empire on 5 October, 1808.
In the 1809 campaign, Friant's Division fought with distinction at Teugen-Hausen (19 April), Abensberg (21 April), Eckmühl (22 April), and Ratisbon (23 April). At the Battle of Wagram on 6 July 1809, Friant was wounded in the shoulder by a shell fragment during the successful storming of the Square Tower at Markgrafneusiedl.
In the Russian campaign, Friant commanded the 2e Division of Davout's I Corps. Nominated as commander of the Grenadiers à Pied de la Vieille Garde in August 1812, Friant remained at the head of his Division. He was wounded at the Battle of Smolensk, 17 August, and severely wounded during the capture of Semenovskaya village at the Battle of Borodino, 7 September 1812. Incapacitated and left behind at Ghjat, he was still there with his wounds unhealed when the retreating army returned to Ghjat at the end of October.
Friant returned to France to recover from his wounds in January 1813. He returned to the front in June 1813, commanding the Old Guard Division at the Battles of Dresden, 26 August, Leipzig, 16-19 October, and Hanau, 30 October 1813.
In the 1814 campaign in France, Friant and his 1st Division of the Old Guard fought a successful defensive action against Gyulai's Austrians at Bar-sur-Aube on 24 January. Friant took part in Napoleon's surprise counter-offensive against Blücher's Army of Silesia, gaining victories at Montmirail, 11 February, Château-Thierry, 12 February, and Vauchamps, 14 February 1814. Friant's Old Guard was the core and reserve of the Emperor's masse de manoeuvre. They were committed to battle in the bloody and indecisive clash at Craonne, 7 March 1814, the reverse at Laon, 9-10 March, the recapture of Reims, 13 March, and the defeat at Arcis-sur-Aube, 20 March.
During Napoleon's exile, Friant was retained as commander of the grenadiers à pied de France. In the campaign of the Hundred Days, he was Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadiers à Pied de la Vieille Garde. His men made the final assault on Ligny as darkness fell on 16 June, 1815. On 18 June, Friant led his Old Guard Grenadiers in the final, fateful attack on the Allied center, where he was wounded yet again.
Friant retired in September 1815. He died on 24 June 1829, aged 70.
Napoleon expressed his regard for Friant in August 1812, upon appointing him commander of the Old Guard Grenadiers, but advising him to remain in command of his Division:
You'll be more useful there than at the head of these veterans who march of their own accord. Besides, I'm always close to them, and you're one of those rare men I'd like to see everywhere I'm not.
Napoleon