Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay permanently stationed in Paris except in time of war. In 1776 de Launay succeeded M. de Jumilhac as Governor of the Bastille. As was the custom with many senior positions under the Ancien Régime, the marquis purchased the office of governor from his predecessor as a form of investment. The thirteen years that he spent in this position were uneventful, though on 19 December 1778 he reportedly made the mistake of failing to fire the cannon of the Bastille as a salute on the birth of a daughter (Madame Royale) to King Louis XVI. In August 1785 he was given
Jean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan in Villereversure, Ain. For his duties, he received Croix de Saint-Louis in 1791, and for his services during the American Revolutionary War he became member of the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. He was the uncle of First French Empire General Aubry, killed at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, and cousin of the member of the revolutionary French National Convention Gauthier des Orcières, also called Gauthier de l'Ain. Jean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan Jean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan (1748 in Bourg-en-Bresse – 27 September 1796) was a French officer for the Continental Army and a French General during the French