Last Years
On the Bourbon Restoration he was created a Peer of France, and in July 1815 was appointed War Minister, but resigned his office in the following November. During this appointment he tried to assist long-time friend and fellow marshal Ney by providing him a jury of four other Napoleonic Marshals, but was disgraced when Marshal Moncey refused to even sit in it. In June 1817 he was appointed Marine Minister a pretext for him to resume the place of War Minister, which he did in September and continued to discharge till November 1819. During this time he initiated many reforms, particularly in respect of measures tending to make the army a national rather than a dynastic force. He made efforts to safeguard the rights of veteran soldiers of the Empire, organized the General Staff, and revised the code of military law and the pension regulations. He was made a marquess in 1817. Laurent de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr died on 17 March 1830 in Hyères, a town in the southeast of France. All in all, his blunt but correct suggestions, his dislike for grandeur, his incorruptibility, his uprighteousness attracted the dislike of many of his less scrupulous contemporaries, and was wronged.
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