Talk:Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau

Rochambeau's son
The "reference" section on Rochambeau's son needs to be split into a separate article. The younger Rochambeau was an ipmortant -- many would say, notorious - figure in his own right because of his actions in the Haitian Reovlution. But he is not well known in the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altaar (talk • contribs) 17:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Moved the info on the son to Vicomte de Rochambeau. Will add a link on this article. - Tallasse 04:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I removed the data (again) about Rochambeau's son. He has his own article at Vicomte de Rochambeau where info about his part in the Haitian Revolution is found. - Tallasse 01:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Number of troops
I changed the number of troops under Rochambeau's command back to 6,000. It was changed to 7,000 by 66.73.5.118 without reason or reference. University of Michigan says 6000, as well as PBS Not very authoritative, but it's what I found in a quick Google search. - Tallasse 15:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Requested move
Comte de Rochambeau → Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau : Specifies which Comte de Rochambeau is the subject of the article; follows pattern of other articles on French nobility. David Kernow 03:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Support as proposer. David Kernow 03:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 09:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Assessment
Overall, a very nice start, but I think the introductory sentence should be more explicit as to his significance. This might be my own ethnocentrism coming through, but I feel like it would represent him appropriately to write "... Rochambeau was a French aristocrat, soldier, and Marshal of France. He was one of the most famous French generals to fight in the American Revolution." or something to that effect. Otherwise, you wouldn't even know he was involved in the Revolution at all without looking down three or four paragraphs. LordAmeth 19:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

- I reworded it to the following : "... Rochambeau was a French aristocrat, soldier, and a Marshal of France who participated in the American revolution". Sounds enough for me to show he was an important part of the American Revolution. Feel free to revert it, as being a French can make my sentences NPOV :) CyberBoris 22:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

number of troops inconsistent
The number of troops in Rochambeau's army is said to be 6,000 in the french article and 5,000 in this article. if there is a source perhaps one should address this issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.209.97 (talk) 06:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Should "comte" have lower or upper-case "c"?
The article title, the bolded part of the first sentence, and other usages throughout the article are not consistent in whether "comte" should have an upper case or lower case "c". I suggest that they should all be consistent, but I don't know personally which is correct. Encyclopedia Britannica (1986 ed, volume 10, and current online edition) shows a lower case "c", ie "Rochambeau, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de" and/or "Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau". Shorter Oxford English Dictionary lists comte in lower case, ie it is not a proper noun. (Admittedly this is not as part of a specific person's title.) The wikipedia article Comte in the third sentence uses upper case C (when not at the beginning of a sentence); similarly for Marquis, Margrave Vicomte - although the same article uses lower case "e" for "earl". Is there some difference in the conventions of English vs French titles? Can someone shed so authoritative light on the matter? Mitch Ames (talk) 02:25, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * A brief survey of this and similar bios at the French WP shows that the normal French usage is to treat titles as common nouns, not as proper nouns, as they are in English. So I'm changing it accordingly. -- Zsero (talk) 02:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Modern French usage is indeed to leave noble titles uncapitalised. WP:FRMOS allows either capitalised or uncapitalised titles, asking only for consistency within an article.  (It's basically like the US/UK English rule: stick with whatever form the article is already using, as long as it uses that form consistently.)  My own preference is to keep them uncapitalised, which I think is more informative for the reader (letting them know that that's how French does it), whereas insisting on capitalising the titles feels Anglocentric to me, but here isn't the place for that discussion.  Anyway, since the article's title, text and picture captions all use the small C, I'm going to uncapitalise the C in the lede for consistency.  (The name of the statue in DC has to be left capitalised because that's actually the statue's formal name.)  Binabik80 (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The RoShamBo Game
I've found some internet references to the rock-scissors-paper game that reference this guy. I find it curious the talk sections of two wikipedia pages for Rochambeau and Rock-Scissors-Paper do not reference each other, let alone the Wiki contents themselves. Can we at least to acknowledge some association, if not deny/confirm it? Was the Rock-Scissors-Paper game renamed for Rochambeau?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=roshambo -- Credits Rochambeau

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1936/whats-the-origin-of-rock-paper-scissors --  Disputes source, but acknowledges Rochambeau

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/23932 -- PhD College Historian says maybe named for Rochambeau

66.193.199.65 (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Family motto
Question: I have a hard time believing that Count Rochambeau's family motto is French for "Rock, Paper and Scissors." Assuming that somebody who knows the actual motto would like to edit the page? Pretty amusing, I do have to say.

74.45.33.160 (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2015 (UTC) mountaingirl1961

"Private Shipping"?
In 1780, Rochambeau was appointed commander of land forces as part of the project code-named Expédition Particulière.

"Expédition Particulière" Google translates this to "Private Shipping", and so I wonder if this "code" isn't more contextually obvious than the Article implies. Either way, the english translation should be included as a courtesy to the reader.

2603:8081:3A00:30DF:ACA0:961:675C:DB08 (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Expédition and Particulière both have a range of meanings. The most obvious translation of Expédition in this context is "expedition", although it can mean "shipping" or "sending" in the sense of sending a parcel or a letter. Particulière is a bit more tricky, but its senses include "particular", "special", "individual" and "private". The article "Expédition Particulière" glosses the phrase as "special expedition", which seems reasonable to me.
 * I think you're right that the section would benefit from rephrasing and a translation. Perhaps someone more familiar with the topic could take care of it. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2024 (UTC)