Armand Louis de Gontaut, and usually referred to by historians of the French Revolution simply as Biron, was a French soldier and politician, known for the part he played in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1773, he was Grand second warden of Grand Orient de France. Following his appointment to a command against the British in 1779, commanding the troops that captured Fort St Louis, in Senegal, from the British, Lauzun raised an army of volunteer hussars and infantry, subsequently known as Lauzun's Legion, for service in North America. In 1781, he took an important part in the American War of Independence by being the advance party of the main French army of Rochambeau sent to reinforce General George Washington at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. De Lauzun received the order to sail for France on 11 March 1783. On 24 October 1781, after the Siege of Yorktown, Surveillante, under Villeneuve Cillart, brought Lauzun to France to bring the news of the victory. He was accused by the notorious Jean-Baptiste Carrier of incivisme and undue leniency to the insurgents, deprived of his command . Imprisoned in the Abbaye, sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined.