Charles-André Merda
Charles André Merda, baron Meda was a French soldier. A National Guardsman in the Parisian National Guard from September 1789, then a gendarme from 1794, he participated in the arrest of Maximilien de Robespierre on the night of 9/10 thermidor Year II and claimed to have fired the pistol shot which broke Robespierre's jaw and hit Couthon's helper in his leg.
Under the First French Empire he was made a baron and changed his surname to Meda. Whilst fighting as colonel of the 1er régiment de chasseurs à cheval, he was mortally wounded by a musket ball at the battle of Borodino and was made a general on his deathbed. He was survived by his wife and two sons.
