Charles Armand Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouërie, was born on April 13, 1751, in Fougères, Brittany, France, to Charles Tuffin, Seigneur de La Rouërie, and Marie Perrine Morel. Destined for a military career from an early age, he joined the French Army as an officer in the Gardes Françaises, where his bold temperament and involvement in several controversies led to his dismissal from service. In 1777, he sailed to North America to support the American colonies in their fight for independence. Serving under General George Washington, he became known as Colonel Armand and commanded Armand's Legion (First Partisan Corps), a volunteer cavalry and infantry unit that he largely financed himself. He fought in several major engagements, including the Battles of Brandywine, Monmouth, Short Hills, Whitemarsh, the Virginia Campaign, and the Siege of Yorktown, and was promoted to Brigadier General in the Continental Army in 1783 for his distinguished service.

After returning to France in 1784, La Rouërie married Louise-Caroline Guérin, Marquise de Saint-Brice, in 1785, but she died only a few months later following a period of mental illness. As the French Revolution unfolded, he initially welcomed reform but soon became a leading defender of Brittany's historic rights and privileges. He founded the Breton Association, an organization dedicated to resisting revolutionary policies and preserving Breton autonomy, laying the groundwork for what would later become the Chouannerie royalist uprising. Forced into hiding as revolutionary authorities pursued him, La Rouërie took refuge at La Guyomarais in Brittany. There, after contracting pneumonia and learning of the execution of King Louis XVI, his condition rapidly worsened. He died on January 30, 1793, at the age of 41. He was buried in secret in the Bois du Vieux-Semis (Vieux-Semis Wood) on the grounds of Château de La Guyomarais (also known as Guyomarais Castle) in Saint-Denoual, Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, France. His supporters secretly interred him there on the night of January 31, 1793, to prevent Revolutionary authorities from discovering his body. Shortly afterward, Revolutionary troops located the grave, exhumed his body, and decapitated it. His remains were then reburied in the same location, while his skull was hidden beneath a stone slab in the castle chapel by members of the La Guyomarais family. The skull was rediscovered in 1877 and returned to his family. Although often overshadowed by the Marquis de Lafayette, Charles Armand Tuffin remains remembered as both a hero of the American War of Independence and a prominent figure in the resistance to the French Revolution in Brittany.

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