Besenval, Baron, a Swiss, commandant of Paris under Louis XVI.; a royalist stunned into a state of helpless dismay at the first outbreak of the Revolution in Paris; could do nothing in the face of it but run for his life (1722‒1791).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Besant, Sir Walter * Besika Bay