Philippe-Paul, comte de Ségur (4 November 1780, Paris - 25 February 1873), French general and historian, son of Louis Philippe, comte de Ségur, was born in Paris.
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He enlisted in the cavalry in 1800, and forthwith obtained a commission. He served with General Macdonald in the Grisons in 1800-1801, and published an account of the campaign in 1802. By the influence of Colonel Duroc (afterwards duc de Frioul) he was attached to the personal staff of Napoleon. He served through most of the important campaigns of the first empire, and was frequently employed on diplomatic missions. During the campaign in Poland in 1807 he was taken prisoner by the Russians, but was exchanged at the peace of Tilsit.
His brilliant conduct in the cavalry charge at Somosierra on 30 November 1808 won him the grade of colonel, but his wounds compelled him to return to France. As general of brigade he took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, and in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 he repeatedly distinguished himself, notably at Hanau (October 1813), and in a brilliant affair at Reims (March 1814). He remained in the army at the Restoration, but, having accepted a command from Napoleon during the Hundred Days, he was retired until 1818, and took no further active part in affairs until the July Revolution of 1830.
During his retirement he wrote his Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande armée pendant l'année 1812 (Paris, 2 vols., 1824), which ran through numerous editions, and was translated into several languages. The unfavourable portrait of Napoleon given in this book provoked representations from General Gourgaud, and eventually a duel, in which Ségur was wounded. On the establishment of the July monarchy he received, in 1831, the grade of lieutenant-general and a peerage. In 1830 he was admitted to the Académie française, and he became grand cross of the Legion of Honour in 1847. After the Revolution of 1848 he lived in retirement, dying in Paris.
His works include: Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand (1829); Histoire de Charles VIII. (2 vols., 1834?1842), in continuation of the history of France begun by his father; and the posthumous Histoire et mémoires (8 vols., 1873).
See Un Aide-de-camp de Napoléon (1800–1812), mémoires du général comte de Ségur, new edition by his grandson Louis de Ségur (3 vols., 1894–1895), of which an abridged English version was published in 1895.
He married firstly on 25 September 1806 Antoinette Charlotte le Gendre de Luçay (16 April 1787 - 25 January 1813), daughter of Jean Baptiste Charles le Gendre de Luçay and Jeanne Charlotte Félicité Papillon d' Auterroche, and had three children:
He married secondly in Paris in 1826 as her second husband Marie Françoise Louise Célestine de Vintimille de Luc (Paris, 26 June 1787 - Paris, 2 January 1862), married firstly in Paris on 23 April 1811 Jean, 1er comte Greffulhe (Amsterdam, 21 May 1774 - Paris, 23 February 1820), son of Louis Greffulhe (1 July 1741 - 7 April 1810) and first wife Judith Dumoulin (- 9 October 1782), by whom she had three children, a great-granddaughter of Louis XV, and had two daughters:
| Preceded by Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis |
Seat 6 Académie française 1830-1873 |
Succeeded by Charles de Viel-Castel |