Persigny,

Persigny, JEAN GILBERT VICTOR FIALIN, DUC DE, an adherent of Napoleon III., was born at Saint-Germain-l'Espinasse (dept. Loire), 11th January 1808, entered the cavalry school at Saumur in 1826, and the 4th Hussars in 1828; but he was expelled from the army for insubordination in 1831. Then, having been introduced to Louis Napoleon, he secured his favour, and commenced a career of Bonapartist propagandism throughout France and Germany. He had the chief hand in the affair of Strasburg (1836) and in the descent on Boulogne (1840), but was captured there, and condemned to twenty years' imprisonment. On the breaking out of the revolution in 1848 Persigny was one of the men who secured the election of Napoleon as President of the Republic; he also took a prominent part in the coup d'état of December 1851. In January 1852 he succeeded De Morny as minister of the Interior; from 1855 to 1860 (except for one year) he was ambassador at the English court; then he resumed the office of minister of the Interior until June 1863. In September of the same year he was created duke. Thereafter he sat in the senate until the fall of the empire, when he escaped to England. He died at Nice on 12th January 1872.