SEGUR, PHILIPPE PAUL, COMTE DE French general and historian, son of Louis Philippe, comte de Segur, was born in Paris on Nov. 4, 1780. 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 (after wards 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. He remained in the army at the Restoration, but, hav ing accepted a command from Napoleon during the Hundred Days, he was retired until 1818, and took no further active part in affairs until the revolution of 1830.
During his retirement Segur wrote his Histoire de Napoleon et de la grande armee pendant l'annee 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 Segur was wounded. On the estab
lishment of the July monarchy he received, in 1831, the grade of lieutenant-general and a peerage. In 1830 he was admitted to the French Academy, receiving the grand cross of the Legion of Honour in 1847. After the revolution of 1848 he lived in retire ment. He died in Paris on Feb. 25, 1873. 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 memoires (8 vols., 1873).
See Un de Napoleon memoires du general comte de Segur, new edition by his grandson Louis de Segur (3 vols., of which an abridged English version was pub lished in 1895.