JEAN

See also:

• GILBERT
• GILBERT (KINGSMILL) ISLANDS
• GILBERT (or GYLBERDE), WILLIAM (1544-1603)
• GILBERT, ALFRED (1854– )
• GILBERT, ANN (1821-1904)
• GILBERT, GROVE KARL (1843– )
• GILBERT, J
• GILBERT, JOHN (1810-1889)
• GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ELIZA ROSANNA [" LOLA MONTEZ "] (1818-1861)
• GILBERT, NICOLAS JOSEPH LAURENT (1751–1780)
• GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY (c. 1539-1583)
• GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY (1817-1901)
• GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM SCHWENK (1836– )

GILBERT

See also:

• VICTOR
• VICTOR, GAIUS JULIUS (4th cent. A.D.)
• VICTOR, SEXTUS AURELIUS

VICTOR FIALIN

See also:

• JEAN GILBERT VICTOR FIALIN PERSIGNY

PERSIGNY  , DucDE (1808-1872), French statesman, was born at Saint-German Lespinasse (Loire) on the 11th of January 1808, the son of a receiver of taxes . He was educated at Limoges, and entered the cavalryschool at Saumur in 1826, becoming marechal des logis in the 4th Hussars two years later . The share taken by his regiment in supporting the revolution of 183o was regarded as insubordination, and next year Fialin was dismissed from the army . He became a journalist, and in 1833 became a strong Bonapartist, assuming the title of comte de Persigny, said to be dormant in his family . He planned the attempt on Strassburg in 1836 and that on Boulogne in 1840 . At Boulogne he was arrested and condemned to twenty years' imprisonment in a fortress, shortly afterwards commuted into mild detention at Versailles, where he wrote a book to prove that the Pyramids were built to prevent the Nile from silting up . This was published in 1845 under the title, De la Destination et de l'utilite permanente des Pyramides . At the revolution of 1848 he was arrested by the provisional government, and on his release took a prominent part in securing the election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency . With Morny and the marshal Saint Arnaud he plotted the restoration of the empire, and was a devoted servant of Napoleon III . He succeeded Morny as minister of the interior in January 1852, and later in the year became senator . He resigned office in 1854, being appointed next year to the London embassy, which he occupied with a short interval (1858-1859) until 1860, when he resumed the portfolio of the interior . But the growing influence of his rival Rouher provoked his resignation in 1863, when he received the title of duke .

A more dangerous enemy than Rouher was the empress

Eugenie, whose marriage he had opposed and whose presence in the council chamber he deprecated in a memorandum which fell into the empress's hands . He sought in vain to see Napoleon before he started to take over the command in 1870, and the breach was further widened when master and servant were in exile . Persigny returned to France in 1871, and died at Nice on the 11th of January 1872 . See Memoires du duc de Persigny (2nd ed., 1896), edited by H. de Laire d'Espagny, his former secretary; an eulogistic life, Le Due de Persigny (1865), by Delaroa; and Emile 011ivier's Empire liberal (1895, &c.) .