Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon

Count of the Empire

Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon was born in Grenade, near Toulouse, on May 31, 1754.

Seeing his lack of connections and mediocre titles of nobility block his advancement, he abandoned the military career in the years preceding the French Revolution.

Elected Justice of the Peace in 1789, he became popular for the accuracy and conscientiousness with which he carried out his duties. In 1791, the voters of Haute-Garonne made him a member of the Legislative Assembly.

He resigned as soon as war was declared, and returned to service as a lieutenant-colonel in the Pyrenean army. Brigadier general in September 1793, division general two months later, he scored numerous successes against the Spanish: capture of the Boulou camp (March 1, 1794), victory at La Junquera (June 7) and replacement of Jacques Dugommier at the head of the army after the latter's death (November 18, 1794). Once again victorious at the Montagne Noire (November 17-20, 1794), he ended the war victoriously.

After the Peace of Basle, Pérignon was elected deputy to the Conseil des Cinq-Cents and appointed ambassador to Spain. He succeeded in signing the Treaty of Saint-Ildefonse with Spain (August 19, 1796), despite the presence in Madrid of an ambassador from the "King of France". Recalled in January 1798 due to embezzlement under his authority and an affair of the heart with a royalist spy, he was left without a posting until October, when he, a former general-in-chief, was sent to command two divisions in the Army of Italy.

He took up his post in May 1799, and a few months later, at Novi (August 15), was taken prisoner with all his generals.

Returning to France in September 1800, after more than a year in captivity, Pérignon was appointed senator by the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who refrained from giving him a command.

In 1804, he showed himself to be a fervent supporter of the advent of the Empire, and did not hesitate to proclaim it with greatiloquence, which earned him the "title" of Marshal - a subtle distinction that the Emperor drew in the decree of 29 Floréal Year XII between the fourteen generals appointed Marshals of the Empire and the four senators who had commanded in chief and to whom only the title was given, namely Pérignon himself, Kellermann, Lefebvre and Sérurier.

Governor of Parma and Piacenza in 1806, Governor of Naples and Count of the Empire in 1808, Pérignon returned to Paris in 1814 after Joachim Murat's alliance with Austria, which he bitterly reproached to the King of Naples and his wife Caroline Bonaparte. Left without a job, he withdrew to his native region and rallied to King Louis XVIII as soon as the latter arrived.

During the Hundred Days, the royalists tried to use him to win over the people of Toulouse to the Bourbon cause. But no one took this old man of declining intelligence seriously. Napoleon I simply struck him off the list of marshals and let him go home without a care in the world.

After the battle of Waterloo, Pérignon regained his marshal's baton by the grace of King Louis XVIII, who also made him Governor of Paris and Marquis.

A member of the Chamber of Peers called to judge Marshal Ney, he voted for his death.

Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon died in her Parisian hotel in Le Marais on Christmas Day 1818, and is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (24th division).

Pérignon's name is inscribed on the 33rd column (west pillar) of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile .