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Claude Victor-Perrin, Marshal of France

Claude Victor-Perrin, 1st Duc de Belluno (7 December 1764 – 1 March 1841) was a Marshal of France during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

He was born at La Marche in the Vosges, son of Charles Perrin and wife Marie Anne Floriot, paternal grandson of Charles Perrin and wife Gabrielle Guerin, born in 1696, and great-grandson of Pierre Perrin and wife Anne Louvière. In 1781 he entered the army as a private soldier, and after ten years' service he received his discharge and settled at Valence. Soon afterwards he joined the local volunteers, and distinguishing himself in the war on the Alpine frontier, in less than a year he had risen to the command of a battalion. In Drôme, Valence, on 16 May 1791 he married Jeanne Josephine Muguet, by whom he had issue extinct in male line in 1917. For his bravery at the siege of Toulon in 1793 he was raised to the rank of general of brigade. He afterwards served for some time with the army of the Eastern Pyrenees, and in the Italian campaign of 1796–1799 he so acquitted himself at Mondovi, Rovereto and Mantua that he, was promoted to be general of division.

After commanding for some time the forces in the department of Vendée, he was again employed in Italy, where he did good service against the papal troops, and he took a very important part in the battle of Marengo. In 1802 he was governor of the colony of Louisiana for a short time, in 1803 he commanded the Batavian army, and afterwards he acted for eighteen months (1805–1806) as French plenipotentiary at Copenhagen. In that year he married secondly in June at Bois-le-Duc to Julie Vosch van Avesaat (1781 – 1831), by whom he had an only daughter who died unmarried and without issue.

On the outbreak of hostilities with Prussia (the War of the Fourth Coalition) he joined the V army corps under Marshal Jean Lannes) as chief of the general staff. He distinguished himself at the battles of Saalfeld and Jena, and at Friedland he commanded the I Corps in such a manner that Napoleon made him marshal.

After the peace of Tilsit he became governor of Berlin, and in 1808 he was created duke of Belluno. In the same year he was sent to Spain, where he took a prominent part in the Peninsular War (especially against Blake at Espinosa, and later at Talavera, Barrosa and Cádiz), until his appointment in 1812 to a corps command in the invasion of Russia. Here his most important service was in protecting the retreating army at the crossing of the Berezina River.

He took an active part in the wars of 1813–1814, until in February of the latter year he had the misfortune to arrive too late at Montereau-sur-Yonne. The result was a scene of violent recrimination and his supersession by the emperor, who transferred his command to Gérard. Thus wounded in his amour-propre, Victor now transferred his allegiance to the Bourbon dynasty, and in December 1814 received from Louis XVIII the command of the second military division. In 1815 on the return of Napoleon from exile in Elba Victor accompanied the king to Ghent, and on the second restoration following Waterloo he was made a peer of France. He was also president of a commission which inquired into the conduct of the officers during the Hundred Days, and dismissed Napoleon's sympathizers. In 1821 he was appointed war minister and held this office for two years. In 1830 he was major-general of the royal guard, and after the July Revolution of that year he retired altogether into private life. His death took place at Paris on 1 March 1841. His papers for the period 1793–1800 have been published (Paris, 1846).

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Marshals of France during the Napoleonic Wars

Augereau • Bernadotte • Berthier • Bessières • Brune • Davout • Grouchy • Jourdan • Kellermann • Lannes • Lefebvre • MacDonald • Marmont • Masséna • Moncey • Mortier • Murat • Ney • Oudinot • Pérignon • Poniatowski • Saint-Cyr • Sérurier • Soult • Suchet • Victor