PERIGNON, DOMINIQUE-CATHERINE, MARQUIS DE

born May 31, 1754, Grenade, Fr. died Dec. 25, 1818, Paris general and marshal of France, active during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. A retired officer of the royal army, Prignon resumed active service in 1792. Operations against the Spaniards won him the rank of general and, in 1794, command of the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees. As ambassador to Madrid he negotiated the Spanish alliance (1796). While fighting in Italy (1799) he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians for 18 months, returning to France to become a senator (1801) and a marshal (1804). He was appointed governor general of Parma (1806) and commander in chief at Naples (1808) and became a count of the empire in 1811. After Napoleon's abdication he rallied to Louis XVIII, was made a peer and later a commanding officer at Toulouse (1815) and Paris (1816), and was created marquis in 1817.