Segur, Louis Philippe, Comte De
SEGUR, LOUIS PHILIPPE, COMTE DE (1753-1830), French diplomatist and historian, son of Philippe Henri, marquis de Segur, was born in Paris on the loth of December 1753. He entered the army in 1 769, served in the American War of Independence in 1781 as a colonel under Rochambeau. In 1784 he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to St Petersburg, where he was received into the intimacy of the empress Catherine II. and wrote some comedies for her theatre. At St Petersburg he concluded (n January 1787) a commercial treaty which was exceedingly advantageous to France, and returned to Paris in 1789. He took up a sympathetic attitude towards the Revolution at its outset and in 1791 was sent on a mission to Berlin, where he was badly received. After fighting a duel he was forced to leave Berlin, and went into retirement until 1801 when, at Bonaparte's instance, he was nominated by the senate to the Corps legislatij. Subsequently he became a member of the council of state, grand master of the ceremonies, and senator, 1813. In 1814 Segur voted for the deposition of Napoleon and entered Louis XVIII.'s Chamber of Peers. Deprived of his offices and functions in 1815 for joining Napoleon during the Hundred Days, he was reinstated in 1819, supported the revolution of 1830, but died shortly afterwards in Paris on the 27th August 1830. By his wife, Antoinette d'Aguesseau, he had two sons, of whom Count Philippe Paul is separately noticed. Among his writings may be mentioned Histoire des principaux evfnements du regne de Frederic-Guillaume II (1800); Penstes politiques (Paris, 1795); Histoire de France (n vols., 1824-1834); Histoire des juifs (1827); Mfmoires (3 vols., 1824); and Contes (1809). His (Euvres completes were published in 34 volumes in 1824 et seq.
See due de Broglie, " Deux Francais aux fitats-Unis " in Melanges publics par la Societe des Bibliophiles franc.ais (2nd part, 1903); A. Cornereau, " La Mission du comte de Segur dans la xviii" division militaire," in the Mtmoires de la Societe bourguignonne de geographic et d'histoire (vol. 17, 1901).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
