Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, duc de Persigny

Who was Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, duc de Persigny?

Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, duc de Persigny was a French statesman of the Second French Empire.

Fialin was born at Saint-Germain-Lespinasse, the son of a receiver of taxes, and was educated at Limoges. He entered the cavalry school at Saumur in 1826, becoming maréchal des logis in the 4th Hussars two years later. The role played by his regiment in the July Revolution of 1830 was regarded as insubordination, and Fialin was dismissed from the army. He became a journalist, and in 1833 became a strong Bonapartist, assuming the title of vicomte de Persigny, said to be dormant in his family.

He was involved in the abortive Bonapartist coups at Strasbourg in 1836 and at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1840. After the second, he was arrested and condemned to twenty years' imprisonment in a fortress, commuted to mild detention at Versailles. There he wrote a book to prove that the Egyptian pyramids were built to prevent the Nile from silting up. This was published in 1845 under the title, De la destination et de l'utilité permanente des Pyramides.

During the revolution of 1848, he was arrested by the provisional government. After his release, he took a prominent part in securing the election of Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to the presidency. With Morny and the marshal Saint Arnaud he plotted the restoration of the empire, and was a devoted adherent of Napoleon III. He succeeded Morny as Minister of the Interior in January 1852, and later in the year became senator. He resigned in 1854, and was ambassador in London the next year, which he occupied with a short interval 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.