Question: Who was the French general that was born in 1856 and had a biography written about him by Guy Pedroncini?
Context: The following list of French general officers (Peninsular War) lists the "générals" ("général de brigade" and "général de division") and "maréchals d'Empire", that is, the French general officers who served in the First French Empire's "Grande Armée" in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War (1808–1814).  The rank given refers to the ones held until 1814.  The list includes foreign nationals who fought in French military units. Jean Baptiste Brunet (7 July 1763 – 21 September 1824) was a French general of division in the French Revolutionary Army.  He was responsible for the arrest of Toussaint Louverture.  He was promoted to command a light infantry demi-brigade at the Fleurus in 1794.  He led the unit in François Joseph Lefebvre's division in the 1795, 1796 and 1799 campaigns.  He was the son of French general Gaspard Jean-Baptiste Brunet who was guillotined in 1793. Elizabeth Josephine Brown (June 12, 1839 – January 16, 1874) was the daughter and biographer of escaped African-American slave William Wells Brown and his first wife Elizabeth Schooner.  Josephine's account, "Biography of an American Bondman, by His Daughter," was published in Boston by R. F. Wallcut in 1856.  It was long believed to be the first biography written by an African American woman, but is now known to have been predated by Susan Paul's "Memoir of James Jackson, the attentive and obedient scholar" (1835). Achille Pierre Deffontaines (16 February 1858 – 26 August 1914) was a French general.  He served in various metropolitan infantry regiments before becoming a staff officer in several divisions and army corps.  Deffontaines became the youngest general in France on his promotion to général de brigade in 1913.  He led the 24th Infantry Division into action in Belgium in one of the opening battles of the First World War.  Deffontaines was shot in the head while commanding his troops in the field on 22 August and died in hospital four days later.  He would become the youngest French general to die during the war. Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), generally known as Philippe Pétain (] ) or Marshal Pétain ("Maréchal Pétain"), was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and later served as the Chief of State of Vichy France also known as Nationalist France or the French State "(Chef de l'État Français)", from 1940 to 1944.  Pétain, who was 84 years old in 1940, ranks as France's oldest head of state.  Today, he is considered the French equivalent to his contemporary Quisling in Norway.  Because of his outstanding military leadership in World War I, particularly during the Battle of Verdun, Pétain was viewed as a national hero in France and was not executed.  He was sometimes nicknamed "The Lion of Verdun". Auguste-Charles-Joseph de Flahaut de La Billarderie, "comte de Flahaut" (21 April 1785 – 1 September 1870) was a French general and statesman.  was a French general during the Napoleonic Wars, a statesman, and late in life French ambassador to the Court of St. James. The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer is a 2006 historical biography written by Nigel Collett, a former Gurkha officer, which covers the life of Reginald Dyer.  The book's title refers to the 1919 massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in which 379 people were shot by troops under the command of Dyer.  It is the second biography written on Dyer, the first having been written in the 1930s with co-operation from Dyer's widow which was described by Saul David as an "unashamed hagiography". The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.  (1791) is a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell.  The work was a popular and critical success when first published.  It is regarded as an important stage in the development of the modern genre of biography; many have claimed it as the greatest biography written in English, but some modern critics object that the work cannot be considered a proper biography.  While Boswell's personal acquaintance with his subject only began in 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson's life by means of additional research.  The biography takes many critical liberties with Johnson's life, as Boswell makes various changes to Johnson's quotations and even censors many comments.  Nonetheless, modern biographers have found Boswell's biography an important source of information on Johnson and his times. Jean Colin (also Jean-Alphonse and Jean-Lambert-Alphonse), (December 27, 1864 - December 30, 1917) was a French general and military writer.  He has been judged "one of the brilliant members of the French General Staff before 1914." Guy Pedroncini was a French academic and military historian specialising in the First World War, and notable as the biographer of Philippe Pétain and for his work on the French army mutinies of 1917.  He was born in Paris on 17 May 1924 and died on 11 July 2006, at the age of 82.
Answer: Philippe Pétain