Claude Victor - Perrin , Duc de Belluno Claude Victor - Perrin , First Duc de Belluno ( 7 December 1764 – 1 March 1841 ) was a French soldier and military commander during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars . He was made a Marshal of France in 1807 by Napoleon . Life . He was born at Lamarche 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 which was extinct in the male line by 1917 . Military career . The Revolutionary Wars . For his bravery at the siege of Toulon in 1793 he was raised to the rank of général de 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 Mondovì , Rovereto and Mantua that he was promoted to be general of the division . After commanding for some time the forces in the department of Vendée , he was again deployed to Italy , where he performed well in service against the papal troops , and took an important part in the battle of Marengo . In 1802 he was made 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 for a second time in June at ' s - Hertogenbosch to Julie Vosch van Avesaat ( 1781 – 1831 ) , by whom he had an only daughter who died unmarried and without issue . The Napoleonic Wars . 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 a Field Marshal of France . After the peace of Tilsit he became governor of Berlin , and in 1808 he was created duke of Belluno ( the title was extinguished in 1853 ) . 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 . The Bourbon Restoration . As the second restoration followed the Battle of Waterloo he was made a peer of France . He became 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 . He died in Paris on 1 March 1841 . His papers for the period 1793 – 1800 have been published ( Paris , 1846 ) . Personal life . He married firstly in May 1791 Jeanne - Josephine Muguet and had 4 children : He married secondly in June 1803 Julie Vosch van Avesaet ( 1781 – 1831 ) and had a daughter :