Biographies

Paoli was born on 6 April, 1725, in Stretta in the parish of Rostino, a smaller part of Morosaglia in central-northern Corsica. He was the son of Giacinto Paoli, who in 1729 led Corsican rebels against the Genoese rulers of island. His early years were spent in rejection of foreign rule of Corsica. In 1739 […]

Viceroy of Egypt, son of Ibrahim Pasha, born in Cairo in 1830. Sent to France to complete his education, he followed a course of study at the École d’état-major, at the same time as his elder brother, Ahmet Rifaat, and returned to Egypt in 1849. Some years later, Ismail travelled to Constantinople, where he received […]

Viceroy of Egypt, born in Cairo in 1822 (by a woman from the Caucasus) the fourth son of Mohammed-Ali. He died, also in Cairo, in 1863. Mohammed-Ali devoted himself wholeheartedly to educating Saïd Pasha in the European style, by employing tutors, most of whom were French, and one of whom was Koenig-Bey, who later became […]

Etienne Pasquier was born into a noble family, one of whose illustrious ancestors (Estienne Pasquier) had written Recherches sur la France. His father was president of the Chambre des enquêtes at the Paris parlement, his mother a jansenist. He was sent to school at the austere Collège de Juilly. Brilliant, he was given a dispensation […]

Karl Ludwig August Pfühl was born in 1757 into Württemberg nobility and entered the Württemberg army in 1774 before subsequently joining the Prussian army in 1777. By 1781, he was a member of the general staff under Frederick the Great and in 1793, he participated in the Rhine campaign as part of the First Coalition […]

Generalmajor Georg Dubislav Ludwig von Pirch I (1763-1838)

‘Chez Fox le coeur échauffait le génie, au lieu que chez Pitt le génie desséchait le coeur', Napoleon to Gougaud, Saint Helena, 1817.

Born Strasbourg 1788, died Paris 1855.After studying the piano notably with his father and the composer Dussek, Camille began touring southern France (1811-1813) giving piano recitals and selling sheet music and pianos. Although he became officially his father's business partner in 1815, he nevertheless spent the whole of the Hundred Days in England, supposedly to […]

Joseph Ignaz Pleyel was born in Austria in 1757. That he was precociously successful is shown by the fact that he found patronage in Count Ladislaus Erdödy, a family related to the Esterhazys, who paid for lodgings and lessons with Josef Haydn in about 1772. Pleyel is thought to have had a close relationship with […]

Born in 1763 in Vienna, Józef Poniatowski was the son of a Polish nobleman who had served as an artillery officer in the Austrian army and had been made Austrian ambassador to Poland. After the death of his father, Józef followed in his father's footsteps by enrolling in the Austrian army in 1780 with the […]