| Honorific Prefix: | Marquis |
| Édouard Marie René Bardon de Segonzac | |
| Birth Date: | 7 September 1867 |
| Birth Place: | Cuy, Oise, France |
| Death Place: | Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Belgium |
| Allegiance: | France |
| Branch: | French Army |
Marquis Édouard Marie René Bardon de Segonzac (7 September 1867 – 27 March 1962) was a French army officer and explorer. He studied at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr before being commissioned and serving in the Ivory Coast where he was accused and acquitted of the murder of a fellow officer in the notorious Quiquerez-Segonzac affair(fr). He became renowned as an explorer and adventurer in Morocco and was also posted to Tunisia. In the First World War, he became a pilot and received the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre.
Édouard Marie René Bardon de Segonzac was born in the Château des Essarts in Cuy, Oise on 7 September 1867.[1] [2] His parents were Édouard and Mathilde des Rioul de Segonzac.[2] He entered military service in 1886, studying at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr and being in the first class to graduate from the Châlons-en-Champagne campus in 1889.[2] Upon receiving his commission he joined the cavalry and served in the occupation of San Pédro on the Ivory Coast in 1892.[3] In October 1893, he was tried for the murder of Lieutenant Paul Quiquerez(fr) but was acquitted of all charges against him.[4] Sometime thereafter de Segonzac returned to France before leaving from Marseille in November 1904 to serve in the winter campaign in Morocco.[5]
During the First World War, de Segonzac served as a captain in the French military aviation corps.[2] During the war he listed his address as Rue Dumont D'urville in Paris and in 1915 was posted to Chartres for a while.[2] He was married and his wife, the Comtesse de Segonzac, resided in Compiegne.[2] He remained a member of the Vieilles Tiges pilots association after the war.[6] De Segonzac received the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre during his military career and held several foreign decorations.[2] He also held campaign medals for Tunisia and Morocco.[2]
De Segonzac became renowned as an explorer and adventurer and may have served as the inspiration for Lieutenant André de Saint-Avit in Pierre Benoit's Atlantida, in which one French officer murders another.[7] He was also a writer publishing several books such as Voyages au Maroc (1899-1901) (Voyages in Morocco) in 1903 and La Légende de Florinda la Byzantine (The legend of Florinda the Byzantine) in 1928, the latter illustrated by H. Zworykine and with a preface written by Marshal Hubert Lyautey.[8] [9]