Victor Segalen

Victor Segalen (14 January 1878 – 21 May 1919) was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic.

He died by accident in a forest in Huelgoat, Northern Brittany, France ("under mysterious circumstances") and reputedly with an open copy of Hamlet by his side.

In 1934, the French state inscribed his name on the walls of the Panthéon because of his sacrifice for his country during World War I.

Some western scholars of Chinese art, starting with Victor Segalen, use the word "chimera" generically to refer to winged leonine or mixed species quadrupeds, such as bixie, tianlu, and even qilin.

Victor Segalen married on June 2, 1905 in Brest Yvonne Hébert (1884-1963), with whom he had three children: Yvon (1906), Annie (1912) and Ronan (1913).