Auguste-Marie-Philippe Nicolon (July 6, 1864 - January 10, 1896) was a French Foreign Legionnaire active for much of his career in French Indochina. He was born in Vaucluse, Avignon, France. He joined the French Foreign service on March 27, 1874, initially for a 5-year term. He studied at the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr through October 1, 1878. Graduating 10th in his class, he joined the 40th French Infantry. Nicolon is associated with the second 'Mission Pavie' (1888 - 1889) in Laos, of which he was third in command after Auguste Jean-Marie Pavie 1847 - 1925) himself and Pierre Paul Cupet (1859 - 1907). The exploratory mission left him in poor health, and he left Indochina for Paris in 1889, writing to Pavie: 'I must depart if I do not wish to leave here the little of me that remains - my bones and skin. Repeatedly troubled by fever, I am, as M. Massie says, at the end of my tether.' Immediately upon his return, on October 8, 1889, he was made a Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur. He spent 2 years recuperating in Paris, during which he married in 1891. Shortly thereafter he was sent to Senegal, Tunisia, and Algeria with the 2nd regiment of the French Foreign Legion. He witnessed and survived the 1894 massacre of Eugène Bonnier's (1856 - 1894) column by Tuareg warriors near Timbuktu. Afterwards he served briefly in Sudan before returning to France, where he died in January of 1896.



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