Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1895 — The End of Poniatowski. [ARTICLE]

The End of Poniatowski.

The Polish Bayard won his baton on the field of Leipsic, Oct. 16,1813. Three days later, while in command of the rear guard during the French retreat, he was, being already badly wounded, drowned, or drowned himself, in the Elster. His body was not recovered till the 24th. It was then embalmed and interred in the tomb of Kosciusko. All of which is matter of history. But what became of the marshal’s body during the five days preceding its recovery is another matter. A military police report, which has lain pigeon-holed all these years, it seems, in the French war office and which a Paris paper of May 23 prints for the first time, establishes the fact that the corpse was fished out of the river by a local fisherman, and that he, having a shrewd idea that by reason of the richness of the uniform it must be the corpse of a person of consequence, arranged it as an exhibition. The exhibition lasted for the best part of those five days and was so well attended that the exhibitor took a sum of 60 florins by it. On the fifth day, however, Potocki heard of this show, recognized the body, and ransomed it He had besides to pay 100 golden fredericks for the six rings the marshal had upon him, the fisherman retaining a gold snuff-box.—Notes and Queries. The biggest hero is the one who is scared tha most,and runs the least.