MOSCOW (Reuters) – More than 200 years after he died of his battlefield wounds in Russia, archaeologists believe they have found the remains of one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s favorite generals buried in a park beneath the foundations of a dance floor.
General Charles Etienne Gudin, whose name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, died aged 44 on August 22, 1812, after being hit by a cannon ball during Napoleon’s unsuccessful invasion of Russia.
Gudin was personally known to and respected by Napoleon, and after his death his heart was cut out and carried to Paris to be placed in a chapel in the French capital’s Pere Lachaise cemetery.
A bust of his likeness resides in the Palace of Versailles, and a Paris street bears his name.
A team of French and Russian archaeologists say they discovered what they believe to be Gudin’s missing remains on July 6 during a dig in the Russian city of Smolensk, 400 km (250 miles) west of Moscow.
Records from the period indicate that…
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