Have They Found Charles-Étienne Gudin?

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49508521

Charles-Étienne Gudin died aged 44 after he was hit by a cannonball during the French invasion of Russia in 1812.

He had to have his leg amputated and died three days later from gangrene.

Archaeologists believe the remains found in the city of Smolensk, west of Moscow, are his. Samples have been sent to France for DNA testing.

A team of Russian and French archaeologists found the skeleton in a wooden coffin in a park beneath building foundations in July.

The remains, they said, displayed injuries consistent with those sustained by Gudin, a veteran of both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

At the time of his death, the French army removed Gudin's heart and buried it in Paris, but the whereabouts of his skeleton remained unknown.

"As soon as I saw the skeleton with just one leg, I knew that we had our man," the head of the archaeological team, Marina Nesterova, told AFP news agency.

A preliminary report concluded that the skeleton belonged to a man aged between 40 and 45 at the time of his death.

The latest search for Gudin's remains began in May and is being led by Pierre Malinowski, a historian with support from the Kremlin.

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