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What Repatriation of French General Might Do for Franco-Russian Ties

Jamie Dettmer

   French President Emmanuel Macron hopes the repatriation of the body of
   General Charles-Etienne Gudin, who was killed in Russia more than two
   centuries ago, could play a symbolic role in his diplomatic courting of
   Russian President Vladimir Putin.

   Gudin, one of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's favorite generals,
   succumbed to gangrene three days after a cannonball destroyed his leg
   in an 1812 battle 20 kilometers east of the Russian city of Smolensk.
   Bonaparte reportedly sat at Gudin's side as he died.

   If all goes according to French officials' plan, Gudin's remains will
   be returned to Paris in 2020 and reburied with great fanfare in a
   ceremony Macron hopes Putin will attend.

   Gudin's heart is already in the French capital, having been transported
   there by his loyal troops. In July, a one-legged skeleton was
   discovered in a wooden coffin in a park in Smolensk. Subsequent DNA
   tests established it was Gudin's.

   If the Kremlin agrees to France's request, Gudin, who was 44 when he
   was killed, will be reburied in Les Invalides where the tombs of
   Napoleon and other military war heroes are located.

   Russian specialist Hélène Carrère d'Encausse told Le Figaro
   newspaper that Macron "has a sense of symbols" and sees a reburial
   ceremony as possibly helpful in his four-month diplomatic campaign to
   coax Russia into the Western fold.

   "President Macron is trying to put Franco-Russian relations back on
   track," she said.

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