Jan Henryk Wołodkowicz

Jan Chrzciciel Henryk Witold Wołodkowicz (, 17 September 1765 – 6 August 1825 ) was a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman from the Wołodkowicz family of the Radwan coat of arms. Initially, he served as cavalry captain in the Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army from 1789 to 1794. Joining the French Revolutionary Army in 1796, he rose to the rank of general, which he kept in the Grande Armée. He was also one of Napoleon's Aide-de-camp.

Early life Jan Wołodkowicz was born in in the Naugardukas Voivodeship. He was the son of Minsk's Stalininkas (born in 1730) and Regina née Broniec. He spent the years from 1812 to 1814 or 1815 in Russian captivity. He was the last Général of the Grande Armée to be released.

After 1815 After being released in 1815 he spent the rest of his life fighting legal battles in St. Petersburg, to regain his confiscated and usurped estates in Poland and Belarus.

Arc de Triomphe According to some, his name is carved on the west pillar of the Arc de Triomphe as "Henry", his surname given by Napoleon. The Wolodkowicz family tried three times to correct the name to Wolodkowicz, in 1840, in 1928 with the backing of the Polish embassy and 1980. The French government always replied that they can not alter a historic monument. Others argue it is the name of a French colonel Claude François Henry who died in 1812 in Spain during the siege of Valencia.

Private life He first married Anna Isabel Tepper de Ferguson, daughter of the banker Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson. They had one child Joseph (officer in the French army and knight of the Légion d'honneur) and divorced in 1804. In 1805 he married Marie Thérèse Lasserey, daughter of Jacques Ambroise Lasserey. They also had one child, Alexander Henryk, French Henri Alexandre (Knight of the Légion d'honneur).