Tomb of the Gallant Poniatowski

January Suchodolski, Death of Josef Poniatowski

Monument to Poniatowski, 1834
(destroyed by the Germans, 1939)

After visiting all of any great interest to us who had already visited the galleries and curiosities of Italy, we took our seats in the Schnell Post for Leipzig on Monday evening at 8 o’clock and completed our journey to that city in some twenty hours, arriving as our fortune has now been for some time past, in very indifferent weather.  After dining, we took a valet du place, and walked out to visit the tomb, and scene of the death of the gallant Poniatowski.  The tomb stands in a private garden near to the spot where his bodoy was found.  There is a small (species of) temple in the Garden containing a small monument by Thorwaldsen, and several miniaturies of the noble nephew of Stanislaus of Poland.  The temple has the simple word “Laribus” over the portal.  In another part of the grounds stands a plain, stone sarcophagus, with the name of Poniatowski upon it, wih the Polish Eagles, at each corner, and his own [63] coat of arms.  At some short distance from the tomb we came to that spot where his body was found, the river (Elster) is scarcely broader than a canal, and without taking into consideration his wounded state, and the choked up condition of the river, one would think that a child could scarcely have met his death there.  A stone monument is placed at the outlet of a pathway going through a fine grave in the immediate vicinity, to mark the spot which he passed after having crossed the Pleisse, and left to take the leap which caused his death.  Tis said that the two men who found his body some days after the battle are still living in the city.  Several orders and rings were found upon him, which alone positively certified that the body was that of the gallant Pole.