One of the bravest marshals of the Emperor Napoleon, Józef Poniatowski, who devoted his fate to the fight for the freedom of Poland and fought in the front line at the Battle of Leipzig to his last breath, has a surprising Prague footprint. His mother was Countess Theresa of the Kinsky family. Józef and his mother spent part of his childhood in Prague, where he acquired the familiar Czech nickname “Prince Pepi”. As the star of the Emperor Napoleon began to crumble after the disastrous campaign into Russia, there were few left who would remain loyal to him to the last moment. Among those who even gave their lives for their commander-in-chief, however, was Marshal Józef Poniatowski, a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman and nephew of the then King Stanislaus. An intrepid military hero, who devoted his life to the fight for the freedom of his nation, both in the ranks of the Polish army and as French commander, he even managed to save the lives of two marshals during his lifetime, on opposite sides of the barricade: first Schwarzenberg of Austria and later Murat of France. The end of his own life story came at the most symbolic moment: at the moment when the greatest conflict of the 19th century – the “Battle of Nations” at Leipzig – was irretrievably lost for Napoleon, Marshal Poniatowski covered the retreat of the French army until his last breath. However, few people know that the famous story of the Polish-French hero also has its distinctive Prague footprint. The future marshal may have been born into a Polish-Lithuanian royal family after his father, and his uncle was none other than the monarch himself, Stanisław August Poniatowski, but Jozef’s mother, Countess Tereza, came from the old Czech noble family of Kinsky of Vchynice and Tetovo. After the premature death of his father, who was an Austrian general, Jozef moved with his mother to Prague for a time, where he acquired his familiar Czech nickname “Prince Pepi” and certainly stayed at the Kinsky Palace on Old Town Square. Although the high status of the Poniatowski family predestined Jozef for a lightning military career, first in Austrian and then, at the request of Jozef’s uncle King Stanislaw, in Polish service, he never lost contact with the Czech lands: his mother settled on the Doksany estate, where her son visited her for a time in the difficult 1990s. Although Poniatowski’s efforts at the time to save the Polish-Lithuanian state as commander-in-chief were ultimately futile and Poland was wiped off the map in 1795, his heroic determination did not go unanswered: the Polish commander was among the first to receive the newly established highest decoration, the Virtuti Militari, and his soldiers even sent a thank-you note to Jozef’s mother in Prague for such a great son. Poniatowski’s most starry moment, however, came only when Napoleon arrived in Central Europe twelve years later and decided to partially restore Polish statehood in the form of the so-called Duchy of Warsaw. In the newly established local government Poniatowski became Minister of War, and the French Emperor himself presented him with a golden sabre and the title of Grand Officer of the Order of the Legion of Honour during the conflict with Austria, when Joseph did not hesitate to personally lead a bayonet charge in one of the bloodiest battles. Poniatowski subsequently accompanied Napoleon on the fateful Russian campaign, the chosen route of which he himself had warned the Emperor in advance. Poniatowski’s command of Bonaparte’s Polish troops commanded the respect of his opponents: the Russian Tsar himself offered him control of Poland if he betrayed Napoleon, and Bonaparte similarly counted on him as the future King of Poland. Although the Emperor’s Polish plans came to naught with the Russian campaign, Poniatowski continued to stand by him, earning him the French marshal’s cane. His appointment as marshal came the day before the Battle of Leipzig, where his main opponent was Joseph’s old friend Karl Philipp Schwarzenberg, whose life Poniatowski had once saved from the Ottomans. At Leipzig, however, Schwarzenberg could not repay him for this service, for when the battle was lost to the French, Poniatowski refused to board a lifeboat and, with the words “a man should die bravely”, covered the retreating army to his last breath. Soon after his heroic end, Poniatowski became a legend who was given the greatest honour of being able to rest alongside the Polish greats at the royal Wawel. His Czech footprint, however, is still commemorated today by the final resting place of his mother, Countess Teresa, at Olšany in Prague.