A BRAVE FRENCHMAN

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 25 September 1914, Page 5

A BRAVE FRENCHMAN

There are few who nowadays remember the story of Oastagnette, a French army captain who earned a name fur himself in more ways than one during the Napoleonic wars. His case is brought to mind bjr an announcement in New York papers that Mr Jan van der Blassbalk, whose anatomy in* eludes a cork [eg, a cork arm, a rubber ear, a glass eye and a wig, contemplates matrimony very shortly, Captain Castagnette, who was a veteran at Waterloo, a}, peared in the lighting line with wooden arms and legs, a leather stomach, and a silver nose and cheek—eloquent tributes to his prowess on many battlefields. There he fought bravoly, with a specially-constructed spike in his helmet, until a shell lodged in his back, where the doctors decided to leave it. Years after, sleeping before a fire, his legs caught alight, but being of wood the captain felt nothing and slept on. The fire reached the leather atomach, and just as its owner began to feel some discomfit the forgotten shell exploded and ended the hero's career.