already died from the effects of his wound, he would have been killed as soon as the Black Flags discovered who he was. Although the Battle of Paper Bridge was a serious defeat for the French, it strengthened the resolve of Jules Ferry's administration to entrench the French protectorate in Tonkin. The news of Rivière's defeat and death reached Paris on 26 May, and the French navy minister Admiral Peyron declared 'France will avenge her glorious children!' The Chamber of Deputies immediately voted a credit of three and a half million francs to finance the despatch of a strong expeditionary corps to Tonkin. Rivière's adventure in Tonkin set in train a course of events that, within a few years, saw French rule extended beyond Cochinchina to the whole of Indochina. Posthumous honours The French had been forced to leave Rivière's body on the battlefield of Paper Bridge, and for several months were unsure of the precise circumstances of his death. After being shot in the shoulder Rivière had fallen, then risen to his feet, then collapsed again. His recumbent body had been last seen surrounded by a knot of Black Flag soldiers. Most of Rivière's fellow officers naturally assumed that he had been either shot or stabbed to death on the battlefield there and then, but many Vietnamese believed that he had been taken alive by the Black Flags. According to a Vietnamese soldier who claimed to have been present at the time, Rivière had been brought into Liu Yongfu's presence shortly after the battle ended and had been beheaded on the orders of the Black Flag leader, one of whose close friends had been killed by the French during the battle. Neither version of his death could be confirmed. Several weeks after the battle the French heard rumours that Rivière's body had been savagely mutilated and buried near the Black Flag stronghold of Phu Hoai. On 18 September 1883, acting on information received from Vietnamese informants, the French scouted the area with two battalions of marine infantry. Rivière's severed head and hands, buried in a lacquered box, were discovered in the village of Kien Mai, and three weeks later the mutilated body of a European, dressed in naval uniform, was found close to Paper Bridge, near the spot where Rivière had fallen on 19 May. The body had been gashed with sword slashes, the head and the hands were