missing, and the sleeves of the naval tunic had been cut away to remove the marks of rank. Several French naval officers who knew Rivière well were able to confirm that the body was indeed his. These circumstances strongly suggested that Rivière had been killed in the heat of battle, on the battlefield of Paper Bridge. Liu Yongfu had offered a substantial bounty for the heads of French officers, graded according to their rank, and it seems likely that a Black Flag soldier had killed the wounded French commander and then decapitated him in order to claim the bounty, cutting off his hands so that his rank could be verified by the number of bands (galons) on his tunic cuffs. Rivière's remains were brought back to Hanoi, where a funeral service was said over them by Paul-François Puginier, the French apostolic vicar of Western Tonkin. Ten years earlier Puginier had performed a similar office over the body of Francis Garnier, who had died in remarkably similar circumstances. The remains were subsequently returned to France at the request of Rivière's family. They were finally buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, in Paris. Notes References Bastard, G., Défense de Bazeilles, suivi de dix ans après au Tonkin (Paris, 1884) Duboc, E., Trente cinq mois de campagne en Chine, au Tonkin (Paris, 1899) Eastman, L., Throne and Mandarins: China's Search for a Policy during the Sino-French Controversy (Stanford, 1984) Lung Chang [龍章], Yueh-nan yu Chung-fa chan-cheng [越南與中法戰爭, Vietnam and the Sino-French War] (Taipei, 1993) Marolles, Vice-amiral de, La dernière campagne du Commandant Henri Rivière (Paris, 1932) Thomazi, Histoire militaire de l’Indochine française (Hanoi, 1931) Thomazi, A., La conquête de l'Indochine (Paris, 1934) External links Biography of Henri Rivière— French military leaders 1827 births 1883 deaths French military personnel of the Crimean War French military personnel killed in action People of the Tonkin campaign People of French Indochina Military personnel from Paris Burials at Montmartre Cemetery 1882 in Vietnam 1883 in Vietnam 1880s in French Indochina 19th-century French military personnel nl:Henri Rivière