Genealogy de Blier

After the French Revolution Remy-Joseph lost his position, and had to start his career over again from the bottom. We find him in the census of 1796 in Ekeren, near Antwerp, with his wife Marie Anne.

Meerlo was a border post between Prussia and the Austrian Netherlands. Customs administration was done exclusively in German, so we can assume that Remy-Joseph was quite fluent in this language and most likely also spoke some Flemish.

For five decades, it was assumed that Remy-Joseph died in Russia before 1814. Oral tradition told that he went there with the army of Napoleon, but inquiries with the French army (who are quite meticulous about keeping records) show that he wasn't registered there. Another, more likely possibility is the following: Napoleon's armies apparently took along customs officers, wherever they went. He, as an officer, might simply have been ordered to go there.

Evidence has recently surfaced that he did not actually die in Russia ["Russie"] but more likely in Prussia ["Prussie"], and that he definitely lived until the 10th of October 1813, when a child was born in Minden, 10 months after the end of Napoleon's disastrous campaign in Russia. It also looks like he had been demoted from "sous-lieutenant" back to "préposé".

More obscure oral tradition said that he may have married a woman in eastern Europe [false], and had a child there [there was indeed a son born in Prussia, but that's hardly eastern Europe].