Nicolas Savin

Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Savin (17 April 1768? – 29 November 1894) was a French soldier of Russian descent and claimed supercentenarian though this cannot be verified. He claimed to be the last survivor of the French Revolutionary Wars of 1792-1802 and the last French officer of the Napoleonic Wars.

Military career
Savin enlisted in the 2nd Regiment of Hussars in 1788, claiming to have been born in 1768. His father, Alexandre Savin, was killed in battle defending the Tuileries Palace during the French Revolution. Savin had "been at Toulon in 1793," fought in Egypt in 1798, the Peninsular War, and in the 1812 invasion of Russia. Around this time he was promoted to sous-officier (lieutenant) and transferred to the 24th Chasseurs a Cheval. He was awarded many medals, including the Legion d'Honneur and St Helena Medal. In 1812 he was captured by the Cossacks and worked as a fencing teacher for the Tsarist army.

Later life
Following Napoleon's defeat Savin settled at Saratov Gubernia, Russia and changed his name to Nikolai Andreevich Savin. He married a Russian woman and had at least one daughter. From 1814-74 he worked as a tutor, teaching French to the children of nobility. In 1887, Czar Alexander III gave "the old soldier a present of a thousand rubles." By the 1890s, he lived in a small Russian cottage with a bronze statue of Napoleon in his study. Voyenski attributes Savin's long life to his tea-drinking and active lifestyle: the old man enjoyed painting and continued gardening until he fell sick in November 1894. After receiving sacraments, Savin died on 29 November 1894.

Age
If Savin was indeed 126 when he died, in Russia, where he resided of latter, that would make him the longest-lived human male on record, and the longest-lived human of either gender. However, as this age has not been verified, the record (oldest male) currently belongs to Japanese-born Jiroemon Kimura (1897-2013), who died at the verified age of 116. The record for longest verified lifespan for a human is currently 122 years, held by Jeanne Calment (1875-1997).

However, Russian historian V. Totfalushin has recently found a document in the Russian State Historical Archive that casts doubts about Savin’s claims and provides a few very interesting details about this man. The document is an excerpt from the official memo by the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs relative to the status of the surviving veterans of the Grand Armeé still residing in Russia. According to this document, in 1834, the French authorities contacted the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs with a note that Nicolas Savin had requested permission to leave Russia and return home. The memo specifies that, according to the French authorities, Savin was born in Rouen (western France ) and had served as a non-commissioned officer in the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval before being captured in 1812 and sent to Saratov, where he accepted Russian citizenship (poddanstvo) in 1813. The memo further notes that Savin married on the daughter of a local merchant in 1816 and had two sons (Pavel (born in 1821) and Alexander (born in 1828)) and two daughters (Avdotia (born in 1823) and Akulina (born in 1825)). Totfalushin’s research also questioned Savin’s age, noting that in another document, which Savin submitted to the local authorities in Khvalynsk in 1839, he indicated that he was 52 years old, which means he was born in 1787.