Who is Cambronne?

I was interested by Hugo's reference to a clay pipe owned by Cambronne, so I looked him up. There's quite the controversy surrounding his words upon being defeated at Waterloo. The French hold that he said, "The guard dies; it does not surrender." Apparently other accounts hold that he uttered merely, "Merde!" (No, you look it up). There are other sides to the story, but all that is not quite as interesting as the gentleman who, in 1932, wrote to The Times (London, not New York). He informed the editor that he had, in his childhood, known an old German General who relayed to him that it was in fact he, the old General, who had captured Cambronne, long before the Old Guard was broken by the Prussians. It's fascinating. Read the letter here.