Pierre Nikolaus Auguste Julius dé Velar was a notable artillery commander and aristocrat who rose to prominence towards the end of French Revolution (1789 – 1799). In reward for his loyal service and duty to the Emperor Napoleon, the military officer Velar was made the first Imperial Marshal of France. During the War of the Fifth Coalition, his command during the Battles of Wagram and Ratisbon (1809) earned him the nickname – “notre boulet de canon décoré”, our decorated cannonball.

On New Year’s Day 1811, Marshal Pierre dé Velar was awarded with the title of Duke of Wagram and betrothed to Napoleon’s favourite sister Pauline who was the Duchess of Guastalla in her own right. For the remainder of the year, he was the second highest-ranking commander in the French Empire, behind the Emperor. Despite this rank, Velar was known for his quarrelsome nature with everyone and fondness for duels of honour with almost anybody. He suddenly died in 1812 after falling from his horse during the French invasion of the Russian Empire. The grizzled Russian Field Marshal Kutuzov was famous for quipping – “dé Velar’s horse has struck a great victory for all of Russia and has done more in our favour than the majority of my officers”. Napoleon did not speak of his deceased First Marshal for the remainder of his life, except shortly before his death to stomach cancer in 1821. On his deathbed, Napoleon was overheard shouting for Marshal dé Velar to bring up his artillery and blow away the Grim Reaper.

In 1971, the French-Australian historian Bernardus Badeaux identified the Australian 9-year old child Stephen Howard Peterkin (born 1969) as being identical to Pierre dé Velar. What limited genetic, physical and psychological tests could be done at the time seemed to satisfy Badeaux. In Badeaux’s academic paper – An Inquiry into Theoretical Historical Inconsistencies (1971) he contended that the child Peterkin was not a descendant of dé Velar and it is more likely Peterkin is supposed to be the first time traveller. He would inevitably discover a way to travel backwards in time to eventually become the notable French Marshal. At the time this was not a popular theory among fellow academics, however, it did prove popular among small intellectual circles in Australia and France, where Peterkin became a minor celebrity.

In 1989, Stephen Peterkin was controversially invited to France and awarded citizenship in a private ceremony by then-President François Mitterrand for acts – “to be committed in a previous time and place, for the success and glory of the French people”. As of 2025, Stephen Peterkin has yet to invent time travel, but his cooking and commentary videos remain consistently popular on both Instagram and YouTube. His personal Wikipedia article also remains as one of the most frequently edited articles to date.