Stanislaw Wołodkowicz played an important role in the defense of Vitebsk during the war between the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and Moscow. He was taken prisoner and sent into exile to Kazan in 1655. The founder of the French line of the Wołodkowicz family, Henry (1765-1825), took part in the 1794 uprising of Tadeusz Kościuszko and emigrated to France. He was aide-de-camp of Napoleon, served as a general in the French army and from 1806 he was appointed commander of the Polish Legion of the Grande Armée. During the Napoleonic war against Russia, he was exiled to Siberia and after having received amnesty, he moved to St. Petersburg where he died. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur and his name 'Henry' is immortalized in the Triumphal Arc in Paris. Alexander Wołodkowicz (1806-1861) headed the rebels in the Vileika district during the uprising against Russia of 1830–1831. After the defeat he emigrated to France. He was buried in Paris, but his heart was brought home and placed in the church of Radoszkowice, the ancestral tomb of the Wołodkowicz family.