After Jourdan and Jean Victor Marie Moreau's Rhine Campaign of 1796 ended in defeat, Marceau's men covered Jourdan's retreat over the Rhine.
Marceau fought in the desperate Battle of Limburg on the Lahn River (16–19 September 1796).
While conducting a successful rear guard action near Altenkirchen on 19 September, he received a mortal wound.
He died two days later in the early morning, aged only twenty-seven.

The Austrians competed with Marceau's own countrymen to honour the dead general.
His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber.
They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.

Marceau was immortalized in Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
LVI
By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid,
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound;
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's  –  but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau!
o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

LVII
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,  —
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes;
And fitly may the stranger lingering here
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;
For he was Freedom's champion, one of those,
The few in number, who had not o'erstept
The charter to chastise which she bestows
On such as wield her weapons; he had kept
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.
After Jourdan and Jean Victor Marie Moreau's Rhine Campaign of 1796 ended in defeat, Marceau's men covered Jourdan's retreat over the Rhine. Marceau fought in the desperate Battle of Limburg on the Lahn River (16–19 September 1796). While conducting a successful rear guard action near Altenkirchen on 19 September, he received a mortal wound. He died two days later in the early morning, aged only twenty-seven.
The Austrians competed with Marceau's own countrymen to honour the dead general. His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber. They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.
Marceau was immortalized in Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
LVI
By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid,
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound;
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's  –  but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.
LVII
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,  —
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes;
And fitly may the stranger lingering here
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;
For he was Freedom's champion, one of those,
The few in number, who had not o'erstept
The charter to chastise which she bestows
On such as wield her weapons; he had kept
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.
François Séverin Marceau