He didn't die in vain, he died in Washington, D.C.
"In the crypt below the chapel of the Georgetown Visitation Monastery at 35th and P streets NW is a flat marble slab inscribed with the story of the priest who is buried beneath it. Well, part of the story. The epitaph does not mention the priest’s role in introducing to the world something that has become all too familiar: the improvised explosive device. Though the IED he helped create missed its intended target — Napoleon Bonaparte — it killed or wounded dozens of innocent bystanders...."