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09-07-2024
FONTAINEBLEAU. FRANCE: Two pistols owned by the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, with which he once intended to kill himself, have been sold at auction for €1.69m (£1.4m).
The weapons, which were created by the Paris gunmaker Louis-Marin Gosset, had been expected to fetch between €1.2m and €1.5m.
They were sold at the Osenat auction house on Sunday – next to the Fontainebleau palace where Napoleon tried to take his own life following his abdication in 1814.
The pistols’ sale comes after France’s culture ministry recently classified them as national treasures and banned their export.
This means the French government now has 30 months to make a purchase offer to the new owner, who has not been named. It also means the pistols can only leave France temporarily.
The guns are inlaid with gold and silver, and feature an engraved image of Napoleon himself in profile.
He was said to have wanted to use them to kill himself on the night of 12 April, 1814 after the defeat of his army by foreign forces meant he had to give up power.
However, his grand squire Armand de Caulaincourt removed the powder from the guns and Napoleon instead took poison but survived.
He later gave the pistols to Caulaincourt, who in turn passed them to his descendants.
Also included in the sale were the pistols’ original box and various accessories including a powder horn and various powder tamping rods.
Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat said that the “image of Napoleon at his lowest point” was being sold alongside the objects.
Napoleon memorabilia is highly sought after. One of the tricorne hats that became a part of his brand sold for €1.9m in November.
The historic leader returned to power in 1815 following his exile to the Mediterranean island of Elba but went on to be defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.
He died in 1821 after his second banishment – this time to the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic.
In November last year, a hat belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte when he ruled France in the 19th Century has been sold for €1.9m ($2.1m; £1.7m) at auction in Paris.
The bicorne black beaver felt hat was valued between €600,000 and €800,000 (£525,850-£701,131).
The person who bought the hat has not made themselves known.
Historians say the hat was part of his brand. Wearing it sideways made him recognizable in battle. He owned about 120 bicorne hats over the years.
However only 20 are thought to remain many in private collections.
The hat is being sold along with other Napoleonic memorabilia assembled by an industrialist who died last year but the auctioneers said for specialists, the hat is the true Holy Grail.
The emperor wore his hat with the corns parallel to shoulders known as “en bataille” whereas most of his officers wore their hats perpendicular to the shoulders.
Auctioneer Jean Pierre Osenat said: “People recognised this hat everywhere. When they saw it on the battlefields, they knew Napoleon was there.
“And when in private, he always had it on his head or he had it in his hand, and sometimes he threw it on the ground. That was the image, the symbol of the emperor.” (Int’l News Desk)
