I think it got sold at a relatively cheap price…after all it was Napoleon’s will..not mine…
Napoleon’s Will Sells for $149K in Paris
December 7, 2004, 4:52 PM EST
PARIS – An early draft of Napoleon Bonaparte’s will – in which the French emperor writes of his English enemies “I forgive them,” but then apparently thinks better of it and scratches out the phrase – sold at a Paris auction Tuesday for $149,505.
Napoleon dictated the will in 1821 while exiled and bedridden on the British territory of St. Helena, and it had not been previously published, auction officials said. It was sold to an anonymous French collector.
Druout also sold an 84-page memoir recounting the day-to-day adventures of the emperor’s early military campaign to conquer Europe, partly written in Napoleon’s own handwriting and including many spelling mistakes. It sold to an unidentified Swiss buyer for $336,400, the auction house said.
The documents went under the hammer just days after many in France commemorated the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s coronation as emperor on Dec. 2, 1804.
The 12-page will was written 16 years later by Count Charles de Montholon, a friend of the deposed French leader. It was dated April 13, 1821, a month before Napoleon died. The draft is covered with repeated correction marks, demonstrating Napoleon’s indecision in drawing up his last wishes.
The draft version expressed his forgiveness for the English, but that was left out of the later and final versions, said Thierry Bodin, an art expert who worked on the show.
In the draft, Napoleon wrote “As a Christian, I forgive them.” But that part was scratched out.
In the final copy, he accused the English, who were holding Napoleon as a prisoner, of trying to kill him, Bodin said. It reads: “I die prematurely assassinated by the English oligarchy.”
A duel between two anonymous telephone bidders drove up the price of the will from an initial listing of $67,345.
The draft will was only recently discovered, and is believed to have never been published, auction officials said. The final version of the will, which Napoleon wrote, was handed over from Britain to France in the mid-19th century and is now located in the National Archives.