Napoleon letter denying he ordered pope kidnapping sold at auction

A hand-written letter from Napoleon denying his role in the kidnapping of Pope Pius VII in 1809 was sold at auction on Sunday outside Paris for €26,360 ($30,000), the auctioneer said.

The letter, signed “Napole”, went on sale the day after the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on Monday. The sale price exceeded the estimate of €12,000-€15,000, according to the Osenat auction house.

The auction’s location in Fontainebleau, south of Paris, was highly symbolic as the town was where the head of the Catholic Church was imprisoned after being initially held in Savona in Italy.

“This arrest is one of the events that will define Napoleon’s reign, at a political and religious level,” Jean-Christophe Chataignier, an expert in the Napoleonic era at Osenat, told AFP. “Napoleon knows this letter will be made public and that it’s intended for authorities everywhere,” he added.

French forces kidnapped Pope Pius VII in his private apartments in the Quirinal Palace in Rome. He remained a prisoner of Napoleon for five years.

The pontiff had sought to maintain the Vatican’s sway over the French Catholic Church and resisted Napoleon’s desire to exert control over the clergy.

‘Against my will’

In the letter addressed to French nobleman and ally Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres, Napoleon feigns ignorance of Pius VII’s detention.

“It was without my orders and against my will that the pope was taken out of Rome; it is again without my orders and against my will that he is being brought into France,” he wrote.

“But I was only informed of this 10 or 12 days after it had already been carried out. From the moment I learn that the pope is staying in a fixed location, and that my intentions can be made known in time and carried out, I will consider what measures I must take,” he added.

Napoleon memorabilia regularly comes up for sale at auction in a flourishing trade marked by intense interest from collectors.

Two pistols that he once intended to use to kill himself were sold in France last July for €1.7 million, while one of his trademark ‘bicorne’ hats set a record price for his possessions when it was acquired for €1.9 million in November 2023.

A sword that belonged to Napoleon and was specially ordered for the personal use of the French emperor is to be auctioned in Paris next month, with an estimated price of €700,000 to €1 million.