In 1809 Napoleon locked up the Pope, who was not behaving as the Emperor would like. In a letter sold this week, the French ruler shamelessly denies his involvement.
Napoleon still stirs strong emotions and major controversy today.
Like a one-man challenge to the end of the Great Man Theory of History, his every action had ramifications, sometimes across the continent he conquered.
Pope Pius VII painted by Jacques-Louis David, who also painted the scene from Napoleon's coronation at the head of this article.
One such episode is his falling out with Pope Pius VII.
The French Revolution had been strongly anti-clerical and anti-Catholic Church. In 1801, Napoleon and Pope Pius VII came to a compromise over how the Church should operate in France. By 1804, they - and the two powers they represented - were getting on well enough that the Pope was at the coronation of France’s new Emperor.
But, the Pope was also a head of state in the Papal States, a much more substantial territory in pre-unification Italy than the tiny current Vatican City.
And Pius wouldn’t bend to Napoleon’s foreign policy demands.
So in 1809, French troops picked him up and swept him away from Rome, first to a small Italian town, then on to Fontainebleau, where he remained, in exile and Napoleon’s prisoner, until 1812.
But, this was all a complete mystery to Mr Bonaparte according to a letter that has just been sold in Fontainebleau.
Napoleon signing as "Napole" knew this letter would be published so he made sure he denied locking up the Pope. Image courtesy of Osenat.
Written in the Emperor’s hand, and signed “Napole”, the letter achieved $30,000 as one of the star lots of a two-day sale devoted entirely to Napoleon’s time at the French royal chateau.
Napoleon wrote: “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.”
“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.,”
Osenat, the sellers, make it clear what is to be made of this claim, describing the letter as a “stain” in their catalogue that says: “WHEN THE EMPEROR PRETENDED TO DISAPPROVE OF THE POPE’S ARREST, WHICH HE HIMSELF HAD ORDERED.”
“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.”
Napoleon may still be history’s most famous French person. In his home country he’s still the subject of fierce debate. Laws he introduced are still followed.
And he is highly collectible.
This letter went into sale with a €12,000 to €15,000 estimate but sold for €26,360 or $30,000. Undoubtedly, the coincidental timing of the sale alongside the death and funeral of Pope Francis will have sent some extra publicity the way of this lot, but its high price is also reflective of an eternal interest in the Little Corporal.
Next month a sword ordered and made for Napoleon - who rose to power as a successful military officer - is expected to make as much as $1.3 million at auction.
Perhaps most valuable are Napoleon’s trademark hats, two-pointed bicorns that he, with typical cussedness, wore “sideways”. A Napoleon bicorn realised £1.6 million in 2023 to set a record for his headgear.
The Emperor’s personal copy of the Napoleonic Code – the set of laws that he considered his greatest achievement – made £336,000 at auction in March.
