NAPOLEON RELICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 20

NAPOLEON RELICS

LETTERS FROM EGYPT

FAMOUS COLLECTION

Letters written by Napoleon and his second wife, the Empress Marie Louise, were the feature of a public auction in London recently. These letterssold in 180 lots—brought a total of £1767 (says the "Christian Science! Monitor"). j The sale of the third part of the i famous Napoleonic collection of Emile ! Brouwet, which, was held at Sotheby's rooms, was an event of interest from several points of view. The first two parts of the collection were sold in i Paris in 1934 and 1935, and it is a curious commentary upon the present state of European opinion, a state largely due to the disturbed political conditions on the Continent, that this third portion should be sent to London. It may be added that this is not an isolated instance, for many foreign collections are being sold both at Sotheby's and Christie's, just now. But this is possibly the first occasion when the catalogue of a London sale has been printed entirely in French— which has been done, of course, to preserve uniformity with M. Brouwet'? previous catalogues. ' There was nothing in this sale to compare, in individual value, with the finest autograph letters in the late Lord Rosebery's Napoleonic collection, or with the superb series of letters from Napoleon to the Empress Marie Louise, sold at Sotheby's in 1934. But M. Brouwet's large and remarkable collection, which he has spent many years in forming, covers an extraordnarily wide field, nothing less than the whole of Napoleon's career and everything and everybody in any way connected with him. THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN. In the present section the chief interest lies in the letters and documents relating to the Egyptian campaign of 1798 to 1801, which account for 221 lots. Among them are more than fifty letters and papers signed by Napoleon himself. These are collectively of the greatest importance, both as regards the history of the campaign, and for the way they illustrate Napoleon's extraordinary versatility. In the first letter of the series we see him giving instructions that junior officers shall carry firearms like their men, and that bands must accompany the expedition to cheer the troops with music: In another document, dated October 7, 1798, he gives instructions for the establishment of a theatre in Cairo, and for public spectacles, such as fireworks displays, to be held there. Not long after, in January, 1799, a sterner side of his character appears in a letter ordering the strictest inquiry into the murder of an Egyptian woman by French soldiers. He gives the officers of the brigade concerned twentyfour hours to produce'the culprits, and orders the immediate imprisonment of a whole company of grenadiers—officers and non-commissioned officers and men. In this event two men were accused and duly shot. Unfortuately, as afterward appeared, they were not those who committed the crimer In yet another letter Napoleon gives General Desaix what is surely a very curious piece of medical advice. "Be sure," he writes, "to wear a flannel waistcoat. It is the only way to avoid diseases of the eyes." Other groups' of documents relate to the campaigns in Spain and Russia, to Waterloo and the Hundred.Days. There are many letters, too from Napoleon's marshals, among them Bertrand (who shared the exile in St. Helena). Marmont, Massena, Murat, and SoultThere are also many letters written by Napoleon's brothers and other members of his family, as well as a few from his son. the young King of Rome, whose letters, since he died.at twentyone, are naturally very rare. FROM HIS SECOND WIFE. As for Napoleon's two Empresses, the sale included three letters from Josephine, his first wife, and no less than 205 from his second, the Empress Marie Louise, These are addressed to her life-long-friend, Victorie dv Poutet, the daughter of the Baronne dv Poutet, who was governess to Marie Louise. The earliest letters in this correspondence are dated 1799 and the latest 1846, a year before the death of the Empress. They are full of personal details, and, during the last years of her son's life, contain constant references to his ailing health. He died in 1832. Nor are Napoleon's enemies absent from the collection. There is a fine letter from Nelson, referring to Kleber's victory over the Turks at Keliopolis in 1800. There are also others from Admiral Sir Sidney Smith (whom Napoleon, with unconscious irony, calls "an ambitious young man, who want? to make his fortune ,and constantly I seeks to make himself prominent"), and from Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador at Naples, and his wife, the notorious Lady Hamilton, whom Nelson loved and Romney painted. Finally, out of this huge mass of Napoleonic material, one may mention a few relics of a non-literary kind, notably four Sevres plates. They were among the sixty which Napoleon's I faithful valet, Marchant, took with him when he accompanied the Emperor in his flight after Waterloo. They were decorated with scenes from Napoleon's campaigns, and were in use. at Longwood during the last years of exile on St. Helena.