THE WATCH OF NAPOLEON 1.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 943, 6 November 1879, Page 2

THE WATCH OF NAPOLEON 1.

Amongst the trinkets passing under the will of the Prince Imperial there will : , it seems, be missing that one article which was probably most valued by the chief of the family. This is the watch of Napoloen 1., of which the Berliner Tageblatt has just given the full history. It is said to have been bought by the great commander at Marseilles when he was only a lieutenant in the artillery, and to have been a very orainary watch. Nevertheless, its owner would never exchange it for one of more pretentious appearance ; and throughout the rest of his life, whether as First Consul or Emperor, whether at Elba, St. Helena, at Paris, or' in the field, he always carried it in his pocket. The Tageblatt recounts that on one occasion, when the Emperor was looking at his frvourite watch in the presence of Marshal Berthier, the latter observed that it had stopped some hours before, and made a remark thereupon to Napoleon. The answer was a smile, and the rather characteristic query. "What can you expect from a watch ? Why, we shall ourselves come to a stop one day !" The watch is not traced by the German paper through the intermediate steps by which it passed eventually into the hands of Napolen 111. ; but it affirms that he wore it in the expeditions of Boulogue and Strasburg, and that it was quite as inseparable a companion of the nephew as it had been of the uncle. An anecdote of a more sombre and mysterious kind is related 1 of the watch while it was in the hands of the former. According to his tale the watch stopped on the very day when the Emperor started to take command of the troops in 1870, and the incident cast a profound gloom over his mind for sometime afterwards. On the death at Chislehurst of Napoleon 111., who had constantly worn it till his death, it passed to the Prince, his son, who also is supposed to have carried it with him at the time of his death. The Zulu who has secured the trophy is, perhaps, not so ignorant of its value as the German paper supposes : and it is very possible that at no distant date the relic will find its way back to these shores.