NAPOLEON’S LETTERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18546, 5 November 1934, Page 11

NAPOLEON’S LETTERS

REMARKABLE DOSSIER FOR SALE AT AUCTION DEVOUT LOVER REVEALED (Elec. Till. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received Nov. 5. 5 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 4. A remarkable dossier that is exciting the curiosity of historians, comprising 318 of Napoleon's letters to the. Empress Marie Louise, is being offered for sale at Sotheby’s in December. The letters include 122 written during tiie 191 terrible days of the Russian campaign. The ownership of the letters, which are believed never to have been published, is secret. A brief precis of the letters shows that Napoleon was nonchalant during the horrors of the retreat from Moscow, 'the letters devoting little attention to tlie loss of 90,000 men.

Apparently lie was worrying only because the Russians may have captured some of his wife's letters.

All show that Napoleon was a devoutlover, telling Marie to be gay and luippy, and never to doubt his constant worship.

The last letters of the series, written from Elba, express a longing to clasp his wife and son in his arms. The earliest- is a flattering courtship of Marie early in 1810 before he met her.