A handwritten letter from Napoleon denied his role in the 1809 kidnapping of Pope Pius VII, a hammer this weekend, which reminds people of the complex relationship between France and the Vatican in the past.
The letter, signed, “Napoleon,” will be sold at auction on Sunday, the second day of the funeral of Pope Francis, who died this week.
Pope Pius VIII was kidnapped by French troops in his private apartment at the Palace of Quinier, Roman and has been a prisoner to Napoleon for five years.
The head of the Catholic Church attempted to maintain the Vatican’s swing of the French church and resisted Napoleon’s desire to control the clergy.
Napoleon was ignorant of Pius VII’s detention in his letter to the French nobles and Ally Jean-Jacques-Regis.
He wrote: “Without my order, against my will, the Pope was taken away from Rome; without my order, against my will, he was taken to France.”
He added: “But I only know that these ten to twelve days have been done. From the moment I learned that the Pope was staying in a fixed place, my intentions could be known and implemented in time and I will consider the measures I have to take….”
The auction house for the will is estimated to be 12,000-15,000 euros ($14,000-17,000) and will be available on Fontainebleau south of Paris, originally held in Savona, Italy in Fontainebleau south of Paris.
“This arrest is one of the events that will define Napoleon’s rule on a political and religious level,” Jean-Christophe Chataignier, an expert in the Napoleon era in Osenate, told AFP.
He added: “Napoleon knew the letter would be made public and was intended to be made public to authorities everywhere.”
– “Error estimation” –
Historian Ambrogio Caiani, in his 2021 book Kidnapping of the Pope, called the arrest “one of the biggest miscalculations of (Napoleon’s) career”, brought him against his rule.
Pius VI’s predecessor, Pius VI, was worse than him.
After opposing the anti-wage government of France after the Revolution of 1789, Pius VI was seized by French troops in March 1799 after occupying Rome and died in captivity in August of the following year.
Napoleon souvenirs are often sold at auctions.
The two pistols he had intended to kill himself were sold in France for 1.7 million euros last July, while one of his trademark “Bicorne” hats received a record price for his property in November 2023 for 1.9 million euros.
LS-ADP/RMB
