Napoleon's will and memoirs sold

Napoleon wrote his memoirs shortly before his death in 1821

The memoirs of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and a draft copy of his unpublished will have been sold in Paris for more than 300,000 euros.

The 84-page memoir recounts his early military campaigns that brought much of Europe under French rule.

The documents were written while he was in exile on the South Atlantic island of St Helena, where he died in 1821.

They went under the hammer on Tuesday, days after the 200th anniversary of his coronation as emperor.

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The memoirs were sold to an unidentified Swiss buyer for 250,000 euros (￡170,000, $340,000), Drouot auction house said.

The will was sold for 110,000 euros (￡75,000, $149,500) to a French collector, the auction house said, without naming the buyer.

In it, Napoleon writes: "I am dying before my time, murdered by the English oligarchy and their hired assassin. The English people will not delay in avenging me."

The numerous corrections in the draft are said to show Napoleon's indecision in drawing up his last wishes.

The will was only recently discovered, and is believed to have never been published, an auctioneer told reporters.

The memoirs are said to contain remarkable day-to-day detail written in a vivacious style as well as numerous corrections and spelling mistakes.

"The [memoirs] are extraordinary. He manages to remember what the battle sites looked like, 20 years after the event," auctioneer Eric Buffetaud said.

The memoirs were written in exile between 1817 and 1820 on St Helena, where Napoleon was sent after his defeat by allied forces at the battle of Waterloo in June 1815.

They were later published in 1823, two years after his death.

法兰西第一帝国皇帝拿破仑·波拿巴的回忆录和一份从未公开发表过的遗嘱草稿的副本在巴黎公开出售，最终以30多万欧元的价格成交。

这叠84页的回忆录手稿记载了拿破仑早期的军事活动，他成功地把欧洲许多地区都纳入法国的统治之下。

这些手稿是拿破仑被流放到大西洋南部的圣赫勒那岛时留下的，1821年，拿破仑死于岛上。

星期二（12月7日），即拿破仑登基200周年纪念日几天之后，这些手稿被公开拍卖。

据巴黎德鲁奥拍卖行说，回忆录被一位身份不详的瑞士买主以25万欧元（约合17万英镑/34万美元）的价格买走。

拍卖行还说，拿破仑的遗嘱以11万欧元（约合7.5万英镑/14.95万美元）的价格卖给了一位法国收藏家，但并未提到买主的名字。

拿破仑在遗嘱里写道：“我要在大限来临之前提前离开人世了。我是被英国寡头政治集团和他们雇佣的刺客谋杀的。英国人是不会推迟对我的复仇的。”

据说，草稿上有多处涂改，体现了拿破仑在草拟遗愿时有些举棋不定。

一位拍卖商对记者说，这份遗嘱是最近才发现的，肯定从未公开发表过。 liuxuepaper.com