Napoleon’s sword sold at auction for €4.7 million

Agence France-Presse

A sword that belonged to Napoleon and was specially ordered for the personal use of the French emperor fetched almost 4.7 million euros at auction in Paris, many times the asking price and coming close to a new record price for a Napoleonic artifact, the auction house said.

The piece, which Napoleon ordered in 1802 and kept throughout his reign, was sold for 4.66 million euros ($5.27 million) late Thursday, said the Drouot auctioneers, on whose premises the auction organized by the Giquello auction firm took place.

The sword had been estimated to reach 700,000 to one million euros when it came under the hammer in Paris.

The final price nearly broke the auction record for a Napoleonic artifact, set in 2007 when a sword used by Napoleon at the 1800 Battle of Marengo sold for 4.8 million euros.

“It joins the very select group of the most valuable Napoleonic artifacts ever sold at auction,” the Drouot auction house said.

Napoleon passed the sabre on to his close ally Emmanuel de Grouchy, whom the French emperor named his last marshal of the empire.

The sword has been in Grouchy’s family since 1815, the year of Napoleon’s last defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

A second copy, identical to this one and also commissioned by Napoleon, is kept at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Napoleon memorabilia regularly comes up for sale at auction in France in a flourishing trade marked by intense interest from collectors.

Two pistols that he once intended to use to kill himself were sold in France last July for 1.7 million euros, while one of his trademark “bicorne” hats was acquired for 1.9 million euros in November 2023.

A handwritten letter from Napoleon denying his role in the kidnapping of Pope Pius VII in 1809 was sold in April for 26,360 euros.