I have recently been contacted by Wade Krawczyk from Australia who has in his possession a pair of silk stockings which were evidently sold by Napoleon Archambault who attested that they once belonged to the Emperor Napoleon and were brought from St Helena by Joseph Archambault when he left in 1816.
The stockings have a crown woven into them
and were accompanied by a descriptive card, presumably printed for an auction or an exhibition.
The accompanying letter, written in Philadelphia in February 1894, signed by Napoleon and Achille Archambault and countersigned by a lawyer, also claims that the stockings had at some point been shown to distinguished personages including Joseph Bonaparte and General Bertrand.
The letter is legible if you click on it, but here is a trancription of the body of it:
Napoleon B. and Achille Lucian Archambault swore out an affidavit on Feb. 3, 1894 before Notary Public Harry J. Franz in which they attested: This is to certify that our father Joseph Archambault accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena, and was subsequently sent away with three others to the Cape of Good Hope. When he left he was presented by the Emperor with several souvenirs, among then a pair of fine, long white silk stockings with a crown wrought in the side. They are in a state of excellent preservation. The stockings have never been out of our possession, since they were given to our father in the year 1815, and have consequently been in our family nearly eighty years. They have been frequently shown to distinguished persons, among them Joseph Bonaparte and General Bertrand. We consider these stockings a valuable addition to any collection of Napoleon relics. Napoleon B. Archambault 3032 Girard Avenue Achille Lucian Archambault 426 So. 40th St."
My thanks to Wade for sharing these.
The auction of the Ibbetson collection in New Zealand has now taken place, with interest from all around the world.
The lock of hair sold for £8600, to an anonymous collector in London. The diary went for £4400.
The item which raised the most was this lithograph of Napoleon on his death bed, which sold for over £9000.
The best news though is that the sketch of Longwood House has been bought by someone from Paris, who is returning it to St Helena, presumably to Longwood House.
I have seen no reports as to what happened to the St Helena theatre play bills - they have no Napoleonic connections and are therefore not very newsworthy. I would be interested to hear what they made and where they have gone.
The Deluded Emperor: The Making of a Myth
Probably the most important result of this auction has been the creation of a new major myth about Napoleon. It is no longer possible to blame this simply on chauvinism in British tabloids, as I did in my earlier post on the subject.
The BBC in its report said that Napoleon still spoke of invading Britain despite his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo .
ABC News, Australia reported that Ibbetson's diary, which sold for $7,800, described conversations with Napoleon, who still harboured ambitions of invading Britain despite his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
CBS has ventured even further into the absurd: Ibbetson's diary, which detailed conversations with Napoleon, who, after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, still planned to take over the world from his little island domain .
Seriously. Anybody who has read any of the millions of words of evidence about Napoleon on St Helena would not entertain this idea for a nanosecond.
This myth will probably endure for many many years - and there appears to be nothing which distinguished scholars, admirers of Napoleon, or those who simply seek the truth can do about it.
I find it very depressing. How long before it appears on Wikipedia as a fact?
The Daily Mirror has latched on to the collection of Napoleonic Memorabilia soon to be auctioned in New Zealand, and has put its own unique interpretation on a passage in Denzil Ibbetson's diary. The short article is most inappropriately labelled "History".
As he whiled away the time on the Northumberland headed for exile on St Helena, the "deluded" Emperor was apparently planning invasion of Britain - and was even stupid enough to discuss his plans with his captors. Typical of the French the Mirror might have said. Quite where he was going to get the ships, infantry and cavalry is not clear, but that just proves how deluded Napoleon was!
Anyway if one ever had any doubts that the Daily Mirror is not fit to be called a newspaper this now removes them.
As for the passage in the diary itself - obviously Napoleon was discussing the past. It is not clear whether Denzil Ibbetson heard this statement first hand, or whether it was reported to him. Napoleon had given up the idea of invading Britain long before Waterloo. It is not clear how serious he had ever been - but it had suited him to make the British think that that was his intention.
Regarding the question of what support he would have got - every patriotic John Bull would tell you that Britain would have risen against him to a man. Tom Paine, the author of Rights of Man did not share that view. He encouraged an invasion to set Britain free from the oligarchy that ruled it, but had advised Napoleon that it was important that he went as a liberator rather than a conqueror.
No doubt though that the reception he received at Plymouth convinced Napoleon that the British people would in his downfall have treated him far more kindly than their rulers. This was of course a view shared by the rulers themselves - which is one of the reasons that they would not entertain the idea that he be allowed to stay in England.
The catalogue for the Ibbetson collection has now been published, and may be downloaded from Art + Object.
It is very well presented and is I think a credit to the auctioneers. It contains a short essay by David Markham.
The auction will take place in Auckland on June 29th.
In a way it is a pity that the collection has had to be split up after all this time. I understand that Michel Martineau would have liked to purchase some of the items for the museum at Longwood, but unfortunately funds are not available.
Michel has asked me what items I would like. Strange as it may seem I am not a collector, but I would gladly give a home to any of the pictures in the collection. On the whole though I would rather see them in a museum where they could be enjoyed by more people. The one item I would not particularly want is Napoleon's hair! That may suprise some readers.
Anyway among the many items that caught my eye were paintings of the races that used to take place on Deadwood, and which used to be observed secretly by Napoleon from Bertrand's cottage using his spy glass.
The races were covered in a post I wrote over two years ago suitably subtitled A Fine View of the Races.
Little did I know then that a picture of the races was in existence.
I also found this drawing of Longwood interesting.
A rather more higgledy piggledy residence than we usually imagine it. (Worth clicking to enlarge it.)
It should remind us that it was the home and work place for a number of people who were there to support Napoleon, living in close proximity to each other and in sanitary conditions which we would find intolerable. Not to mention the rats!
In this picture Napoleon's apartment is hidden behind what appears to be a tall fortification - which perhaps reminds us of another too easily forgotten feature of life at Longwood.
Perhaps the most interesting item for me though is the collection of play bills - shedding important light on the amateur dramatics which took place on St Helena during the captivity.
Denzil Ibbetson was a keen actor, as were his sons. He was apparently manager and book keeper for the St Helena Amateur Theatre from 1816-23.
Among the plays performed in these years were John Bull, Love A-La– Mode, The Wonder: A Woman keeps a Secret!!, She Stoops to Conquer, Tom Thumb, Bombastes Furioso, and King Richard III .
Napoleon never witnessed any of these performances. Doubtless he would have been welcomed, but his appearance would certainly have distracted the audience.
The collection also includes two sketches Ibbetson made after the theatre was burned down in 1821.
It is a pity some of these items could not find their way to the museum in Jamestown. They constitute a little known part of St. Helena history.
