Editor’s Note
This article describes a historic imperial brooch, set with a 13.14-carat diamond, coming to auction in Geneva. Its sale follows the recent high-profile theft of the Empire jewels from the Louvre, adding a poignant layer to the story of this artifact from a pivotal French defeat.
The jewel up for auction is a hat pin set, at its center, with a 13.14-carat oval diamond, surrounded by two lines of diamonds.
Sotheby’s
Two weeks after the burglary of the Empire jewels at the Louvre, the auction house announces the sale in Geneva on November 12 of an imperial brooch, a witness to a crushing defeat in French history.
A night of disaster at Waterloo, on June 18, 1815! The French armies are defeated. The emperor must hastily leave the battlefield. His procession of two carriages, surrounded by a square of the imperial guard, heads towards Genappe and the only bridge that crosses the Dyle to enter the village. Alas, it is congested with carriages and troops in retreat…
Napoleon is forced to cross it on foot. He mounts a horse on the other side of the river, surrounded by his last faithful followers. Around 8:30 PM, the Prussians reach the bridge. Marshal Blücher, who commands them, dreams of
He must content himself with his carriages.
The emperor has always been a man in a hurry. He lives, sleeps, eats, and works in his two carriages. The first is a simple traveling coach that allows him to go quite fast. It belongs today to the Malmaison museum. The second, much more imposing, is a dormeuse carriage harnessed to six…