Napoleon’s Hat Fetches $2.4 Million at Auction

History.Com - This past weekend, one of the largest auctions of Napoleon memorabilia ever held brought in nearly $12.5 million, including $2.4 million for one of the French emperor’s signature two-cornered hats.

A year before Napoleon Bonaparte met his Waterloo, the French emperor abdicated his throne and bid an emotional farewell to the soldiers of his Old Guard at the Château de Fontainebleau on the southern outskirts of Paris. Two centuries after Napoleon departed Fontainebleau for his brief exile in Elba in 1814, hundreds packed an auction house just outside the gates of his former imperial palace this past weekend to bid on an extraordinary collection of Napoleon memorabilia belonging to Monaco’s ruling family.

The gavel dropped on nearly 1,000 items during the two-day event organized by the Osenat and Binoche et Giquello auction firms. Private collectors and public museums snapped up pieces that included Napoleon’s death mask, handwritten letters, a diamond-encrusted dress sword, cologne bottles, military medals and even the emperor’s silk stockings. The auction included the white satin slippers worn by Napoleon’s son at his baptism and an embroidered purse that belonged to his first wife, Josephine. Among the most unusual items was the kitchen knife found on German student Friedrich Staps, who intended to use it to assassinate Napoleon in Austria in 1809. Instead, the plot was foiled, and Staps was executed by a firing squad for his crime. Read the full article at History.Com